Number of Sports Played at Top Colleges
The number of NCAA and varsity sports played by each of the highly selective colleges spans a wide range, from 13 sports played by Wellesley College, a women’s only college to Harvard University which plays a total of 40 NCAA and varsity sports, with twenty for women and twenty for men. Colleges like Bowdoin, Brown, Colby, Cornell, Dartmouth, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Williams and Yale play 30 or more NCAA and varsity sports each split between men’s and women’s sports.
Playing the right sport creates opportunities for an applicant to gain an advantage in college admissions as an athlete recruit. Whether a highly selective college is a NCAA Division 1 member that recruits a majority of its sports team, or a highly selective college is a NCAA Division 3 member that builds its teams through admission priority for applicants identified by college coach’s as desired team members, sports advantages applicants in college admissions.
Table of Number of Sports Played by Each Highly Selective College
The table below lists the number NCAA and varsity sports played by each of the highly selective colleges and breaks down the total into men’s and women’s sports. The list also indicates which NCAA Division each of the colleges plays in.
Note: All data is compiled from publicly available information on an individual college's athletic website.
| Total Number of Sports Played at Highly Selective Colleges | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Men's | Women's | |||
| COLLEGES | Division | Sports | Sports | Total |
| Amherst College | III | 12 | 13 | 25 |
| Barnard College (combined with Columbia U) | I | - | 15 | 15 |
| Bates College | III | 14 | 15 | 29 |
| Boston College | I | 13 | 16 | 29 |
| Boston University | I | 9 | 12 | 21 |
| Bowdoin College | III | 14 | 16 | 30 |
| Brown University | I | 14 | 16 | 30 |
| California Institute of Technology | III | 8 | 8 | 16 |
| Carleton College | III | 9 | 9 | 18 |
| Carnegie Mellon University | III | 8 | 9 | 17 |
| Claremont McKenna College | III | 10 | 11 | 21 |
| Colby College | III | 15 | 15 | 30 |
| Colgate University | I | 11 | 11 | 22 |
| Colorado College | III | 8 | 8 | 16 |
| Columbia University (includes Barnard College) | I | 13 | 15 | 28 |
| Cornell University | I | 14 | 17 | 31 |
| Dartmouth College | I | 15 | 19 | 34 |
| Davidson College | I | 10 | 9 | 19 |
| Duke University | I | 12 | 13 | 25 |
| Emory University | III | 8 | 9 | 17 |
| Georgetown University | I | 11 | 13 | 24 |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | I | 8 | 7 | 15 |
| Grinnell College | III | 9 | 9 | 18 |
| Hamilton College | III | 13 | 14 | 27 |
| Harvard University | I | 20 | 20 | 40 |
| Harvey Mudd College | III | 10 | 11 | 21 |
| Haverford College | III | 10 | 11 | 21 |
| John Hopkins University | III | 12 | 10 | 22 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | III | 16 | 14 | 30 |
| Middlebury College | III | 14 | 15 | 29 |
| Northeastern University | I | 7 | 9 | 16 |
| Northwestern University | I | 9 | 11 | 20 |
| New York University | III | 11 | 10 | 21 |
| Pitzer College | III | 10 | 11 | 21 |
| Pomona College | III | 10 | 11 | 21 |
| Princeton University | I | 17 | 16 | 33 |
| Rice University | I | 7 | 7 | 14 |
| Stanford University | I | 16 | 18 | 34 |
| Swarthmore College | III | 9 | 10 | 19 |
| Tufts University | III | 14 | 14 | 28 |
| Tulane University | I | 7 | 10 | 17 |
| University of California Berkeley | I | 13 | 16 | 29 |
| University of California Los Angeles | I | 10 | 13 | 23 |
| University of Michigan | I | 13 | 14 | 27 |
| University of Chicago | III | 9 | 9 | 18 |
| University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill | I | 13 | 14 | 27 |
| University of Notre Dame | I | 12 | 11 | 23 |
| University of Pennsylvania | I | 14 | 15 | 29 |
| University of Southern California | I | 9 | 12 | 21 |
| University of Virginia | I | 12 | 13 | 25 |
| Vanderbilt University | I | 6 | 9 | 15 |
| Vassar College | III | 13 | 14 | 27 |
| Villanova Universtiy | I | 10 | 12 | 22 |
| Wake Forest University | I | 8 | 8 | 16 |
| Washington and Lee University | III | 11 | 10 | 21 |
| Washington University in St. Louis | III | 8 | 9 | 17 |
| Wellesley College | III | - | 13 | 13 |
| Wesleyan University | III | 14 | 14 | 28 |
| Williams College | III | 16 | 16 | 32 |
| Yale University | I | 15 | 16 | 31 |
The Difference between NCAA Division 1 and Division 3 at the Highly Selective Colleges
31 of the highly selective colleges belong in NCAA Division 1 while 30 of them belong in NCAA Division 3. There are no highly selective colleges in Division 2.
The primary differences between Division 1 and Division 3 are:
the amount of resources that a college allocates to sports, with Division 1 schools allocating the most resources in terms of training, facilities and athletic scholarships.
the athlete recruitment process between how Division 1 and Division 3 colleges recruit their athletes.
According to the NCAA, there are a total of 350 colleges in Division 1, 306 colleges in Division 2 and 458 colleges in Division 3. With 31 colleges in Division 1 and 29 in Division 3, the highly selective colleges as a group represent only a small part of NCAA and varsity sports, but sports offers great opportunities to academically high performing students to gain priority in admissions to these colleges.
Read The Athlete Recruits’ Advantage in College Admissions
Athletic Scholarships
For those aiming for an athletic scholarship to attend one of these highly selective colleges, they should note that the 8 Ivy League colleges in Division 1 do not offer any type of scholarship, athletic or academic, but they do have very generous financial aid programs for students with need.
Division 3 colleges also do not offer athletic scholarships at all. However most of these colleges do offer financial aid, with the amounts varying by the college’s own resources.
Only 23 of the 31 highly selective colleges in Division 1 offer athletic scholarships as the other eight, like we pointed out earlier, are Ivy League colleges that provide financial aid on a needs based basis only.
It is important to note that funds allocated to athletic scholarships at the 23 highly selective colleges in Division 1 are limited, and scholarships on offer for many recruited athletes may only be partial scholarships. However, an athlete can still apply for financial aid to cover the rest of their college costs if they meet the criteria for need.
Find out what NCAA and varsity sports the highly selective colleges play
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