Carving up the competition

“It’s my job to put in the work here to make the ends (my future career) justify the means (the amount of money I’m paying),” Clay Del Prince.

In his second season on the Brown University lacrosse team, Clay Del Prince is a reliable defender who is carving up the opposing teams offensive players.

When his career is over at Brown, Del Prince will put down the lacrosse stick and pick up some other tools as he transitions into medical school.

This is one of the reasons why the Frontier High School graduate decided to attend Brown – because of their high placement of medical students after graduation.

“In terms of medical school applications, Brown undergraduates have far better acceptance rates that the national average, which was a contributing factor in my decision to come here,” stated Del Prince recently. “I understand that my grades and extracurricular work will be most important when it comes to apply, but I would not have a problem with the Ivy League prestige giving me a competitive advantage.”

Another reason he chose Brown was the fact they offered him a chance to play lacrosse at the Division I level while still getting a great education.

As most know, the recruiting process can be a bear with schools promising anything from playing time as a freshman to attending school for free.

All these were choices that Del Prince was weighing heavily as he was trying to decide on what school to attend.

But, the lure of Brown and an Ivy League education, with a top-notch athletic program, was just to hard to pass up.

“Brown was the only Ivy League school that offered me a spot, but there were one or two other Ivies that I had been in contact with and number of D III New England schools with excellent academic reputations such as Williams and Amherst,” explained Del Prince. “When I was making my decision, Brown was the clear choice. The program was coming off three years of growing success with an NCAA tournament appearance during my senior year (of high school) and the academic prestige was just as if not more prevalent than any other schools. The big choice was choosing Brown over state schools such as Binghamton that were offering full athletic scholarships.”

The fact Del Prince turned down offers from colleges and universities that would have him go to school for free is saying something about the young man’s character.

While Brown offered him a ‘spot,’ they didn’t offer him a scholarship.

That’s because Brown, like the rest of the Ivy League schools, cannot offer athletic scholarships.

So, while Del Prince is getting an Ivy League education, he is doing so while paying for school (Brown is $54,390 a year) through financial aid packages.

“The only way to get money to help with my education is through need-based financial aid,” said Del Prince. “The problem with this is that it changes on a yearly basis. Dependent upon my family’s financial situation in a given year, I could end up paying anywhere between half tuition and full tuition. Aside from that, I have to cover the difference primarily by taking private loans under my name. It’s tough to think that there’s already X amount of money that I’m in debt at age 20, which puts a significant amount of pressure on me to make sure I don’t blow this opportunity.”

If there wasn’t enough pressure on Del Prince already, the young man then has to deal with the rigors of classes, while still being a student-athlete.

Brown, like most Ivy League schools, is not easy when it comes to classes. Not to say that going to school at the University at Buffalo would be any easier, but how the class is taught and how the work is dished out is a little bit different at Brown.

So, if you aren’t on you game from the beginning, you could be left out in the cold.

“I can’t speak for the other Ivy League schools, but at Brown the amount of rigor a student is going to bear is dependent upon what they choose to study and they are planning to do after graduation,” said Del Prince. “Personally, following the pre-med track in not easy here. Between the courses I need to take for my concentration and the courses required for medical schools, the course load is pretty full. Going to class is a requirement and labs take up a lot of afternoon time.”

While classes take up a lot of his time, Del Prince still has the time and energy to be a force on the lacrosse team.

After a rough freshman season, Del Prince put in extra work over the summer and it paid off as he became a starter and now guards some of the best attackmen in the country.

“During my freshman year it took me awhile to get acclimated to the speed of the game at the D I level,” he said. “My sophomore campaign has been much different. It was a big change, going from making relatively no contribution during games to being a primary contributor and guarding some of the opposition’s best attackmen.”

Del Prince hopes to help this team get back to the NCAA tournament this season and in the years to come. And when he is done achieving those goals he will move on to new ones as a medical school student – hoping to help and change people lives for years to come.

In the end, Clayton Del Prince has all the tools to succeed in life. He will be armed with an Ivy League education from one of the best schools in the country.

Soon people will be calling him Doctor Del Prince – and you know it has a nice ring to it.

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