For senior Oliver Byers, the reality of college is starting to sink in as the end of 1st semester is near. Having time to reflect on his high school career at Lafayette, Byers shares what he learned over his years as a Lancer.

“My grades freshman and sophomore year affected my overall GPA very drastically. It only started to hit me that grades were important in the middle of junior year. My freshman and sophomore year has affected a lot of my future commitments and college choices,” Byers said.

Apart of Lafayette’s Lacrosse team, Byers strives to attend college with a lacrosse scholarship. However, new admission guidelines have been put in place has limited the schools available to Byers.

“If I had done better, it could have led to better lacrosse scholarships, and it would’ve prepared me for college more.”

While managing his grades well now, Byers is focusing on researching the best alternative for his college career as a lacrosse player.

“The main big difference is that I could’ve gone Divison 1 (D1) if I had the grades, but I didn’t. It used to be that kids would get full ride scholarships just from athletics. Now, they can give you a full athletics scholarship, but you also have to make it into the school academically. A lot of the D1 schools are Ivy League schools,” Byers said.

With Division 1 lacrosse schools changing their admission guidelines, Byers is looking at other options that fit his athletics and academic portfolio.

“ Because of that, I’m looking into a lot of D2 schools that I can get accepted into. Maybe I can go there for a year, get my grades up, transfer somewhere else and do bigger, better things.”