RosterFit™ Score in College Lacrosse: Six Factors for Men's, Five for Women's | RosterWise™

What My RosterFit is (and isn’t)

My RosterFit™ is a scoring system that evaluates how well a specific recruit’s profile aligns with a specific college lacrosse program. It’s personalized — the same program will receive different RosterFit scores for different recruits, because fit depends on the individual.

What it is: A structured, data-driven assessment of fit across multiple dimensions. It helps families prioritize which programs to investigate further and which programs to deprioritize.

What it isn’t: A prediction of whether a recruit will be offered a spot, a ranking of programs, or a guarantee of anything. Recruiting involves human decisions, subjective evaluations, and factors that no algorithm can capture — like a coach’s impression during a conversation, or team chemistry, or a recruit’s intangible qualities.

RosterFit is a tool for making smarter decisions, not a replacement for the recruiting process itself.

The factors lacrosse scores

The scoring engine behind every RosterWise app has seven components. Each sport’s app decides which of them it scores and how much each one counts. In RosterWise Lacrosse, the standard weights (out of 100) are:

So a men’s lacrosse score is built from six factors and a women’s score from five. These are the app’s standard weights as of October 2026. You can see them in the app, and change them, under Settings › My RosterFit™ › Customize Score Weights; a score calculated with weights you’ve changed is marked as using your weights.

Why Competitive Level is off for lacrosse. In some other RosterWise sports, this component grades a recruit’s club or school pathway against a program’s division. We found no sound way to grade lacrosse club and school pathways against division, so the lacrosse app doesn’t score it for either gender. The app still shows each roster’s pathways as information (see Roster Composition below and the program page’s Recruiting Pipeline).

Why Roster Composition is men’s only. For women’s programs the standard weight is zero: for a domestic recruit, the factor rated almost every women’s program the same way, so it carries no weight there and drops out of the score and the breakdown.

Correction, October 9, 2026. An earlier version of this page was titled “The Eight Factors” and said My RosterFit evaluates eight factors, including “Pathway Alignment” and “Division Level.” The app has neither. Its scoring engine has seven components; the lacrosse app scores six for men’s programs and five for women’s, and does not score Competitive Level. The page also said we don’t publish the weights — the app shows every weight and lets you change it — and listed SSDM (short-stick defensive midfielder) among the positions Position Need reads; the app has no SSDM position, and counts a player a roster lists as an SSDM under another position, usually midfield. We rewrote the factor descriptions below from the app itself, and changed the page title to match.

1. Position Need

What it compares: the players a program lists at your athlete’s position, and when they’re due to leave. It needs your athlete’s position and graduation year.

• If your athlete would arrive in the class right after the roster the app holds, it counts how many players at the position will have departed by then and how many will remain.
• If your athlete is further out, nobody can know who will be on that future roster. Instead, the app uses the program’s typical yearly intake at the position — the players it carries there, divided by four years (two at NJCAA programs) — and compares it with what reads as a deep pipeline at that position for men’s or women’s lacrosse.

Why it matters: A program with three senior close defenders graduating next spring has a visible need at defense. A program with two freshman defenders and a sophomore does not.

The nuance: Position Need reads the positions the roster lists. Men’s positions in the app are attack, midfield, long-stick midfield, face-off, defense, and goalie; women’s are attack, midfield, defense, and goalie. When a group is small, a single departure moves the need more than it would in a large group. The factor can’t account for players the coach plans to move from another position, recruits who have committed but aren’t on the roster yet, or transfer portal additions. If players with no published class year would change the answer, the app doesn’t grade it. It’s an indicator of likely need, not a guarantee.

2. Academic Match

What it compares: your athlete’s ACT or SAT score with the range the school reports to the federal IPEDS database — whether the score sits at or above the 75th percentile, at or above the median, inside the middle 50%, or below it. Open-admission schools count as a match. Without a test score from your athlete, or a published range from the school, there’s nothing to compare, and the app says which one is missing.

Why it matters: College is a four-year academic commitment, not just an athletic one. A recruit whose scores are well below an institution’s range may face admissions challenges. A recruit whose profile significantly exceeds an institution’s range might find a better academic match elsewhere.

The nuance: Academic Match uses institution-wide admissions data, not program-specific practices. Some programs have admissions flexibility for recruited athletes; others do not. The score reflects general alignment, not a specific admissions prediction.

3. Roster Composition (men’s programs only)

What it compares: the domestic and international share of a program’s roster against your athlete’s background. For a domestic recruit, a roster that is at least 70% domestic rates as a match, 50–70% as mixed, and under 50% as a mismatch. For an international recruit — including a Canadian — a roster that is at least 25% international rates as a match, 10–25% as mixed, and under 10% as a mismatch.

Why it matters: At a fixed roster size, international and domestic players compete for the same spots. For an international recruit, a roster that already includes international players shows the program has recruited them before. See International Composition.

The nuance: A player counts as international only when the roster’s hometown entry clearly shows a non-U.S. origin. The factor is not scored for women’s programs.

4. Height Fit

What it compares: your athlete’s height with the average and spread of the heights a program publishes at the same position. At defense, long-stick midfield, and goalie, only being shorter than the program’s players counts against your athlete; at other positions, a large difference either way does. If a program publishes fewer than three heights at the position, the app doesn’t grade it.

Why it matters: A program’s current roster shows the heights of the players it has at each position. If those players are consistently taller or shorter than your athlete, that’s worth knowing — and worth asking the coach about.

The nuance: Height is one physical dimension among many. A program that has historically recruited taller players at a position might still value a shorter player with exceptional stick skills, lacrosse IQ, or athleticism. Height Fit is a data point, not a disqualifier.

5. Geographic Fit

What it compares: one of two things, depending on what your athlete tells the app.

• With a distance preference: how far the school is from home. Within your maximum rates as a match; up to one and a half times it as mixed; beyond that as a mismatch.
• If distance isn’t a factor: where the program’s current players come from. Three or more players from your athlete’s home state rates as a match; one or two as mixed; none from your state but three or more from your region as mixed; none from either as a mismatch.

Why it matters: A program’s roster hometowns show whether it draws mostly from nearby states or recruits more widely. Say a program’s roster comes almost entirely from New England: a recruit from Massachusetts and a recruit from Georgia are in different positions there.

The nuance: Only domestic players count toward a program’s footprint, so this factor speaks to U.S. states. For Canadian recruits, the program page lists international players by country, and Roster Composition (men’s) covers the international share — see International Composition. Geographic patterns describe tendencies, not rules.

6. Financial Fit

What it compares: the school’s published tuition — in-state if your athlete’s state matches the school’s, out-of-state otherwise — with the maximum you set. Within your budget rates as a match; up to 25% over as mixed; more than that as a mismatch. If you choose no limit, the app treats cost as not a factor for you.

Why it matters: A program that’s a perfect athletic and academic fit but financially out of reach isn’t actually a fit. Financial Fit helps families factor cost into their prioritization from the beginning rather than discovering affordability issues late in the process.

The nuance: This is the sticker price. Athletic, merit, and need-based aid all reduce what a family actually pays, and none of them is in this factor. The House settlement changed the financial picture at D1 schools it covers: sport-specific scholarship limits (12.6 equivalencies for men’s lacrosse, 12 for women’s) were replaced by roster limits of 48 and 38, so a program can offer athletic aid to every player on its roster, up to that limit. D3 programs cannot award financial aid on the basis of athletics (NCAA Division III Bylaw 15.01.3). See Scholarships After the House Settlement for more.

Correction, October 9, 2026. An earlier version of the factor descriptions on this page said position conversions are “a common practice in lacrosse”; that lacrosse has “a strong concentration of programs at highly academic institutions” and that academic alignment is “more often a deciding factor” than in other sports; that named school leagues and club groups “all have established relationships with specific college programs”; that women’s height preferences are “typically less pronounced”; that lacrosse has “more pronounced geographic recruiting patterns than many sports”; that academic merit aid at D3 schools “can produce competitive financial outcomes”; and that “top D3 programs … play at very high levels — sometimes higher than the bottom of D1.” None of it had a source, and ranking programs is outside what we publish. We rewrote those passages to describe what the roster shows. The descriptions of what each factor measures were unchanged in that edit; they were rewritten from the app on the same day (see the correction above).

How the factors combine

Each factor is rated green, yellow, or red for your athlete at that program, and the app combines them into one score from 0 to 100 as a weighted average, using the weights above. Green counts 5, yellow 2.5, and red 1, so a red factor pulls the score down hard.

Missing data doesn’t move the basis. When the app can’t verify a factor — a school doesn’t publish heights at your athlete’s position, say, or you haven’t entered a test score — that factor still counts at its full weight, at a neutral value, so every program is scored on the same weights. The app won’t give a score at all for a program whose roster it doesn’t hold, or when less than half of the weight could be verified.

Red factors cap the score. Two red factors cap the score at 49, and three or more at 35. Only a red the app actually verified counts toward a cap.

Every score shows its coverage. Each score comes with a line saying how many of its factors were scored — for example, “5 of 6 factors scored” — and the breakdown shows each factor’s rating and the reason for it, so families can see why a program scored the way it did and apply their own judgment. A family that prioritizes academics above all else can weigh Academic Match more heavily than the standard weights do; a family focused on playing time can weight Position Need.

The combined score is a starting point for exploration, not a definitive ranking. Programs with high RosterFit scores deserve a closer look. Programs with low scores might not be the best use of time. But no algorithm replaces the judgment of a family that knows their athlete, their values, and their priorities.

What RosterFit cannot capture

We believe in being transparent about the limits of any scoring system:

• Playing ability. RosterFit compares roster data, academics, geography, and cost. It does not evaluate stick skills, dodging, shooting, face-off ability, lacrosse IQ, or any other on-field performance — often the most important parts of a coach’s evaluation.
• A coach’s subjective evaluation. Coaches recruit based on film, in-person evaluation, personal interaction, and factors no database captures.
• Team chemistry. Some recruits will thrive in a program’s culture; others won’t. This is invisible to data analysis.
• Incoming recruiting class. RosterFit is based on the current roster. Recruits who have already committed but aren’t yet on the roster can change the picture.
• Transfer portal dynamics. Programs actively recruiting the transfer portal may fill needs that the current roster suggests exist.
• Position conversions. A coach may move a player to a different position — midfielder to LSM, attacker to midfielder, and so on. RosterFit reads stated positions, not conversion plans.
• Personal preferences. Campus feel, social environment, and other personal factors that matter enormously to individual families.

Correction, October 9, 2026. An earlier version of this list said the House settlement “has accelerated transfer activity in lacrosse” and that lacrosse coaches “frequently convert players across positions.” We have no source for either, so we removed the first and softened the second.

RosterFit provides a structured, data-driven foundation. The best recruiting decisions combine that foundation with personal judgment, campus visits, coach conversations, and family values.

How to use RosterFit scores

High RosterFit scores (strong fit): These programs deserve priority in your outreach and research. The data suggests meaningful alignment across multiple dimensions. Start your recruiting communication here.

Medium RosterFit scores (moderate fit): Worth investigating but not automatic priorities. Look at the individual factor ratings to understand why the overall score is moderate — it might be one factor pulling the score down, and that factor might not matter to your family.

Low RosterFit scores (weaker fit): The data suggests limited alignment. This doesn’t mean the program is impossible, but it means the path is steeper and other programs may be a better use of time and energy.

Always look at the individual factors, not just the combined score. A program with a high Position Need but low Academic Match tells a different story than a program with moderate scores across the board. The factor breakdown is where the actionable intelligence lives.

RosterFit is designed to help families allocate their recruiting effort more effectively. It’s a compass, not a GPS — it points you in productive directions and helps you avoid unproductive ones. The journey is still yours to navigate.