How the Rise Score Works

The Rise Score is a 0-100 composite built from a 14-question intake that takes about three minutes. It returns a score, a band, an estimated national percentile, and three highest-leverage moves. This page documents the underlying methodology — what the score measures, how the bands are defined, where the percentiles come from, and what the score does not capture.

The intent is transparency. A score that drives real spending and developmental decisions should be inspectable. If a parent wants to argue with the result, this is where the argument starts.

A note on percentiles. Percentiles are blended estimates against the quiz-taking population, anchored to NCAA participation data. They are not precise statistical claims drawn from a representative sample of every U.S. youth lacrosse player. We use them as directional reference points, not as official rankings. Where specific band claims (e.g., "Top 15%") appear below, they should be read as estimated or approximate.

The four sub-indexes

The Rise Score is the sum of four sub-indexes, each scored 0-25. Each measures a distinct, observable input that correlates with college-lacrosse outcomes based on how D1, D2, and D3 staffs actually evaluate recruits.

Skill Development (0-25)

Measures the technical and athletic foundation: years played, training volume per week, private skills work, in-team standing, and game-day playing time. These inputs map to what coaches evaluate first at the recruiting stage — position-fit physical metrics and on-field execution.

A high Skill Development score correlates with players who would project favorably on combine numbers and on game tape against good competition. A low score suggests a developmental gap that is the highest-leverage thing to fix at any age.

Trajectory (0-25)

Measures the slope of the player's improvement, rather than the current level. Inputs include off-season activity, complementary sport participation, captaincy, all-star or MVP recognition, playing time relative to teammates, and presence on regional or national rankings.

Trajectory matters because coaches recruit on projection, not on current state. A 13-year-old whose Trajectory is steep can outpace a 13-year-old whose Skill Development is currently higher but whose Trajectory has flattened.

Exposure (0-25)

Measures how visible the player is to the coaches who would evaluate them. Inputs include level of play (rec, club B, club A, elite club, JV, varsity, both), tournament and showcase volume, regional or national ranking, captaincy, and recognized achievement.

A high Skill Development score with a low Exposure score is one of the most common patterns we see. It is the talented player on a low-visibility team whose ability is real but whose game film is invisible to the staffs who would otherwise be interested. Exposure is the most-fixable of the four sub-indexes because it is largely a calendar and event-selection decision.

Commitment (0-25)

Measures resource allocation and time investment: training frequency, private coaching cadence, tournament volume, and annual family financial investment.

Commitment is a leading indicator of where a player is likely to be in 12-24 months. It is also the sub-index most likely to be artificially inflated by spending — a family can buy a high Commitment score without buying the underlying Skill Development. The Rise Score deliberately weights Commitment as a parallel signal to Skill and Trajectory rather than a substitute for them, which is why a high Commitment with low Skill produces only a middle-band result.

How the four combine

Each sub-index is capped at 25, so the maximum total is 100. The bands are defined on the total. This produces a score where a player can land in a given band through different routes — a 65 driven mostly by Skill and Trajectory looks materially different from a 65 driven mostly by Exposure and Commitment, and the recommendations the report generates reflect that.

The Rise Score is not a simple weighted average of inputs. Each option in the intake contributes to one or more specific sub-indexes based on what the input actually measures. A captaincy contributes to both Trajectory and Exposure but not to Skill. Private skills coaching contributes to both Skill and Commitment but not to Exposure. The mapping is documented in the source code that runs the quiz.

The five bands

Each band corresponds to a roughly comparable college-lacrosse outcome zone, when paired with the player's age:

• Foundation Phase — appropriate for players early in their development; the developmental priorities are fundamentals and consistent play rather than recruiting positioning.
• Developing — a real player making steady progress; the practical D3 conversation begins here for older players.
• Climbing — solid D3 trajectory for older players, with D2 possible depending on position and region.
• Elite Trajectory — strong D2 and lower-tier D1 projection for older players; the recruiting math becomes real.
• Top Tier — projects to the top of D1, including high-academic D1 programs, with the right academic and character signals.

The Estimated Percentile column should be read as a directional reference. It anchors the band to a publicly observable share of the recruiting pool — for instance, the Top 5% band aligns with the approximate share of high school lacrosse players who project to top-tier D1 outcomes, drawing on NCAA-published participation data showing about 3% of high school players reach D1 at all. The percentile is intentionally less precise than the score itself.

How the percentiles are anchored

We do not claim the Rise Score gives a player their exact percentile against every U.S. youth lacrosse player. No model that costs nothing and takes three minutes can. What we do is anchor the bands to publicly available NCAA participation data and to the observed distribution of the quiz-taking population:

• About 13-14% of U.S. high school lacrosse players play any NCAA lacrosse (NCAA/NCSA published estimates)
• About 3% play D1 men's or women's lacrosse
• About 2% play D2
• About 7-8% play D3

The band cutoffs are calibrated so that, in aggregate, the share of quiz-takers in each band roughly aligns with these participation ranges, adjusted for the fact that the quiz-taking population is self-selected toward players whose families are actively thinking about college lacrosse. That self-selection skews the quiz-taking pool higher than the broader high-school population, which is why we treat the percentile as estimated rather than precise.

The three highest-leverage moves

For every quiz result, the report generates three recommendations ranked by the player's weakest sub-indexes. The logic is intentional: the largest single move for a player at any band is usually the lowest of their four sub-indexes, because that is where the gap is biggest and where the marginal improvement is cheapest.

The recommendations are not generic advice. They are tied to specific, observable actions — increase weekly training frequency by one session, audit the tournament calendar for events with film coverage, layer in a complementary sport in the off-season, add a weekly skills session. The exact wording adjusts to the sub-index the player is weakest on.

What the Rise Score does not measure

This is the most important section.

It does not measure position-specific physical metrics directly. We ask about playing time and standing within the team, but we do not capture 20-yard dash, shot speed, height, or weight. A future version of the score may, but the current version uses team standing as a proxy.

It does not measure academic profile. GPA and standardized test scores are not in the intake. For academic D3 placement in particular, this is a real omission. The Rise Score will tell a player they are Climbing or Elite Trajectory athletically; it cannot tell them whether their grades line up with the schools that band points to.

It does not measure character or coachability. Coaches' fourth and most under-discussed evaluation filter is invisible to a 14-question intake. A player can have a Top Tier Rise Score and still lose offers on character signals; a player with a Climbing Rise Score and exceptional coachability can punch above their athletic band.

It does not account for region. Two players with identical scores in Long Island, NY and Portland, OR face different recruiting environments. The intake captures ZIP code for future regional adjustments, but the current version does not adjust the score for regional context.

It does not project the recruiting timeline against personal factors. Injury history, school changes, family moves, and burnout are real and individual. The Rise Score is a snapshot.

Who the score is wrong for

The Rise Score is calibrated to be useful for players ages 6 through high school senior who are in the standard U.S. youth lacrosse system — town leagues, club programs, and high school teams. It is meaningfully less useful for:

• Players outside the U.S., where the club and high school structure differs
• Players whose primary sport is something other than lacrosse and who pick the sport up late, where the time-played inputs do not capture the actual development arc
• Players considering programs outside the NCAA — junior colleges, club lacrosse at the collegiate level, prep school tracks
• Players whose recruiting profile is driven primarily by a non-athletic factor (transfer admissions, legacy, recruited-walk-on dynamics at specific programs)

What we plan to update

The methodology is intentionally a living document. The current version is v1. Planned updates include:

• Adding optional position-specific combine inputs for players in the recruiting window
• Adding a GPA / academic-projection input for older players
• Calibrating regional adjustments using ZIP code
• Refining the band-to-percentile anchoring as the quiz-taking population grows and we can validate against actual NCAA placement data

When the methodology updates, this page updates with it, dated.

Sources

• NCAA, Estimated Probability of Competing in College Athletics (research) — ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com
• NCSA, Men's Lacrosse Recruiting and Scholarships Guide — ncsasports.org
• NCSA, Women's Lacrosse Recruiting and Scholarships Guide — ncsasports.org
• NFHS, Participation in High School Sports Tops Eight Million for First Time in 2023-24 — nfhs.org
• USA Lacrosse, House Rules: What the NCAA Settlement Means for Lacrosse as We Know It — usalacrosse.com