Given where we are in the recruiting process for the HS class of 2018, I was recently reminded of an unexpected outcome and I offer the following story as a cautionary tale:
This happened in a different sport and I share this experience to emphasize the importance of parent involvement in the recruiting process and hearing what is said, not what one wants to hear.
A year after my son graduated from HS, one of his friends (a rising HS senior) was going thru the recruiting process with all the academically-elite schools. This student was an excellent athlete and was top ranked in our state and had interest from all the Ivys. In July, he confided to my son that he had committed to a most prestigious Ivy and was ecstatic that the process was finally over. We were happy for him as he is a good kid, a great athlete and it was, a most prestigious school.
Later that summer, I was at a parent gathering for our HS (we still had children at the school) and I saw this student’s mother and whispered congratulations to her. I mentioned the relief athletic recruiting provided for our older son’s college admissions experience and but how we weren’t fully relaxed until the LL arrived on October 1st. When she asked me what a LL was, I hoped she was joking. Unfortunately, she wasn’t.
We excused ourselves from the parent gathering and I asked what were the circumstances surrounding her child’s commitment. She said the coach told her child that he/she was “on the list” of athletes that were being recruited and her child committed to the program on that basis.
Questions of: Where I am on the list? How many people on the list ultimately are admitted? And most importantly, will you be supporting my candidacy with a LL? were never asked. The mother said she had let her child handle all the negotiations.
As it was late August. I suggested to the mother to confirm her child’s understanding of the school’s commitment to her child with the coach and to perhaps talk with the college’s AD, as well as our HS CC to make sure everyone was operating under the same assumptions/timeline.
Fast forward to October, this student’s facebook page announces the receipt of a LL from a different, but similarly prestigious Ivy.
We later learned that when those important follow up questions were asked, this student was 5th on “the list” and this school historically got 3 students from the list to be officially recruited (w/LLs).
I am glad that those hard questions were asked early enough for this family to make alternative plans. Without the answers to these most important questions, this student might have wasted his/her all-important EA/ED opportunity and would likely have had to approach other schools during the RD round after all the recruited positions had been allocated.
Given the amount of hard work required by families to get to the position of having a recruited athlete at an academically-elite school, it may be foolish to let the final negotiations take place without a parent’s involvement. Young people can often hear what they want to hear and may not have the experience to ask direct and often hard questions.
As we are entering the time of year where final decisions are being made, I urge parents to leave as little to chance as possible.