@OldbatesieDoc thanks for sharing your story. Disappointing to hear about Williams, although I take that as a coach-specific issue, not indicative of the school in general. I think the bottom line here is that one has to assume that soft support = no support. If an athlete does not have offer and accept the offer before the ED deadline in the NESCAC, then I would recommend moving on to other schools.
Itâs usually pretty easy to tell when a coach really wants you. What isnât always so easy is to determine when a coach is on the fence. We found one coach(and school, not a NESCAC, but of similar, if not greater, academic reputation) in particular was quite coy about S1âs chances at the school and team, and sure enough, he didnât get admitted after applying ED. It turned out alright because we had a couple of excellent plan Bâs, but the coach was clear as mud about where S1 stood. This was at a school that is somewhat known for this behavior, though.
@19and21 - we had experience at a Patriot League school. What are your questions? Our pre-read was over the summer â I believe all the information was provided in July and it was first week of August when the coach got back to us. It was earlier than NESCAC school. Could be for a variety of reasons. The Patriot League coach was very keen on my child (âyouâre my top recruitâŠâ) so that could have been an influential factor??
Way more to Track than those basic comments on Admissions.
My $0.02.
Our experience at one of the more academically selective NESCAC schools: we visited midsummer, and the coach told S that he was his âfirstâ and ânumber oneâ recruit for his class - he was brand new to the school and had yet to coach a game. After the pre-read came back, the coach told S that his SATs need to be âat least 750â per section (they were low 700s). His rigor and GPA were top 10% at a rigorous prep school.
We were just floored - I always wondered if this brand new coach was being tooled around by admissions? Coach told S that only one admissions officer was there during that period (still in summer). Perhaps he either didnât like S or didnât like the coach? Or wanted to show the coach that he wouldnât accept anything other than tippy top academics?
Oddly, other students from the same HS with lower academics and no sport were accepted to this school!
Just shows that a lot goes on behind the scenes, and it can be very difficult to understand the dynamic between coaches and admissions since the coaches donât seem to have actual slots they can fill like the Ivies.
âJust shows that a lot goes on behind the scenes, and it can be very difficult to understand the dynamic between coaches and admissions since the coaches donât seem to have actual slots they can fill like the Ivies.â
Just want to chime in and say that in our experience, the coaches we spoke with in the NESCAC definitely had slots to fill like the Ivies. The only difference we found was that the NESCAC league rules prevented admission offices from issuing likely letters in October, so my son had to wait two extra months until December to receive his official response from admissions. Other than the lack of a likely letter, the recruiting process at the Ivy League and the NESCAC as described by the coaches we met with were the same. (I have no idea if this is true for every sport, though.)
I agree with @shuttlebus. There are enough research pieces written either by NESCAC schools or students at NESCAC school newspapers to confirm that there are slots in the NESCAC, even if a given school calls them something other than slots â like âacademic protects.â Like the Ivies, however, there are minimum admission standards even for NESCAC slots.
It is hard to interpret @Gourmetmomâs experience in a vacuum. Many NESCAC schools are becoming even more selective, if that is hard to believe. Some SAT optional NESCACs are becoming pretty ridiculous about scores (Bowdoin and Wesleyan come to mind). It might be worthwhile to ask how your son might fare without test scores. Also, it could that the prior coach burned up his or her slots last year, resulting in none this year (they can be banked from year to year and transferred to other coaches). Also, particular sports do have fewer slots than others.
I would ask the coach very specific questions about stats. Ask whether there are slots. Ask why the stated GPA and scores are not enough, especially if they compare well with the published numbers for the school. See what the answers are. They should clarify your concerns.
@gointhruaphase Our experience was a couple of years ago, with a new coach, which I believe, made admissions perhaps less likely to accommodate his first recruits. S asked those questions, but the coach was not very forthcoming and more or less said it is what it is. His sport usually has enough slots that it didnât make any sense at all. All I can surmise is that in this case those making the decisions at this particular school were either powerless (in the case of the coach) or were making some sort of stand and didnât want the coach to have his first pick. Itâs not important to my son - heâs now a sophomore playing at an Ivy, but I think it may be useful to athletes and their families that the process can be arbitrary depending on the school, the sport, and the coach.
to InquiringMom3, Iâm very interested if you found out anything regarding your recommended question to ask a coach, âhow many students get a positive pre-read but still donât get in?â We know from the new Harvard data that the rejection rate for kids who had a positive pre-read and applied ED was 14% (!)
That is an interesting statisticâŠED rejected only 14%. You mean recruited athletes? Or all, assuming a small percentage with music, art and other portfolios also get pre-reads? A link to the source would be awesome and appreciated.
To SoCal4TA, Iâm very interested in what âfull supportâ meant for Bowdoin, particularly in light of what they seem to commonly offer as only âsoft support.â Could you please further explain? ("My child went with the full support at Bowdoin (which was expressed very clearly), gaining admission through ED1.)
Sure, DataDad. After pouring through recruiting material in these forums, our personal experience at a few NESCAC schools confirmed what we had learned: NESCAC has a clear methodology for its targeted recruits.
In the case of Bowdoin, my son received a positive pre-read in July. A positive pre-read simply means the athlete meets the acceptable academic threshold for the school. However, without a coachâs support, the positive pre-read provides no benefit over the general population (if my son had not received the coachâs support and applied merely with a positive pre-read, he would have had zero advantage over the thousands of other applicants⊠and he would have been at the mercy of Bowdoinâs10.3% acceptance rate⊠meaning, he likely would not have gained admission.)
However, each recruiting year, the Bowdoin coach maintains two offers of full support. The coach may have several prospects, but he can only support two of them. After positive pre-reads, the recruit often takes an overnight visit, where he and the team/coach evaluate each other. Following a positive pre-read and a good overnight visit, the coach will narrow his focus and extend full support to the top two recruits, in exchange for their verbal commitment to apply early decision.
Now, it is really important to understand that âfull supportâ does not guarantee admission. No coach can âguaranteeâ admission, which must come from the admissionsâ office during the Early Decision period. However, this coach was clear that none of his fully supported recruits with positive pre-reads had been rejected. As confident as he was, the coach nonetheless advised we should not announce our commitment until receiving the acceptance from Bowdoin admissions, which came in December.
Following the overnight visit, the coach met with us, offering my son a âpositionâ. Based on guidance from this recruiting forum, we sought clarification, asking if this meant full support and how many recruits were receiving that level of support. Here, the coach stated he could support two players, one being my son, adding he had never had a player rejected with a positive pre-read and his full support. Full support simply means the coach advises Admissions that Recruit XYZ represents one of the coachâs two slots. Admissions then honors this by admitting the recruit in Early Decision⊠unless there are some serious hangups discovered during the admissions process (which normally does not happen, due to the pre-read screening process).
While secondary and lesser levels of support exists at NESCAC (tips versus slots or full support), I donât know much about them⊠however, others have written about them on these boards. Good luck!
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Your experience with Bowdoin was fairly similar to the remainder of the NESCAC. The one point I would make about NESCAC recruiting is that both âslotsâ and âtipsâ typically are âfully supported.â The difference between slots and tips is that more leeway is given to the academic stats of a slot than a tip. It depends on the academic band of the recruit.
Letâs say that a recruit has a 4.0 and a 34 ACT and wants to play football at Amherst. He might get in without coach support, but there are lots of other applicants with similar stats, and he might get lost in the fray. The coach âtipsâ the athlete who gets in over non athletes with similar stats. This is full support, and a âtipâ that is fairly high up (e.g., tip no. 1 vs tip no. 13) is just as likely to get in as a slot with lower stats.
In fact, I have had discussions with a NESCAC coach who said that when he was new to the job he slotted his no.1 recruit. Admissions came back and said, âdo you want to do this?â The recruit was going to be admitted as a tip, so use the slot for a recruit with lesser stats.
Soft support is different than a tip. It basically means that if it is a toss-up between two applicants, the coach could use the player for the team. Admissions considers this. I would interpret this as one step up from admissions considering varsity athletics as an EC on a non-recruitâs application.
As you note correctly, by NESCAC rules, no coach can guarantee admission. On the other hand, the chances for admission through coach support can be substantially enhanced compared with the non-recruit.
Football might be different, but I know that Bowdoin, slots players that have had successful pre-reads. If they are slotted the acceptance rate is like 98%.
to BigFanDave regarding the Harvard recruited athlete 14% non-admit rate - I saw that on a CC thread - I may be able to find it. In the meantime, one link is the Harvard newspaper. From this I got the link to the 190pg statistical analysis by the Harvard economist - very interesting!
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/06/documents-released-in-admissions-lawsuit/
@gointhruaphase So, what do you think of Bowdoin and Hamilton and Williams XC coaches all emailing s19 and saying things like âyou have stellar stats and weâd love you to be part of our teamâ and âIâm so glad you visited and interviewed since we would love to see you hereâ and, yet, no talk at all about recruiting him. Bowdoin flat out said that they have no influence on admissions. All three schools asked him to keep them updated on anything new.
They all could have just ignored his recruiting questionnaire and not responded at all. Why would they bother to send him emails like this?
@bigfandave @datadad Here is the link to the Harvard lawsuit analysis document citing the recruited athlete acceptance rate of 86%. https://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-415-1-Arcidiacono-Expert-Report.pdf
Table A.2 p.88 shows the data. The verbiage on page 25 implies they are talking about recruited athletes, but the Table A.2 could certainly be more clear on that point. There are many reasons a recruit might not get accepted for example: poor first quarter/first semester senior year grades, some kind of trouble such as an arrest or high school suspension, a coaching change at the college level or the athlete chose to apply RD instead of REA.
@homerdog I donât know for sure, but perhaps each of the coaches have used their slots for this year. In each of those schools it is my understanding that most coaches generally get 2 slots per year (some sports get more like football). Regardless, your S19 could specifically ask that.
IMO coaches stay in contact with students even after their slots are filled because they do need walk-ons and some will be admitted on their own. I wouldnât use an ED bullet in those instances, but I remember you said your S19 likely wonât ED. AOs sometimes do check in with coaches when non-recruited athletes apps are being considered, and it canât hurt if the coach tells the AO that s/he would take that kid on the team.
^^^I assume many NESCAC teams require walk-ons to fill their roster. Donât know how many true slots are allocated to XC, but suspect it may be limited. So I think they are just trying to encourage as many athletes in their sport to apply in hopes that a few will get admitted and choose to walk-on. Also, in case a student who they recruited decides to go elsewhere, they will have a back-up list handy of student athletes who have expressed an interest.
In 2015, a poster - @mcr976 - remarked about the apparent conflict between the Bowdoin 3 part article on recruiting and his/her own experience with Bowdoin â the Bowdoin track coach saying that he didnât support athletes with admissions. Take a look at the CC thread titled âGreat Piece out of Bowdoin on NESCAC recruiting.â
At the time, I thought that there was a distinct possibility that x country and track may have different athletic support allocations than other teams. For example, it is known that football gets the highest number of athletic supports relative to other teams. Alternatively, the coaches get the usual two slots plus tips, but have so much need that they canât inundate admissions with 30 supported cases a year.
Digging down further, my assessment of those emails would depend on when they were received. If received in sophomore year, I would think they were expressions of interest. If they were received late in the junior year or early senior year, and I were that kid receiving such emails from the coaches, I would respond as follows: âYes, I really loved _____ college as well. I can really see myself here and running on your team. Will you support my application with admissions?â