<p>Looking for some advice from parents--how does the process happen? Looking especially at baseball--should my son being doing something early on? Although my son's stats are average to above average, he's interested in GWU (which is very difficult I hear) and Villanova. Will his baseball help him? Not looking for $, just admission. Thanks for any info from experienced parents.</p>
<p>when is S seeking admission- this yr or next? Hurry if this year. (f next yr, see the NCAA website for specifics of each sport. son can contact coach at any time</p>
<p>Have S contact coaches at target schools by email; send a one page summary of sports and academic accomplishments; indicate interest in school; ask process for being considered for recruitment.</p>
<p>Sports recruitment helps a lot. But you need to be on coaches "list" for admissions. Use the search function on the webiste. There is a log thread of good advice several months ago.</p>
<p>If he is good enough to make the team it would help. Both GWU and Villanova are DI which is the top, so he would have to be very good. Both have questionaires on their web sites for those interested in being on the team, you (or your son) should fill those out and see where he stands and someone would likely contact you.</p>
<p>Ah, something I know about! If your son has excelled at baseball (getting all-league, etc. honors, for instance), then it will help as an extracurricular activity/passion even if he is not recruited. If he is interested in trying to play at the college level, </p>
<p>(agree with the poster who said he should check the baseball page on the website of each school in which he has an interest. There should be information and possibly an online recruiting questionnaire on the page)
Also:
(1) Go straight to the High School Baseball Web website. Google that phrase to get the internet address as I don't think we are supposed to provide links. Everything you need to know, and much more!!</p>
<p>(2) Buy "College Admissions for the High School Athlete" by DiSalvo (on Amazon). </p>
<p>(3) If your son is a senior, he is way behind schedule with regard to the high D1s, but okay for D3s, and maybe even some D1s and D2s. If your son is a junior, you are here right at the right time. Your son should be sending emails or letters to coaches where he has an interest, and he should get his local coach to help him make a videotape (home-made is fine) of him to send out WHEN he is requested to send it (don't send it without the coach requesting it). I think you may find some information on what to include on the videotape, on the high school baseball website. </p>
<p>Most college recruiting is done through showcases and tournaments. There will be lots of information on the website about what's available in your area.
Also, walkon opportunities, while rare, are available at most schools. The player who tries to walk on has to be truly outstanding to get a spot on the team, but if he has his heart set on a particular college but their recruiting is full already for your son's year, it is just something to consider.</p>
<p>(P.S. My son is a baseball player at Stanford)</p>
<p>This post raises an intersting, general question that I cannot recall having seen articulated precisely.</p>
<p>To what degree can a coach influence admissions at D1 schools if he is not offering the player a scholarship? Or, can a coach get a 'walk-on' admitted at a scholarship school".</p>
<p>It would seem to me that some admissions offices might take the view that, if you don't want the kid badly enough to give him some of your $, then tough luck.....get your walk-ons at random from the kids WE decide to let in. On the other hand, if he is full-pay, [especially if it were an out-of-state full pay at a state school), the candidate would have some attractiveness to admissions. </p>
<p>Obviously, raising this to the coach decreases any bargaining power you might have based on your sons abilities, but it would probably get a fairly quick reply, and I'm sure lots of coaches would be glad to find credible players who don't hit their scholarship limits.</p>
<p>Any first hand experience out there?</p>
<p>Dadx, the answer to your question varies greatly from one school to the next. It depends on how strongly the college feels about the sport, how aggresive the coach is about admissions, and the relationship the coach has with the admissions office. Other than with the high profile sports, coaches tend to temper students' and parents' expectations as to what their influence for admissions is unless the kids is a first line recruit complete with a scholarship. Usually, anyone interested in playing on a team, is given a day at the school accompanied by team members even if he is not a strong recruit. The best way to get a sense of how this works is from the team members themselves, or as a parent, ask a team member for a parent phone number and talk to a current parent of a team member.</p>
<p>I'm sure it may also vary from one sport to the next as well as from one school to the next. I have no idea what the answer to the question is, but intuitively I would think that the coaches are fairly limited, vis a vis admissions, to their actual scholarship recruiting list. </p>
<p>The sport helps with admissions, of course, just as it helps with future employers. First, the applicant has a passion and has committed time, energy, and perseverance to it. Second, the qualities inherent and/or instilled in many athletes--to name a few, teamwork, discipline, assertiveness, risk-taking, time management skills, communication ability, etc.--are appealing in an applicant as well.</p>
<p>Athletic scholarship are limited in quantity first by the NCAA rules for the specific sport, and then by the school's budget. There are not a lot of full rides out there. And there are not unlimited slots.</p>
<p>The coach is limited by his budget and also limited by what admissions will accept. </p>
<p>In our experience, the advantage provided by athletics was in admissions pull, not in dollars. When the acceptance rate of a specific school is under 20% overall ... to be on the top of a coach's list is a big advantage.</p>
<p>Go to the NCAA clearinghouse, pay the fee ($27 when did it) and put his information in there. This is the NCAA sanctioned way for coaches to look up details (sports stats, grades, etc.) about players. We ended up getting contacted by several schools who had an interest after checking there.</p>
<p>Ok, here is my problem: my son is an academic star and as such the coach does not want to "waste" his influence/recruiting spot with the admissions on him hoping that the early admission + excellent academics will get him in by itself. He said that in case my son would be deferred in ea round he would step in for the rd decision round. What to do, anyone with the similar experience? The school is an Ivy which makes it tricky even with very good academics.</p>
<p>"Ok, here is my problem: my son is an academic star and as such the coach does not want to "waste" his influence/recruiting spot with the admissions on him hoping that the early admission + excellent academics will get him in by itself. He said that in case my son would be deferred in ea round he would step in for the rd decision round. What to do, anyone with the similar experience? The school is an Ivy which makes it tricky even with very good academics."</p>
<p>So the coach is telling you he only has a limited number of players he can ask help from admissions from? I smell some B S being tossed about. If the coach is really interested, he'll say something. It sounds more like he's just trying to be "nice" about the situation and then later if there's a decline apologize with "there's nothing I could do."</p>
<p>Sorry something's fishy.</p>
<p>I would not be happy. Just MHO of course, but we <em>all</em> know what a gamble Ivy admissions can be. If this is his first choice school, and you think he's qualified -- and the sport/team is not as important as the school itself, then go for it and see how it plays out. </p>
<p>OTOH ... if he wants to play his sport for a good school and there are other coaches out there pursuing him, who will put him on their list ... I'd tell Ivy Coach that you are pursuing other options for the ED round and if things change, then he'll be in touch. </p>
<p>I am sure it makes a difference which specific sport we are talking about -- my experience is with men's lacrosse.</p>
<p>Well, it is not a money sport so I know for sure that he does have a limited number of spots. What makes it tricky is that there are two coaches at other colleges that will go to the admissions, but it is a #2 and #3 school choice.
Not that they are bad either.</p>
<p>Coaches often play games with the applicants, because they too are played with by the applicants. There is a website <a href="http://www.johntreed.com%5B/url%5D">www.johntreed.com</a> that has detailed info about ivy league football recruiting. Even in a mainline sport line football, things can be very delicate. Playing footsie with the coach is not an easy thing to do because there tends to be a lack of trust on both parts for understandable reasons.<br>
Coaches always have a limited number of sports. They also have their picks for those spots, and their top picks will get those spots regardless of their stats and if they can get in on their own. I would thank the coach for his help, in your case, Fizik, and focus on #2 and #3. Be aware that at any time in the process your kid can be dropped for a better prospect, so every choice is your first choice in talking to the coaches and schools. Once all of the offers are in, your son can take his pick if he is lucky. He may find that at his first pick, there are several kids ahead of him in his sports position, and the liklihood of playing is small. He may also find out that the coach had nothing to do with his acceptance at the school. We went through all of this and just by coincidence/accident came across info that really enlightened us. One coach just could not bring himself to say that he had other kids he preferred to my son, since he did not have those fish in the net yet and wanted my son in the reserve in case things did not pan out in his first choices. We found out because in his sport, you tend to know the players, and we knew the top choices who had gotten a whole different reception from the coach a few days before our visit.<br>
With ivies, the top sports picks usually get an early accept type of letter. If your son is not getting one of those, and if the coach is not regularly calling your son, he is not on the top of the list.</p>
<p>fizik- I am interested in the specific sport. There is a reputation of a few coaches in Ivy non-revenue sports that is really bad; doing just what you indicate. It is devastating for the applicant. Makes you wonder if it is the best place. What sport?</p>
<p>Fiz,</p>
<p>Your kid is being played a bit. Explain it to him, and keep looking. As others have said and I have experienced as well coaches often say one thing and do another. When the other happens to you, just depends on how good you are compared to what else is out there. That's sports. </p>
<p>Just as you have school #2 and #3, coach may feel the same way about players. And, from the sounds of it, your son might be a #3 to this coach, especially when other coaches are offering to do more.</p>
<p>The sport is fencing, and I agree with what was said above. We also (including my son) are not naive perople, so we understand that our best course is to just play our own games. Which we do, of course.</p>
<p>Man, I thought just applying to college is hard. But what you, parents of athletes, are facing is ten times tougher. My sympathies - and respect!</p>
<p>Thanks, Katiamom, but in many ways it made things easier with my athlete son. First of all we could eliminate any schools that did not have his sport, or did not well support it. We could focus those where he was going to fit in the team and the team had a need for his position. From that point we could look at other aspects that he wanted in a college which were not many. He did not care location, size, had no idea of major. As an athlete the visits were well coordinated and planned by the coaches. He did get into schools that were a notch up from where he would have been without the athletic card. He did get shafted by unfortunate turns of events but that happens to nonathletes as well, but in his case we knew what was going on instead of having to guess. The biggest problem I had with the whole thing was the idea of a sport taking over so much of the decision making parameters, which it does since at the college level they will be spending a lot of time at the sport with the coach and team.<br>
I am now looking at my junior who has no idea whatsoever about what he wants in a college. THis is going to be a tough one to place. I hardly know where to begin. I guess small LAC makes the most sense given where he is, and we'll see what he thinks.</p>
<p>If it was 'easy' with child #1, OF COURSE it'll be hard with child #2. Isn't that one of the Eternal Truths of Parenthood ? </p>
<p>I was just thinking about this whole having-to-play-games thing. The savvy and time committment it requires. Not to mention, that it would be emotionally taxing for the parents -- and especially the kids. We are talking about ego, feelings and futures here, after all....</p>