So I was just wondering a bit about the Ivy League baseball recruiting process and what I can do to increase my chances. Here is my info for some background:
3.8 Unweighted with 10 AP and ~10 honors by senior year
Starting catcher on varsity
35 ACT
1550 SAT
National Merit Finalist PSAT
I will be attending the Harvard camp and Dartmouth camp this summer, as well as the Showball Head Coach camp in August. I have established email contact with nearly every one of my target schools. Some have expressed interest while some simply need to see me play before they can make a decision.
What else can I do? Any advice for me? Has anyone gone through the Ivy baseball recruiting process before? Anything helps; thanks!
My son has been through it. Based on your posted academics, that doesn’t appear to be an issue. Camps are ok but being able to be seen in actual game play probably matters more. Are you playing travel ball this summer? If so make sure the coaches have your schedule. Showball also runs an academic event as does Perfect Game. I am personally a big fan of Perfect Game. You’ll get accurate feedback on where you are against the biggest pool with PG. Trust you are a rising senior? What position? Do you have well shot video of your play? Cast a wide net, there are very very few guys that have the grades and real D1 ability required to play Ivy baseball. Think about it, if there are maybe 7 or 8 guys per school times 8 schools that’s around 60 spots available in the entire league. If you narrow it more by position player vs pitcher, depending on which you are, its a pretty small number. Don’t overlook highly competitive D3 conferences like NESCAC. There are others.
The majority of players on my son’s team were seen at one of the Headfirst camps including him. The camp caters to high academic players wanting to go to Ivy League and D3 schools. It turned out pretty good for him.
I am pretty realistic about my abilities. My grades are right around Ivy level, and above average for their athletes I’ve been told. As for baseball, I am a 16 year old senior with time to grow so I know where I am at physically and talent-wise. I have not ruled out many of the smaller schools, especially JHU which is one of my targets. However, if I can get into an Ivy League college for baseball I’m going to choose that school
I heard about the Headfirst camps, unfortunately I was not able to secure a spot, as the catching spots were all filled up when I went to apply. So instead I am doing a Showball event which is similar to headfirst and accommodated to my schedule better. Did your son get noticed at his camp or did he have prior contact with the coaches?
My son has also just been through the process. We did the Headfirst and Stanford camps the two summers between sophomore and junior and between junior and senior years. He made a positive impression sophomore year so he had made personal contacts with several coaches heading into the junior year camps where they watched him closely. Without the benefit of this early look, putting together a video is pretty important. There are a ton of kids in these camps, and getting on the coaches’ initial radar screen is important unless you have blazing speed, cannon arm and/or huge pop in your bat where you will immediately stand out in the initial “eval” portion.
Showball is similar to Headfirst. My daughter attended Showball, and I found that Showball was less organized and had a ton more kids, so the good video becomes a little more important. I can’t speak to the other academic camps.
We live in a “flyover” state and our travel ball team did not travel to the coasts, so there was no realistic option to get the Ivy coaches to watch live games. The only one where we saw and my son was seen by them was the Arizona Fall Classic, which had an academic component to it. Unless you (or a teammate) are big time on a school’s recruit list, getting noticed in a tournament (real or showcase format) is tough since the venues are usually spread across several fields. That said, I would definitely send them your schedule. In fact most recruiting pages (have you filled out their questionnaires?) ask for that information.
Going to school specific camps is also a good move. In addition to Harvard and Dartmouth, a bunch of the NESCAC type schools will also have coaches there. I totally agree with @nhparent9, cast a wide net. Getting a recruiting spot with the Ivies is tough. Top D3 schools are great options if you want to play ball in college. It will be slightly less time commitment (no fall season), and you will more likely start as an underclassmen.
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This comment was very helpful as that is roughly the same situation I am in at the moment. All of the schools I am targeting are out East while I live out west. I will be playing in the Arizona Fall Classic as well as competing in the All-Academic game there which should help; I just hope it’s not too late in the process. Also, I am trying to get to a headfirst camp. I’ve heard so many good things about it, and while I’m excited for the Showball event, I hear the headfirst event is more well-run and more coaches attend. If you don’t mind, where did your son end up?
He got admitted to Yale SCEA, and is going there, but not as baseball recruit. The coach has offered him a walk on spot for the fall that he is still mulling over. He got “offers” from a number of highly ranked LAC’s. MIT and Caltech also actively recruited him. His primary contact with those coaches was at Headfirst and at Stanford. One angle you could possibly try is if you are on some coach’s radar screen who will be at Headfirst, they may be able to put in a word for you. Catchers, especially good ones, are always in demand. Also, maybe your travel ball coach has some pull. I know ours did and got some kids into the Stanford camp after they missed the deadline.
That is a good idea… I will contact my coach and some of the college coaches I’ve been in contact with and see what I can do. Congrats to your son on admission to Yale. That’s huge. Does the walk on offer mean he will be on the team or he simply has a chance to make the team? If the latter then I can see why he’d still be thinking it over. I also have some smaller schools, many LACs, that I’m in contact with but I’m just not sure if I want the small college experience. I’m looking for a bigger school that fits my skill level baseball-wise, which is why the ivies are some targets. Now it’s time to get down there and be seen by those coaches.
I do have a question, and maybe you had an experience like this: I recently sent a few emails to a coach, sent my grades and basic profile, asking to establish myself as a potential prospect. After three emails he responded saying he had seen my previous two emails and that they were not looking for a catcher in my class. He had not seen me play (even through video), so do you think he was telling the truth? Or was he simply letting me down softly? Either way isn’t a big deal I was just a bit confused.
There is no reason for him not to be straight up with you. He must already have catching prospects lined up ahead of you even based on incomplete data. I do think putting together a video is key as you approach other coaches. I would suggest some game video (defense and offense) plus some controlled video (hitting side view and back view, maybe with a radar gun showing bat speed), throwing velocity to 2d base with a radar gun, and pop time. Some showcases will even put together a recruiting video as a supplemental service.
Stepping back, some questions you should ask yourself as you focus on schools to target:
Is baseball going to drive where you want to end up, or is the academic/social experience more important?
Is your ambition to play pro ball/be in sports career-wise, or is baseball just a passion you want to pursue during college?
How important is playing time?
In terms of your level of baseball skill, the “market” (i.e. recruiting interest ending in offers), not you, will tell you where you stand. Not saying this is you, but I have seen too many kids have a way too high opinion of their skills where they chase programs they have no realistic shot at and in the process waste money and time that they could have used to pursue more realistic programs. You will get a pretty good read at Showball (or Headfirst) by whether or not and which coaches approach you or if you have to approach the coaches between sessions. Also is the conversation specific and personal (driven by them not you) or is it perfunctory ("nice meeting you, XYZ college is a great school for sports and academics – a derivation of a canned speech you can almost find on their website).
Good luck and best wishes this summer.
I think you’re right on everything you just said. When asking myself those questions, I believe I am realistic about my abilities. The truth is that I am a low-level D1 player with upside who is also very young. I know my skills and I know what I need to work on, but the bottom line is that baseball is going to end for me in college. Academics are going to drive my future, meaning even if I somehow got drafted I wouldn’t go
The reason for this is because I believe I can do greater things with my mind than I can with baseball. So college is the end goal for me, playing time is important, but I would sacrifice a year or two of starting time if it meant I was at a great academic D1 school. I am signing up for Headfirst and will attend Showball as well so I hope to see where I truly stand there. Thank you for your help
Great that you got into Headfirst. If you have the time (and money), and since you are on the West Coast, the Stanford All Star camp is also first rate. If you make a good impression at Headfirst Sacramento, you can really solidify your standing since the camps are back to back. Also, last year Stanford allowed you to state a preference for which coach you wanted play for. The baseball talent/competition is higher at the Stanford camp with a lot of legit high D1 prospects (again a good barometer to measure yourself by). It may be too late because that camp is always oversold, but give it a shot.
I’ll certainly check it out! Biggest issue I have with Stanford is that their academic standards for sports recruits are much lower which gives them an edge in the field, but obviously not in the classroom. I’ve heard good things about that camp as well but it might be too late. I’ll see. Thanks for all your help.
@grant1509 you’ve stated that you are a “low level D1 player.” With all due respect, how do you know that? It doesn’t seem as though you play high level travel and you’ve never been to a showcase or a camp. How do you know what level you are? Have you been assessed by a credible baseball person to arrive at that conclusion? And finally, as an FYI, there are 31 conferences on D1 baseball plus independents, and the Ivy was the 13th best conference by RPI.
I totally understand how you can think I may have an inflated sense of my ability. I have had a high school coach who has won two national championships label me as such (he is not my high school coach), essentially a fringe D2/D1 player with upside (mainly due to age and size). Also, from the interest I have received from some mid-level D1 colleges I just kind of assumed that they were able to assess my talents as well. I have in fact played some pretty high level travel baseball, as when I travel to California I see some of the best competition in the country. I have also played in a number of perfect game showcases, including the underclass championship in Florida last year. I was also invited to my region’s Area Code Tryouts. So I can see how you might think I don’t know where I’m at as a baseball player, but trust me, I am pretty realistic. I hope that my previous comments regarding my goals reflect this, and if they don’t then I’m sorry. Thank you for your comment.
I wasn’t trying to insult you, that information makes things much, much more clear. So if you’ve been to PG showcases, what is your current numerical grade? Catching spots are so tough to come by, a difficult recruiting journey for sure as teams rarely recruit more than one per class. I’ve been there with my own.
I received a grade of 7 on my perfect game profile (just checked!) but that was around 9 months ago when I was still a 15 year old junior. That number kind of confirms my beliefs as it would mean I’m a possible D1 prospect, right? But at the same time, perfect game is only one tool to use so that’s why I didn’t make my whole evaluation based on just that number. As for catching spots, I’ve heard both what you said but also the exact opposite. I’ve heard they’re hard to come by due to number carried on the team but also in high demand because a good young catcher is hard to come by in itself. I’m sure there’s truth to both, but it creates a timing problem from what I’ve noticed. If the team fills up its catching spot early then you’re kinda screwed as to going to that school. That seems like what happened with me at Princeton when the coach said “we are not actively recruiting catchers in your class” or something along those lines. Oh well, not the end of the world!
IMO, a good catcher with grades such as yours are VERY hard to find. I would assume that you have a sub 2.0 pop time, throw in the 80’s from your position, and have an exit velo of at least 80MPH off a tee. Not saying those stats are the be all and end all( the best hitter on my son’s Varsity team has a 77MPH exit velo), but most recruiters/coaches want to see some basic thresholds met BEFORE they get their eyes on you and see all the intangibles like how you are behind the plate, your hitting form, etc… If you also have good size it’s a plus, though not so important for a catcher. I know a kid who is going to TCU as a C, and he’s all of 5’6"…an absolute freak of an athlete, though.
S1 is a smart kid(33 ACT, 3.6 GPA at a rigorous school, 10+ AP’s), though with nowhere near the academic stats that you have, and is looking to get into an excellent D3 school. He could probably catch on at a lower level D1(throws 91 MPH from the OF, runs a sub 7.0 60, plays a mean SS also), but we have determined that playing D1 BB is probably a stretch. His speed, and more specifically, his arm strength does get him interest from schools.
If you have one eye popping BB stat it would be great. Your academics are already eye popping, IMO. Congratulations. Non players have no idea how much time it takes to play a sport well, especially at a position such as catcher.
You have to take every chance possible to highlight your grades. Really good catchers are in demand…catchers with a 35 ACT who can throw out a man at second are near impossible to find.
You can see what it means by cross referencing rosters and running the names through Perfect Game’s player search box. That part of the site is free. PG’s number is a reflective of ability and projectability, that’s what they do. Your age is not really all that relevant to the discussion unless you plan to do a post graduate year and re-classify. Coaches are paid to win now, and most don’t have the roster space to wait and see if a kid is going to mature and pan out to be something it isn’t pretty clear he already is.