My son is a thrower and will be applying for colleges in the fall. He is pretty good but not good enough to be recruited by D1 schools. He has an academic index of 210 and has a few other hooks for the Ivy that he wants to attend (legacy and URM). Can he receive any support from the coach at this Ivy knowing that there is some promise for him as a walk on? Can his participation in the throwing program help his chances even if he does not receive a likely letter? I think that there is a chance that he would get into the school anyway, but we would like to get any advantage we can. Plus, he really wants to be part of the team and continue to compete.
What is the best way to approach this? If he is convinced that there will be a position for him, then he would probably turn down D3 recruiting.
Unless he is actually recruited and is part of the coach’s quota, his athletics will only count as an EC. Some coaches for some sports for some of the Ivy’s are willing to submit a support letter, others will frankly tell you unless you are a recruit they can do nothing for you. Even those who will submit a support letter will tell you that they cannot actively support you with admissions. Your son needs to have some frank conversations with the coach. If he is not a recruit, he cannot count on there being a position for him. In that situation, assuming he is recruited by a D3(s), he will have the difficult decision of taking the sure thing (and probably having to apply ED) or roll the dice that he will be admitted but not as a recruited athlete by the Ivy. He could apply SCEA/ED as the case may be with the Ivy and if he is rejected or deferred, he may have time to reinitiate with the D3(s) and get support there if the D3 coach has not used up his/her quota.
Thank you @twoinanddone. That sounds like a good plan. But @BKSquared has revealed the true dilemma. If he is recruited by a good D3 program, there is a risk of losing it by going for the Ivy admission that he wants. The end result could be that he is not recruited for anything and ends up not being able to use his throwing skills to his advantage at all for college admissions. Is it impossible for a D3 school to wait until mid-December for an answer? I assume that they would want him to commit earlier than this. Could he receive an Ivy admissions “likely letter” unrelated to the coach using one of his spots to help resolve this issue for him? I understand that not all “likely letters” are reserved for athletes.
Talking about track and field thrower (shot put, discus, javelin). Typically not a highly recruited event but they do bring in points for meets. My son throws ~50 feet for shotput and ~150 feet for discus. This is below the recruitment standard for Ivy but I think he will get better and could likely walk on.
Our dilemma is that he is a good but not great student for these schools. We are going to ask the coach for help but the question is whether a letter from the coach to the admissions office would have any bearing if it is not for a slot. Could it backfire? There is a chance for acceptance without coach input, but he is academically below average compared to the rest of the admit pool. Would his non-recruited place on a team serve as a hook? Are hooks additive? He already has the double legacy and URM (Hispanic) hooks. He does not need any financial aid.
As far as I know, fall likely letters only go to athletes. SCEA (HYP) and ED results are released by mid December so in one sense they are like likely letters in showing love to the applicant.
S faced the same dilemma. He was offered a recruiting spot by several D3’s for baseball (relevant for you if your son’s sport is that vs. a “thrower” in track – I have no clue about the process for track). He was looked at closely by a number of Ivies as well but did not make the final cut for recruits (most offered him to walk on if he got in). He made the decision to apply SCEA to his top choice. He was top 1% of his class, above the school’s median in ACT score and had strong EC’s but no national awards and is a legacy, so absent a national award he had as decent of a chance as any applicant. He also gambled that his application was going to be strong for the D3’s without the recruiting hook. It worked out for him. A key point though was he was very upfront with the D3 coaches and told them well beforehand of his decision. Three of the coaches checked with him after December 15 to see if he got in Yale because they still had some quota to support him. It was easier for them because they used a band system where they would not have to use as many chips for him since he would be in the top band because of his academics. I would advise a similar approach for your son. Explore all options between now and next fall, including D3’s (he may like one of those better than your alma mater) and see where the chips fall. Be upfront with all the coaches. Most will appreciate candor vs. gaming by the recruits. Good luck!
^^ Only the coach can tell you if the letter is going to move the needle if in fact he is willing to submit one. I would not count on it for the Ivies. Being an URM and a double legacy will count for a lot more.
Others have provided good advice. I would just add that if those marks are from last spring, male throwers can improve substantially between 10th and 11th grade (and again in 12th).
Thank you @politeperson - Yes, he has another season to get better so he may be able to be recruited by an Ivy if his distances really surge. How often are coaches looking for a thrower with promise?
The chances for “a player with promise” will depend on the pool available to the coach and the needs. It’s why you need to contact him. They could be set with (or find) the players they want, get them to commit, and still have an opening for a developing thrower. Or not. Only the coaches know the picture they’re facing.
@heartburner I really don’t know but I’m sure the coaches will tell him if he contacts them. It’ll obviously depend on his marks this spring but college coaches understand how puberty works, so they’ll have a good idea of what the expected improvement might be year to year for guys. (I think how many slots they use for throwers, if any, is going to vary by program and from year to year—others may have better info on that, but the coaches are the best source of info).
In our experience, coaches will consider “potential” based on physical maturity. Is your son young for his grade? Does it look like he is still growing/filling out or does he already look physically mature? A good upward trend this spring season will help.
Cornell signed a 58’ thrower, Dartmouth signed a 52’, Princeton 64’ - all to the class of 2022. Most of the ivies publish recruiting and walk on standards. Good throwers are snapped up quickly with scholarships.
Thanks @jmk518 - Maybe if he brings up his distance he could be recruited, but my question was whether he would receive favorable consideration by Ivy admissions if he was invited to walk on.
With an academic index of 210, I think he would be a good recruit (if he had the distance), but unfortunately he probably is below average for the rest of the applicant pool.
I’m still not understanding how this is possible. As I understand it (and maybe I’m totally wrong), the coach can only help by giving a slot (being a recruit) to a an applicant within the scope the admissions office has given (the AI) or can give a tip by giving a list to admissions indicating he’d like to have the name on the list as athletes but has used up his slots. A tip. Either way, the coach is indicating those athletes will be on the team if they are admitted.
All Ivy athletes are technically walk-ons as there is nothing binding them to the team like a NLI or scholarship.
I don’t have experience with Ivy recruiting, but have a pretty good sense of D3 recruiting. So, I think you need to approach this issue differently.
You should think through the ramifications of focusing on the Ivy. This could be exactly the right thing for your son, but it also may mean (by your account) that he will not be playing a sport in college. Maybe that’s what your son wants, I can’t tell. If you are only trying to dig for another hook at a particular Ivy, you probably should call the coach, tell him that you plan to visit campus and set up a time to talk. My understanding of the Ivies is that it is not quite the same “tip and slot” system used in the D3s, but I can’t say for sure. In the NESCACs, a tip is very likely to help an applicant get in, it’s just that the applicant has to have grades and scores comparable to the rest of the applicant pool. The effect of a D3 tip is usually confirmed in advance with an admissions pre-read. In the Ivies, my understanding is that you are either a recruited athlete with a likely letter following an admissions pre-read, which is close to an admissions guarantee, or that there is some coach support via letter to admissions that may provide an admissions boost. The boost, however, is just that – a boost. I am not sure whether the coach support letters in the Ivies even include an admissions pre-read. Perhaps @SevenDad or @Ohiodad51 would know. I did know of a double legacy athlete (without a likely letter) applying to a highly competitive Ivy who was rejected because of one B. But that’s just an anecdote.
One way or the other, you need to have alternative plans. The question is whether your son wants to see if there is recruiting traction at the D3s or if he is not all that interested in moving ahead with athletic recruiting. Recruiting is a wild roller coaster, but can be very helpful in choosing the right college for a high school student. I usually think it is a good idea to try, if only because if you don’t make the effort, the decision may be made for you.
I think the weight of opinion from posters I would consider knowledgeable is that in the Ivy there are supported recruits and everybody else. I think there are anecdotal stories we see from time to time on this board about recruits who are provided a “bump”, but I think that is really all that they are, anecdotal stories. What you really need to understand is that supported recruits in the Ivy go through a different admissions process. They are reviewed by a single admissions officer/committee of officers specifically for that purpose. In other words, there is no internal competition. The track coach gets to pick eight kids (lets say) he wants to be considered for a likely letter. Those kids get reviewed by the committee by themselves. If one kid’s application packet doesn’t satisfy admissions for whatever reason, the coach gets to send another name. It is not like admissions is looking at fifty track kids with similar stats and deciding which eight to admit. This is a very different process than the regular admission process.
As far as the NESCAC, when my son was being recruited coaches talked about above the line and below the line recruits, meaning kids whose stats were above or below the median of the preceding class. I have never heard a NESCAC coach use the language slot or tip, although it is very commonly used here, and I never heard any coach talk about varying degrees of support based on whether a slot or tip was being offered. Pretty much all of the published information available on NESCAC recruiting speaks in terms of bands (similar to the Ivy system) or above and below the line recruits. I have never seen anything published that differentiates the level of support being provided in the way discussed frequently here. But I am not an expert on the NESCAC, and really only discussed the issue of supported recruits in detail with three coaches.
Slight digression, but in my not so humble opinion in both conferences a recruit is either supported or they are not. The level of “juice” it may require to get a particular kid admitted probably varies based on the kids academic record, but I have never understood the idea that in the NESCAC, a recruit with less academic and athletic talent has a better shot at admission than a student with better grades and more athletic talent because the first kid’s lower academic stats require the use of a “slot” while the second kid only gets a “tip” because he did well in school. It just doesn’t make sense. It certainly was not how the process was explained to me when my son was going through recruiting.
I think @bksquared has the right of it, and in the Ivy (and truth be told, probably the NESCAC) absent support for a likely letter (Ivy) or slot (NESCAC) then support from a coach is probably viewed as any other EC by the regular admissions committee, with the obvious disadvantage that it is very unlikely that admissions officers will be looking for athletes in the general applicant pool the way they may be looking for thespians, chess geeks, musicians, what have you when “building” a class because they already know there is a defined number of athletes who will make up a part of the class.
One other slight digression, but in the Ivy world, “walk on” means a player who was not a supported recruit. The logic is the same, a recruit is someone who receives a thing of value (admissions support/monetary assistance) in exchange for participating in a varsity sport. Generally these players will be automatically rostered year over year. A walk on is someone who wants to participate without receiving something of value and in general has to earn a roster spot year over year.