<p>Assuming that the particular sport has try-outs, is there any reason why students/parents should go through the angst of the recruiting process? If the student is able to get into the school (I understand there are no guarantees) on their own (via academics and such) why bother trying to get recruited by the coach? (Also assume this is Div III and there is no scholarship money involved.) If the student is really good enough to be on the team, they will make it during try-outs. (Again, understanding there are no guarantees.)</p>
<p>Hm. Good post and pretty thought provoking. My first response is that any school where a student is “going to get in anyway” is maybe not the reach that excites some kids and parents. </p>
<p>There are many benefits to recruiting, and one of them is to get into a reach school (and I know there have been posts about reaching too far, but I’m talking about a good reach.) </p>
<p>Seems like even in a good match/get in anyway situation, recruiting makes the “no guarantee” scenario a “sure thing.”</p>
<p>Ah, yes, true. Didn’t think about the recruiting part helping to reach a little higher. Thanks.</p>
<p>Another reason: MONEY. Yes, even if D3. Depending on the school they may still find money for your child and just lable it as something else. I’m not going to say DS didn’t deserve the merit aid that was dangled in front of him by a couple D3s, but they seem to have bent some of their published guidelines to do it. If you are a haggler you can set up a bidding war between schools.</p>
<p>sort of combining the responses of imafan and ByeByeSavings, some of the academic reach schools are also those with the most generous need-based FA.</p>
<p>I obviously don’t know your financial situation, but if you check out some of the online FA calculators, you may be surprised. I ran some arbitrary numbers through each of the Ivy FA calculators and got some interesting results.
[Tier</a> One Athletics Ivy League Financial Aid Comparisons Tier One Athletics](<a href=“http://www.tier1athletics.org/2012/08/19/ivy-league-financial-aid-comparisons/]Tier”>Ivy League Financial Aid Comparisons - Tier One Athletics)</p>
<p>Some of the NESCAC schools also have very generous endowments.</p>
<p>Even though there technically isn’t athletic money at the DIII level, those coaches do have pull in the financial aid office and can usually get their top recruits more money to attend so yes, it’s worth going through the recruiting process.</p>
<p>Even though there is a “tryout,” in my experience, recruited athletes are almost always already have a roster spot. Often the tryout might be 30 people for 2 spots. In any event, going through the recruiting process will give the coach a chance to get to know the athlete over a longer period of time than the week or so allotted to tryouts.</p>
<p>Thanks guys! Very good points. I guess we are doomed to trying to go through the recruiting process. ;)</p>
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<p>Thanks Jim. Based on some of the examples I’ve seen from schools, I’m pretty sure we’re out of the FA market and my D is not Ivy material either academically or athletically but I will definitely take a look.</p>
<p>At most of the schools my D has looked at the athletes had preferential registration for classes so that is definitely one bonus vs just showing up at the start of school and trying out.</p>
<p>Also she is going to do some OV’s soon and based on what I have read here that can really change how they rate their choices. Going to classes, meeting professors, doing an overnight on campus, eating at the school I think is another good benefit to see if the school is the best fit.</p>
<p>ByeByeSavings,
I’m a little surprised that they will bend the rules. If it’s academic scholarship, I suppose it’s all up to them how much they will give your child. But if a D3 is strictly need-based, they can’t give me much more than what the difference between your EFC and the COA, can’t they?
At least 2 D3 coaches had told me that they had nothing to do with FA. They don’t know anything about how much a recruit got and they don’t want to know about it nor would they have any influence over it.</p>
<p>Varska and GolfFather,
I had 1 bad experience with the NPC. We’ve been recruited by 1 Ivy. The NPC I ran gave us a tough number, but doable. We sent in all our tax forms for FA pre-read. I was shocked when they came back giving us nothing. We are in the appealing process right now. But I think it’s a done deal. The date for D’s recruiting trip was supposed to be this weekend, but we canceled it as we told the coach we can’t afford the price tag. So now, we are only looking at schools that D can either get some academic scholarship and if there is some additional athletic money, that would be great. But I’ve basically given up on all need based schools.</p>
<p>Techmom, I don’t know how each Ivy works but one told us it would match FA offers from a whole list of schools. My d was shocked when they rattled off all these names to her–they were not all Ivies. I got the feeling they were hoping we would get a pre-read somewhere else and then force their own FA office to match it! Very strange, as d was only looking into this school because we have a personal connection to it. She has zero interest in any of the other Ivies, completely not going in that direction…so of course we do not have any other pre-read results to use as leverage!</p>
<p>All these games…I’ll be glad when this is done. :P</p>
<p>Hi Techmom, in our case we were looking at strictly merit scholarships not need based… A lot of schools in our state have a table on their website stating the ranges of money you will be looking at if you have this GPA and that SAT score, which was the case with the last D3. What they are prepared to do varies a LOT with the school. (Differing endowments, differing levels of caring about athletics) We are going to have an interesting contrast (I think) with the D1 we are visiting next, they are public and out-of-state. They too offer some strictly merit based money but somehow I don’t think they will be as willing to do any creative number crunching with the GPA. I have higher hopes for the other D1s, which seem purposefully vague about who gets merit money at their school.</p>
<p>techmom13-we’ve been flat out told by a couple D3 coaches that they could “help” with the merit aid. Schools can give more than your EFC, they do it all the time with merit aid-full rides for National Merit Scholars, other merit awards, etc., etc. Some schools may have a policy against this but most do not.</p>
<p>another reason would be that it gives you the opportunity to meet and
hangout with the players on the different teams.meeting with the different coaches and being with the whole team dynamic for a weekend is priceless.
most would recommend being in that environment to see if your child fits in with those kids/coaches.
good luck</p>
<p>Byebyesavings,
Great that your S got the merit aid he deserves. But if we want to go the D3 route,we would want to use sports as a leverage for her to get to the reach schools, so she would not qualify for any merit aid. Would you mind sharing some D3 that you’ve researched that would offer merit aid so I can see if D’s grade will cut musters.
SteveMA,
You are absolutely right about merit aid at the top D3 schools, the question is if D can make it. She is good but not NMS material !-) I’m also curious as to if it is different depending on the sports as well even at the same school. D’s sports is non-revenue so I don’t know how much influence a coach will have.
LivesinHobbiton,
I’m with you on that !-) If FA is not an issue, I would have her attending a top D3 school and get it over with.</p>
<p>techmom13–DD is in a non-revenue sport too. At the D3 level it is about getting good students in the door that might otherwise go to scholarship programs. Many D3 programs can compete with DII and even DI schools easily. Again, it’s all about the school. Most D3 programs know that the better students are usually athletes. You don’t have to be a NMF to get this money, just a B+ or so or better student and do reasonably well on your ACT/SAT.</p>
<p>Techmom I’ll send you a private message later :)</p>
<p>techmom13–the D3 schools DD considered had 3.5 with a 26 and above ACT score for some merit aid, better aid available for 3.7 and 28+. We haven’t really seen any merit aid for scores below a 26.</p>
<p>Godfather, great question</p>
<p>I’ve gone through the recruiting process (twice) with kids and I asked that same why question. Most of the people that post here seemingly have kids with the academic talent to go to most any school, some of the schools they have an interest in really recruit the talented and elite(who they already know about and have been tracking since they were 15 years old) so it’s the other kids with good grades/scores and less talent who wonder. So, I’d like to just offer this if you have talent but aren’t exceptional(per the AAU/ or National Sport Orgs groups etc…than you are just someone doing a sport for fun or club level and going through all the hassle of recruiting is pointless unless you’ve really found that idea situation…but all these people looking at Ivies, near Ivies, southern Ivies etc. all recruit in the same places as the big sports factories recruit-so AAU,national sports organization etc…my daughter was recruited by Yale/Harvard/Duke & Northwestern all great undergrad schools, none of which could win anything in her sport and the money that they did not have for her sport just didn’t make the price of that undergrad education worthwhile in comparison to Notre Dame, OSU, Texas or UNC and she could win at ND/OSU and graduate and not be in debt.</p>