Hi,
I am new to this process. Am I limited to how many schools I respond to for pre-reads. Are student recruits for example limited to 2-3 schools ? Please advise.
No limit on pre-reads, NCAA nor coaches nor schools track those.
Thank you!
Do pre-read requests always come from the coach? Can student-athlete ask coach for a pre-read?
Sure, the student can ask for one (I would probably find a diplomatic way to ask, like “can you tell me where you are in the recruiting process?” Or, “can you tell me if you are considering me for a pre-read?”) but it is up to the coach to offer the preread.
I’m curious how many pre-reads most D3 schools offer. My daughter has narrowed her list to four schools and all have offered a pre-read. She passed her first one but one of her top choices just sent her the information over last week and she’s getting ready to submit that soon. This is a top LAC with a sub 10% admissions rate.
Would the coach tell her how many girls are being offered a pre-read if she asked? They had two Zoom calls with girls being recruited and her call had 2 people and the other call had 3 people. My daughter is hoping this means the list is small and it will give her a better shot. I would love to know if the coach would tell her. Can she ask that?
^Depends on the coach. They will likely get prereads on a number much greater than the number of slots they have because they know they won’t bat 1.000. You can ask the coach pretty straightforwardly where your daughter ranks on the list. If she is a top recruit, the coach will let her know. If she is further down the list, you will know by virtue of their answer or non-answer.
It probably also depneds on the sport. The Middlebury men’s soccer coach told parents that he has 50 prereads, and that he submits about half on July 1. At the end of the day, he has 6 spots to offer. (Now I’m wondering how many offers he usually makes in order to end up with 6 supported athletes – i.e. what his yield is. I know we will never know, but curious!).
I agree it varies. When D19 was going thru recruiting, one D3 coach had 10 pre-reads for 4 spots, another had 10 for 2 spots. The rest we never knew.
^^ My impression (at least the ethical coaches) is they don’t make more offers than slots at any one time. With my kids once they made the offer, they wanted to hear back within some period of time prior to the ED deadline presumably so they could go further down the list if their top picks did not accept.
So once you pass the pre read you need to wait for an offer? Just checking that this is how it works. My D’21 is a lacrosse player and has narrowed her choices to 4, all who have offered pre reads. One made her an offer already and said she can wait to see what else comes back because it was early on. The others are all happening now and the top academic one said they are not putting through many for pre read at all, which led to my speculation that the 5 girls who were on the calls with current team members are the only ones. I guess we will wait and see how things go and ask questions once we know how the pre reads go. Thx!
Different approaches for different sports.
The top D3’s in my child’s sport waited to see how the Ivy likely letters were, because those that didn’t make it there often drop down to the top academic D3’s.
In track, expect pre reads starting June 1. Then official visits (pre pandemic) in the fall. After that the coach starts offering and going down his priority list offering a spot if they commit ED until his sports are used up.
One coach said sends probably 5x more than their slots into pre read knowing half might fail pre read, and the coach knew that not all would accept their offer as they might prefer a different school.
It’s different though if your child is clearly one of the best - D1 level - as they might get offered earlier hoping to land them.
It does depend on the sport. I know the Yale women’s lax coach said she looks at the academic qualifications before she gets too excited about the athletic skills. Having coached for many years, she knows how the pre-reads will go, whether there will be a likely letter, and whether she’d have to use a slot. Most of the coaches know.
In these Covid times of no test scores and no stats or film from last year, it will be a little different but most coaches can look at academic stats and playing stats and make a very good guess.