This is really hard but very true. It’s kind of like sales: sometimes a no is better than a yes. If you are wasting each other’s time, best to find out early so you can move on. You don’t want to waste a bunch of time and money and emotional capital on a lost cause.
S had a couple coaches not give him the time of day even though he was probably good enough to start for them as a HS junior. I didn’t get it (still don’t), but the early indication (good or bad) is a huge benefit that an athlete gets.
Ultimately you need to narrow things down, and this is one way albeit not as nice as when you get to make the decision. But it’s like in The Highlander. There can be only one.
The 50ish dads probably are the only ones who got that reference, but the rest of you hopefully see my point.
@Ctjrparent those higher ED statistics don’t even apply to athletic recruits – the stats for a recruited athlete are MUCH higher. Like a 90%+ chance of admission vs 20% for the general ED pool.
That’s why it is super important to be absolutely sure that the coach is offering to support your athlete with admissions.
I could be wrong but it sounds like you are just starting to educate yourself about the process, and if that’s the case I’d urge you to go back and read all the old threads going back a few years that talk about the process. They were the single best resource for me when I was starting out with my son.
You have a lot of time before you need to make an ED decision.
He probably will do ED with someone, that’s usually the way it works. The coaches also want the clarity of knowing that you are committed and not going to leave for a better offer in December.
The conventional wisdom is to keep in touch with a few other coaches and maybe put in a couple of RD or EA apps too at backups. But when the ED deadline comes up, he will most likely be 99% sure of where he will end up. S didn’t put in apps but did keep in touch with other coaches, but we had a lot of confidence in the offer from the coach, and he had other alternatives if he didn’t get into his first choice.
I second the advice to lookthrough the last few years of info. As a bonus you will see how clueless I was in 2016 when I started asking questions!
yes, definitely just trying to educate. this is my oldest and coaches have been active of late in communication. lots of recent zoom calls and coaches using terms with son that I’m not familiar with so just trying to get a lay of the land so can guide him accordingly. will go back and read older threads. new to this forum and find it very helpful so far. thanks again.
@Ctjrparent, I agree with everything others have said, especially that you don’t know what the coach will be using the score for.
I would add one point. You may want to request the ACT test submitted by your son, or if easier just have a heart to heart discussion with him. Are scores for one or more sections much better than the others. If so, he may not have completed the tests. With the ACT, failing to finish can have an extreme negative impact on scores. Try grading one of his tests with a strict time restriction, and you will see for yourself the reason for the score. Knowing that speed needs to be increased is very important for structuring study for the ACT.
Hi everyone! I hope all your children received good news from colleges that they applied. Can you let me know how the recruiting process went. My DS22 is now in the middle of the junior year. He only has his stats on the freshman year. His sophomore year Track season was basically cancelled. We only received an interest from one college but it was based on the freshman stats. At this point, we have no idea about how we initiate the athlete application process. Without any stats it is difficult for any colleges to evaluate.
His school will have the track season starting in March but only for two months. Athletes college application is not the same as the regular application process, and we have never done this. Can you guide us what we should do for current junior athlete students to initiate the process.
At this point, I would wait until you get new times this coming season, and then start contacting coaches via email and phone call. Make sure to cast a wide net, if participating in TNF is a high priority. Good luck.
The good news is that Track and Field is a late-recruiting sport. The action usually starts in the summer after the junior season, based on junior year marks. And many track athletes are still deciding in winter or spring of senior year. So your son has plenty of time.
I’d agree on waiting to get some marks this season. Assuming that happens, the basic approach would be: identify target schools (yes, cast a wide net); fill out the recruiting forms at those schools; follow up with an email to the coach indicating interest in learning more about the program. Ideally, this would generate some emails, eventually phone calls, with some of the coaches. And then discussions of official visits, etc. (not clear what this will look like next fall with Covid).
You don’t mention if you’re interested in selective schools such as Ivies, nescac, etc. or if you’re hoping for an athletic scholarship elsewhere (be aware scholarship money for boys in Track and Field is relatively scarce and is divided among athletes). There are some differences in those processes.
In terms of finding fit, I’d check out the conference performance lists on tfrrs.org. Coaches are looking for athletes that might eventually be competitive at the conference level, ideally scoring points at the conference meet. You’ll have to project improvement a bit, but once you get a sense of the terrain you can look at the current roster at some of the schools and see what those athletes ran as HS juniors. And you can search the recruiting announcements— “Harvard track welcomes class of…”—to see the listed marks (remember, though, that those are usually senior marks). Some programs list recruiting standards which I’d view as guidelines only.
One more thing to add - I would have your child continue to research “right fit” schools with and without track to get an idea of where to target and what grades and/or test scores are needed plus follow Instagram accounts or other accounts for teams and schools of interest - good way without visits to start to check out the “vibe”.
Also - think about your budget - does your child need merit money or sports $ - or is full pay okay?
So hard without a track season and times - but perfect time to start diving deeper into right fit schools too and understanding the make up of their teams too.
When they contact coaches - test scores, grades and school profile (hopefully your counseling office can give you a copy for this year’s class as a working document) plus times all help paint a clearer picture of your child for a year lacking a lot of traditional evaluations of athletes.
Plenty of active CC parents with recruiting across different sports. Not T&F for my child - but I learned a lot and the resources here are great - especially when you have more specific information.
I am sure some people are sick of me always recommending a book called “The Athletic Scholarship Playbook”, which is about $15 on Amazon. Even if you aren’t looking for a scholarship, what it does is set out the recruiting process very clearly in one place. I used it as my guide when my son was going through recruiting.
The other place with fantastic information is the old threads in this forum. I went back and read all the ones that would apply to my son (so, on men’s soccer, the preread process, D3, NESCAC etc). That wealth of information is actually even better than the book, but it is all over the place and very disorganized. So I recommend reading both.
Very best of luck to you and your son! It can be an exciting (and anxious) time.
Thank you very much everyone!! I am very grateful that you guys provide a full of support!! It helps a lot. Thank you very much. My son doesn’t know what he wants to study, so we think he should go to a D3 LAC. Not particularly looking at any specific schools at this point. We live in California but we happened to visit Minnesota two years ago because I have my family there and my oldest son was also visiting colleges while his younger brother was tagging along. This visit was not meant for the younger brother, but he liked Macalesrer when we were there. For some strange faith, it happened that the Macalester Track coach contacted him out of blue late last year even though his high school season was cancelled. We were surprised.
My only suggestion is that you (and by you, I mean your son) start now. It is true that you may not have critical recruiting information - like this year’s times. On the other hand, recruiting is extremely time consuming. It is important to take advantage of time lulls to get done what needs to be done.
As @coffeeat3 has suggested, use the time to research schools and assemble a long list. Then make a spreadsheet of those colleges to record the dates and substance of coach conversations. You would be surprised how easy it is to forget which coaches said what and when they said it.
Many recruiting questionnaires are electronic now, so go ahead and start filling them out, making sure to record the login information for the questionnaire on your spreadsheet. Once you get your test scores and times, go back and add that information. Completing questionnaires is a time-consuming project, and it is way easier to amend than to complete a stack of them. What if you don’t get the time you are hoping for until May? By then, you should be spending precious time communicating with coaches rather than on questionnaires.
Questionnaires are of questionable value. I think they are used by coaches to assemble a mailing list for camps and as a filing cabinet for coaches to find a recruit that fills a specific need (I need a backup goalkeeper with a 33 ACT). I never experienced a coach who recruited because of a questionnaire, rather it was the athlete’s genuine desire to attend and talent that led to recruiting. That said, coaches want them, so you may as well start now.
You could also start with an introductory email to the college coaches of interest (you can find those email addresses on the college athletic website). Tailor the email for each individual college, explaining why the college appeals and providing freshman times. I am guessing that plenty of other students are in the same boat. If you start now, when you do have a good time to provide, you are having your second or third communication with the coach, rather than just introducing yourself.
There is not one right way to work recruiting, so others are sure to disagree. I will say that having been through this several times, although for different sports. In each instance, no matter how early we started, in retrospect I always wished that we had started earlier.
Thank you! This is a great advice! Because of everybody’s precious advice here, we now started looking at the D3 schools with good academic standards. For me Sports is important, but education is equally important. Today my son had introductory conversation with Macalester’s track coach. He said it was very short, but it can not be bad. He also sent questionnaires to a few colleges.
Let’s see how it will go. Thanks again!!
If Minnesota is attractive, take a look at Carleton and St. Olaf. To be sure, Northfield is not the Twin Cities if an urban setting is desired, but both are great schools.
My D21 was admitted ED to Macalester. We had a similar situation, as the coach (different sport) reached out to her out of the blue. She is definitely academics first and found the fit to be ideal for her. The coach was a huge help in navigating the entire admission process.
Haha, I liked Carleton very much, but my son liked the urban atmosphere of Macalester better. He said he forgot what Carlton looked like… but I think he remembers the cornfield and some fertilizer smell on the way to Carleton…
Congratulations to your daughter. She must be very happy to attend Macalester. How was the college admission process? What kind of directions did she receive from the coach?
My son likes urban small D3 liberal arts colleges with good academic standards . I was looking for this type of colleges, but there are not many. Most New England colleges are in rural. He likes Claremont colleges, but he probably won’t get accepted…
By the way, which State do you live? Wow Macalester is actively looking for students, even though Students did not engage the college search and initial contact with coaches. That’s interesting.
For some urban D3 LACs (or suburban with easy city access) look at Rhodes, Trinity CT, Trinity TX, Haverford, Swat, Goucher, Wheaton (MA), Lewis and Clark, Occidental. I think they all have TNF. The Claremont’s are an hour from LA, so I would not call those urban. If your S could run DI, I would add U Richmond, Holy Cross, and Davidson.
Urban D3s include MIT and Chicago, although both have challenging recruiting and admission processes. Tufts is still plenty hard to get into, but is part of the NESCAC and thus recruiting is more straightforward.
Wesleyan is not urban, but has a larger town than Swarthmore and isn’t too far from several “Connecticut cities.” I’d call it like Claremont, with more urban edge to its underbelly.
