@BKSquared I think we had the same kid, but in different sports. My Pomona kid had almost exactly the same experience (right down to the 2 slots and hitting the 25% to be considered). And, it sounded like the kids figured out the value of “forced” time-management, because there was always a strong turnout for their off-season S&F. Also recruited D1 (and had lots of friends go that direction), but figured out early that D3 would allow more time on the field, plus more time off the field for the research/volunteering to help get into med school.
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what really entails pre-read? Mostly academic?
My DS had 3 NESCAC pre-reads and 2 Ivies. Towards the end of June we were asked by all for transcript through junior year, SAT/ACT scores (back in June/July many had gone test optional but were really wanting test scores), school profile, fall semester schedule and questionnaire of the usual basics of name, birthday, race, applying for financial aid, etc. We had a NESCAC ask for a graded writing sample. Two of the schools wanted an official resume. They did not ask for any essays or letters of rec for the pre-reads. There were no interviews with admissions. We did receive feedback from the coaches after, all was positive for us, seemed like the location where we live was liked, and they liked that the HS counselor explained reasoning for lack of current school profile (previous year was used) and lack of the exact fall schedule due to covid, but mostly they liked his grades, academic rigor and test scores.
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Yes, a pre-read typically includes an admissions office review of transcripts, test scores, school profile, and expected senior year schedule. The exact process can vary a bit by school.
Thanks for the advice. It may not be a bad idea to talk to son’s high school college counselor. It’s a big public high school, so he may not know my son well. From my older son S21’s experience, his counselor was not a big help and he was probably inexperienced. But I guess we do what we can do. All advices here are much more helpful in my opinion. Thanks again!!
My son hurdles. Most small D3 colleges I looked carry 2-3 hurdlers in their teams. On contrary there are so many long distance runners. I am hoping that they are looking for hurdlers… wishful thinking…
I guess it is better to take SAT/ACT if they are available at your area even if many schools are now test optional. Not providing the test scores to the coaches may turn against you, maybe?
That is very interesting. It is nice to hear that coaches are also aligned with the academic first approach. Yes, time management has a lot to do with academic. My son was having tough time with staying home all day and online classes when Covid started. I assumed he was having more free time to do stuff, but he did not spend time well. He was better when he was at the school. Also it did not help when he hurt his hammy while he was self-training during Covid, and took 3 months to completely healed.
Definitely get a test score, a strong one is an advantage. Some schools (even TO ones) and/or some coaches still require test scores from potential recruits.
Willownest’s post has good info, my D was also asked by some coaches (likely prompted by admissions) for a resume, so I would create that now.
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Those schools will have a lot of distance kids on the track roster because they’re supporting cross country teams in the fall. Doesn’t mean they’re more likely to support distance kids with admission.
In fact, it’s pretty common for D3 programs to have a lot of walk-on distance runners. They typically need more of those runners than they can formally help with admissions. And, the marginal cost (in terms of coaching time and resources) of adding a distance athlete is very low compared to technical events. There’s also more likely to be a return on investment when one of those walk-ons becomes a contributor in XC. So a lot of D3 coaches rely heavily on “soft recruiting” to bolster the distance side—building relationships with potential applicants who, if admitted, might help the team, scouring campus for kids who ran XC in HS, etc. There are often diamonds in the rough to be found this way (and remember, for an XC coach a “diamond” can mean finding someone better than your 7th best XC runner).
Having said that, there definitely are programs that emphasize distance, and there’ll be programs that ignore some of the technical, coaching-intensive events altogether (PV for example). Other programs will do the opposite. What I’d look at for a sign of this: if a school has a hurdles coach and has had hurdlers place at the conference meet in the last few years, they’re probably not ignoring the event. No hurdles coach and no hurdlers in the conference meet for the last several years is usually a sign they’re emphasizing other events.
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Another thing to look for is age and ability of current hurdlers. S was a wrestler, but I did a fair amount of research into which schools had recruited guys his size the last few years to determine who had a need there. There were a couple of schools that would be good fits, but beyond sending one email to the coach he didn’t bother doing anything, because we could see that they didn’t really have a need for him (either recruits already committed from his class or in the class or 2 ahead of him).
Of course, depending on ability your son may be better than who they have, so while hurdler may not necessarily be a recruiting priority he could still get support. Don’t forget that even at D3 coaches keep their jobs by winning. If your son can clearly help the coach out, the coach will try to return the favor.
Test scores may or may not be required, but they can always help. Both for making it easier for the coach to get you by admissions, and also for giving the coach peace of mind that you can handle the academic side. It doesn’t matter if you are an Olympic level hurdler, if you fail out you don’t help the team.
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That’s a really good point! I can see that coaches may be more specialized and knowledgeable with the long distance events rather than hurdles. Nice advice to looking into coaches’ profiles as well.
I agree. The reason we checked the roster for each school was to see the age of the current hurdlers. If they are seniors and no freshman roster, they probably need to recruit freshman to sustain the program.
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My son went through this last year in track and field.
Pomona was mentioned above; the coach was clear he had two slots but they went to the athletes that could score the most points. The rest were tips that didn’t provide the admissions certainly of fit example NESCAC support, at least of an Amherst, Williams, etc. The Claremont’s, etc are different schools and different recruiting coaches so I wouldn’t mix them.
The key in getting interest is whether the athlete no matter the event can or will score points in the conference championship. Doesn’t matter if there are two hurdlers. Multi event scorers would get preference I’m sure.
My son emailed coaches of schools he was interested in and filled out questionnaires - and at least in the case of Williams, those are reviewed as the coach contacted him based on that not the email (could be timing but they still went through it apparently).
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Also, if your child passes pre read, then I would be highly confident they can successfully handle the academics. The NESCAC’s are pretty strict about an athlete being as good as an average student though they can make certain exceptions for the very best athletes especially in helmet sports. If you make it through pre read with coaches support, I would be confident.
Also be aware when looking at the rosters there are many kids that did take a gap year this year with COVID or will receive an extra season of eligibility. We were surprised to find out that where my son will be at next year had many that were taking a gap year. My DS was actually really excited that he will be able to run with some top talent and great leaders in the fall but it did surprise us a little.
We looked at Pomona as well and really liked the coach. He was very blunt about receiving 2 slots, with grades and SAT scores having to be in the 99% (this was right before COVID hit). My DS found a better fit in the NE, but the weather there sure was nice!
Surprisingly, we felt that the NESCAC’s required better academics/grades/test scores than the Ivies by a lot.
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Thank you very much for your advice! My son is actually doing sprint and hurdle. He is more agile than pure straight runner, so I told him to try hurdle. And I actually wanted him to try long jump as well. He may try it this year.
Yep, if they only have two slots, I am not expecting much. He just needs to work his best, I guess. You mentioned about pre-read. How do we know if a student passed the pre-read? Will the coach tell you? Passing the pre-read doesn’t mean that you made the slot, correct?
Yes, this is also true in my experience
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I was looking at Athletic.net , and noticed that Year 2020 competition level significantly declined. Like you said, many athletes must have either taken a gap year or taken a break from competing temporarily.
So Pomona requires the slot athletes to be 99 percentile in academics? That is hard to achieve!
The coaches let us know the results of the pre-read. A pre-read is just admissions saying yes/no/things to improve for admission. It is basically looking at you academically fitting into the school and gives the coach a choice to move on to the next step. A positive read does not guarantee admission, nor give you a spot on the team. The coach will decide how to precede once the pre-read is done. “Support” differs at different schools, some schools have more “pull” and have history of their supports getting in. ED application was required for support at the schools my son had pre-reads at. His decision was made by the end of July, but we did hold our breath until mid December when decisions came out.
Pomona coach was great about being honest of what he wanted/needed. However, with Pitzer being part of the team, there was some flexibility.
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In addition, most coaches obtain pre-reads for many more athletes than they have true slots. For schools that allow soft support, it gives the coach a better read on how to allocate slots and soft support letters. Further, the coaches know that most of their recruits are looking at multiple schools, especially their top recruits, so they want a deeper list of academically approved kids to work from as the recruiting season shakes out.
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