CA Senior, senior transfer to private to play football [3.98, 35, business, <$60k]

Chance Me / Match Me!
,
1

Demographics

  • US domestic :US citizen
  • State/Location of residency: CA resident
  • Type of high school : public school freshman to junior , senior transfer to private school to be a starting QB
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional):
  • Other special factors *(first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.) Previous high school had D1 football team with top QB in the country which significantly limited my play time. Therefore the senior transfer to a private school to pursue my football dream.

Intended Major(s)
Business or undecided

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.98
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.54 out of 4
  • Class Rank: N/A
  • ACT/SAT Scores: ACT 35 (first time)

Coursework

AP Chinese : 4
AP Environment Science: 4
AP World History: 5
AP Human Geography: 5
AP English Language: 4
AP Psychology: 4
AP US History: 4
AP Statistics : current
AP Literature: current
AP Gov & Econ : current

Language: AP Chinese (4), currently taking 3rd year Spanish.

Awards
–AP Scholar with Distinction
– High school Principal’s honor roll
– Football league academic team
– High school scholars artist award
– High school PTSA Academic Award of Excellence
– Outstanding soloist (Jazz festival)
– High School Award for outstanding musicianship
– High School Jazz Band most Spirited Award
– President Volunteer Service Award : Gold for freshman and sophomore year, silver for junior)

Extracurriculars

– Varsity Football (Starter QB)
– Piano Certificate of Merit Level 10 (highest level)
– Jazz Band (from middle school to current Advance High School Band)
– Student Board Member and branch president of a non profit organization serves youth on Autism spectrum.
– Founder and Team captain of Neighborhood Teen Volunteer program.
– President of high school Sport Injury Prevention Club.
– Member of California Scholarship Federation.
– Member of a group of student musician perform at local senior centers.
– Member of a non profit providing extended education on math and English to students from 2nd to 8th grades.

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)

Will have LOR from previous and current high school.

Cost Constraints / Budget

Unlikely to get football scholarship due to the limited play time I had in the previous years.
Parents are willing to pay $60K annually.

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)

  • Safety:
    – UWash
    – Purdue
    – Ohio State

  • Likely
    – UIUC

  • Match
    – Pitzer College

  • Reach
    – Uni. of NC Chapel Hill
    – UMich Ann Arbor
    – UW Madison
    – Uni. of Florida
    – Wake Forest
    – Bowdoin College
    – Carleton College
    – Dartmouth College
    – Northwestern

Debating on ED because I am still hoping/dreaming about being recruited to play college football, thoughts??

2

You make it sound like you are full pay. If so, sub out Michigan for IU, similar in prestige level, under budget and you’d be direct admit automatically. Madison will be tight but UMN would be great or for a football fanatic, Culverhouse at Bama is solid abd you’d be all in low 20s. Or Arizona, mid to high 20s. Eller is wonderful too if you go business.

For the same reason (cost) drop Wake - unlikely for merit and replace with Furman). Bowdoin, Dartmouth, Northwestern and Carleton need to go. They have no merit aid. But there are many schools that do. Instead of Carleton, neighboring St Olaf or Macalester. Or not far Grinnell. Instead of Dartmouth and NU, maybe Syracuse and Denver. Elon too.

Bowdoin - how about Depauw, Connecticut, Kalamazoo or many others.

Have a great season. Maybe you’ll shine and walk on somewhere.

3

Really evaluate your football eligibility. IF it was just a matter of playing time and packaging by an AD, perhaps consider a year of prep school as a post grad. With your academics and EC’s you would likely get into a top school if there is an athletic match as well.

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4

Thank you!!

So dropping UMich, NU, Dartmouth and Wake were due to cost constraint or academic as well?

I know it is very late in the recruiting game, should I forgo ED and still try to see what happens after the season?

5

Please advise on what ‘prep school’ is and any age limit ? ( I am turning 18 in December).

6

Have you talked with your coaches regarding recruitment? Gone through the process of NCAA registration, reached out to coaches, etc.? Do you have nibbles already?

Are you thinking of playing at a D3 school? (I note that it is very late for D2 or D1.)

Here’s the thing: it is rare that the school with the perfect academic/size/location is also the school that recruits you. So think carefully about what compromises you would be willing to make. You do have your whole life and career to prepare for (those days after football is long over). On the other hand, you will never get another chance to play college football.

So, that said, would you attend University of Puget Sound over Carleton if you could play football? Or Central Washington or Eastern Washington instead of University of Washington? (On that subject, I don’t think UW will come in under $60k for a nonresident; University of Oregon might, though.)

If so, be prepared for a bifurcated (and possibly exhausting) application season, focused on reaching out to one list of football schools while simultaneously creating a list of best fit schools where football is not possible and putting together great applications for both. During your senior season. It might be best to pick one academic reach school and two others you really like and are easier to get into, plus the two most promising football options to keep your list manageable.

Ask your guidance counselor and coaches to give you their honest opinions.

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7

Purely on cost (assuming you are full pay). If you do business, Indiana is auto admit for you and is #7 in the rankings (if that matters to you). With merit, I bet you can get to $50K.

Furman has a solid business program and you’d get mad merit. If you like a Southern private, it’s a great school. Elon too but it’d be more.

With the LACs and Dartmouth - there are sub schools too.

Good luck.

PS - no one has to ED. That’s a choice. And not necessary and takes away the ability to compare merit offers and some would argue (I would) that it could cost you merit offers because why give money to someone who is bound. As for how your football career might play out, you’d be better to talk to a coach. I can’t assess your talent
but I wish you luck.

Here’s more about IU Kelley - which is a safety for you.

Undergraduate Program

Bloomington

#8

Overall

#4 Accounting
#10 Business Analytics
#6 Entrepreneurship
#7 Finance
#23 International Business
#7 Management
#7 Management Information Systems
#3 Marketing
#12 Production/Operations Management
#14 Supply Chain

U.S. News & World Report Best Undergraduate Business Programs 2023

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8

What has your recruiting journey looked like so far? Any possibilities? If you want to play college football, you cannot ED anywhere else.

9

I think OP is that player (hopefully star player) that has to be discovered because he never had the chance to play - hence the transfer - so recruiting wise it’s likely unknown til he can show his stuff.

10

If you are willing to consider a D3 school, you might be able to walk-on to the football team. Check - as walk on opportunities have shrunk even at the D3 schools. But with your grades/scores, you could get into a highly ranked liberal arts D3 school for academics, and likely find your way onto the football team. Many small colleges still struggle to field a team at the D3 level.

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11

Recruiting is often a years long process. Yes, game film is important, but there are many opportunities for non-starters to be seen. Training film, skill camps, ID camps, showcases, etc. Hopefully OP has been taking the necessary steps to be seen. If he has what it takes to be a college level player, coaches will see that.

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12

Congrats on all your achievements.

This is what we need to help you:

1- Get us up to speed on where you are with recruiting.
2- Are you going to be the starting QB this season at your new school?
3-At what level do you realistically think you can play? Does it depend on this year’s performance?
4-Get highlight film from every game, every week. Upload it to HUDL or YouTube, and Twitter.
5-You need a Twitter profile with a description of your stats, both academic and athletic, and a two minute highlight reel (doesn’t have to be all game time, some can be running the 40, lifting, agility) So Twitter profile = something like QB with 3.98 GPA, 35 ACT. XXX 40 yard dash. XXX bench. Whatever else showcases your strengths.
6-Follow programs and coaches of interest on twitter. Don’t tweet or re-tweet anything controversial.
7-Start contacting coaches via email as soon as you have some good film.

If you want to be recruited, you probably can (assuming you are the starter this year), but it will take some time to play out. Tons of guys won’t commit until after football season/later in the year, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. It might not be at the most selective schools where recruiting goes relatively later, but that’s going to your decision if/how long to pursue football recruiting. Some coaches aren’t going to have a good handle on who is coming back for their covid year/who’s going to transfer until mid year, best case.

You do need a separate list of schools that you would apply to regardless of football. If you want to ED to one of those you can, but you give up recruiting if you are accepted.

Someone mentioned doing a PG (post-grad) year
that would be at a prep school with a reasonably strong football program with a history of sending players to college football. You would need to contact those coaches this Fall as well (basically same process as with the college coaches) if that’s of interest. The downside of that is $$$ for another year of HS, with recruiting still uncertain. Is you current coach of any help in recruiting for college, or identifying PG schools and opportunities?

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13

Why are there no Universities of California on your list? Also, what about SJSU? As a former Stanford graduate student, I do recall Cal having a pretty decent team (and am well aware that Cal currently has the Stanford Axe), and I also recall Stanford playing SJSU each year with SJSU usually putting in a pretty good show.

Your unweighted GPA is obviously excellent. Your ACT score is excellent. I am wondering about Stanford as a possible reach. I do understand that Cal and Stanford currently are not sure what football league they are in, but I would be confident that they will figure out something. Stanford might exceed your budget. So might a few others on your list (eg, Bowdoin, Northwestern). You might want to run the NPCs. Stanford does of course have athletic scholarships, although getting one might be tough given your lack of playing time up to now.

I am not confident that the University of Washington out of state is a safety. While it may be likely, “safety” would not be my guess. I am not sure whether Ohio State or Purdue would be safeties either. You need to make sure that you have solid safeties that you can afford and would be happy to attend.

Bowdoin is a great school. Why would you want to go that far for a great LAC, when you have great LAC’s closer to home? I know that Bowdoin has a football team (and have driven by the field 100+ times). Is this likely to be a better fit for you compared to schools that are not as far away? Have you run the NPC for Bowdoin and is it likely to fit the budget? [The NPC for Bowdoin was not encouraging for us, but we did not have football as an option.]

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14

Have been to many showcase and college camps, they all want game film. That’s why the transfer, this is my one and only chance.

15

Have been to many showcases and camps. Many coaches showed interest but they all ask for game film.

Yes, I am the starting QB this year (finally) and have the highlight for all the games so far.

Yes I have twitter account.

My private coach ( a highly respected QB coach) said I do have the talent but need experience.

I do plan to reach out to coaches and send my game films after the third game of the season.

What college list do you recommend?

16

I am going to respond only for Bowdoin. My guess is that you would be an attractive candidate. While NESCAC is strong in many sports, football isn’t one of them, so you might fit into the program with less experience. They also value kids who can fill different roles on campus, and of course are also strong students. It would help enormously to have coach support, and if you do, you will need to apply ED. This puts you late in the process. But here’s the rub – it’s going to be over budget.

My guess is that most D3 schools would welcome you as a walk on, so keep in touch with coaches and share film as you get it. It’s going to be hard to get coach support for admissions with your timeline (because the quid pro quo for that support is ED) but you will want to be on their radar if you want to walk on. Because of cost, you want to consider the D3 schools that have merit. Folks have mentioned some of them upthread, but you might want to look at Union, Denison, Grinnell, Muhlenberg, Dickinson, Gettysburg to name a few.

With the big state schools, I would guess you are going to have to get in on your own and then try to walk on.

As mentioned, you could do a PG year at a prep school with a decent football program (Exeter, Lawrenceville, Taft, Canterbury are a few that come to mind), but that will cost the same as a year of college. It would, however, get you more experience and a chance to approach recruiting a bit differently.

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17

UCs are unpredictable and top tier UC are “ super reach” for me academically. But I don’t believe I have a chance to play football there. As for Stanford, they prefer a QB bigger in size.

I haven’t run NPC.

Bowdoin, Carlton showed interest in me at the camps

Close by LAC means Pomona? Again, it is a “ super reach” academically.

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18

I don’t know enough to make a good football list, but your list without football/maybe football seems ok, but run the net price calculators as others have said. If you won’t get need based aid, schools like Bowdoin won’t be $60k.

I would consider a PG year, if affordable, especially if you potentially are non-Ivy D1 caliber.

No less reachy than Bowdoin and the rest of its peers.

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19

Why wait that long? Do it after the first game, unless you have a bad showing. And weekly thereafter. It is late in the game, and you can bet other recruits are updating weekly.

Good luck to you!

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20

I was told by my private coach and some of the college coaches to send film after the third game to show consistency.

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