<p>S1 was a recruit at F&M several years ago. Coach would not come out and say he was using a tip, but did call before ED2 decisions came out to make sure it was still his first choice. Probably didn't want to waste his.</p>
<p>interesteddad</p>
<p>Seems to depend upon the sport.</p>
<p>I've only second hand knowledge about this, but lacrosse recruiting info is very public and it seems the coaches very explicit with what they can and can not do (including things like (an ivy coach) telling a kid to take a PG year and that he'd get in for sure the next year). Schools (including UVA and JH) have kids committed starting Sep 1 of their junior year and it continues from there. Recruits, the schools they are interested in/that express interest in them are tracked online at places like LaxPower, Inside LaCrosse, Takkle.com and Lax to the Max. So too are the commitments as they are made. </p>
<p>It is a relatively small community with a large percentage of the top teams/players centered in and about MD and NY.</p>
<p>Most of the top players seem to know where they are going before senior year starts, be it to the ivys, or Hopkins, Duke, UVA or someplace else. A Coach/AD would be committing recruiting suicide to fail to deliver on a promise in that sport. For example, two Hudson Valley Empire Games players committed to Williams last summer. If either of the two did not get in ED, coach simply wouldn't be able to recruit the area going forward.</p>
<p>Seems like OP's kid was treated poorly by coach in case cited. Perhaps there just isn't enough work of mouth in this sport for it to matter to the coach?</p>
<p>
[quote]
For example, two Hudson Valley Empire Games players committed to Williams last summer.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's probably an NCAA violation.</p>
<p>This is why Division III is on the road to getting blown apart. It was supposed to be a student-athlete division, really modelled on the walk-on athlete. Recruiting has gotten so out of hand that commitments are being made far in advance like that and every position on every team is a recruited athlete.</p>
<p>Somebody, somewhere is going to raise the issue of athletic budgets as schools start to cut academic programs during the economic downturn.</p>
<p>You can committed on Sept 1st of your junior year. I didn't commit until Sept of my SENIOR year but I know a lot of athletes who committed on the first day available (sept 1st)</p>
<p>What I have heard is that athletic depts have a little more weight in ED round than in RD, but that typically they don't give up the farm so early in case other Ivy recruits or "get in on your own and we'd love to have you" prospects come their way. Certainly, it is to a student's benefit to be as close to a school's admission standards as possible. However, I think there is some sway/weight/bump for the kid who is a great student who is also an athlete, perhaps even more so if he is two-sport top athlete. Still. it's good to remember that in this market of a gazillion kids applying to college, nothing is a given in a DIII or Ivy.</p>
<p>Machiavelli, that's for D1, not D3. </p>
<p>The lax players' apps were probably given pre-reads by admissions. I think the "pre-reads" are pretty common at some NESCAC schools for some sports.</p>
<p>Here's the Swarthmore link I promised. This is the 2006 annual update required by the whole process surrounding the elimination of football in 2006. The main reason that football was dropped is that the Athletic Department said they needed 30% of the freshman slots to field competitive teams. The college said 15%, tops. The AD said no way. The College said, OK we'll then let's start cutting teams until we can support the remaining teams competitively with 15% of the slots in the freshman class for recruited athletes admitted with consideration of their sports. Football, requiring 20 recruits per class, was the obvious choice for elimination.</p>
<p>The tradeoff was a stronger committment to athletics with more tips divided among the mens and women's teams. That has slowly happened with Swarthmore making it to the round of 16 in the NCAA soccer championships this year, with their first all-american in recent memory. These annual updates were part of the bargain.</p>
<p>The admissions discussion is on page 7, complete with an interesting blurb on the lack of diversity in Div III athletics.</p>
<p>The admissions data is on the final page of the report, page 15.</p>
<p>You can commit to any team you want. Doesn't mean a thing. Doesn't even mean you'll get into the school. I know a kids who were committed to BC, and some who are committed to BC (as far as I know). Until that letter of intent has been signed and the official acceptance from the school released, it means nothing. One kid I knew who committed to BC was not accepted. He had to do a year elsewhere, keeping up with his sport privately to keep his eligibility and then got into BC after getting decent grades in another college. The last time I talked to the mom of the kid who is committed to BC (and it is on a public forum since the sport is football), she was on pins and needles as to whether BC was going to come through.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>NLI is for D1/D2</p>
<p>as I said before, Lacrosse recruiting is rather public</p>
<p>LaxPower</a> Recruits Databases</p>
<p>Recruiting</a> Roundup: Junior Verbal Commitment List Update | IL Blog Central</p>
<p>Players are often recruited by both D1 and D3. It is inconceivable that they make commitments w/o firm offers. No other reason to stop the other coaches from recruiting them.</p>
<p>Every school that has been interested in my son has now asked for his transcripts, current grades, and test scores (even those he is not officially submitting). Is this considered a pre-read? In other conversations w/ other schools, they had not asked for grades, only tape. So I am assuming that if they want his grades, their pretty interested. However, s picked his schools and was already going to apply regardless before approaching coaches.</p>
<p>As this admissions deadline looms, it would be nice to know if any of them are, in the end, going to support his application. I think that mostly only means they'll put him in a slightly different pile, but he has to have the rest going for him as well, which he does, some more strongly than others. And I also hope that none come back and say he needs to apply EDII unless it is from his #1, and even then I'm not convinced. </p>
<p>This is so not fun. And it's sucking all the energy out of the holidays around here.</p>
<p>Modadunn, the "pre-reads" that I was referring to involved the entire application including essays. I know of five kids who did this for NESCAC football. They all applied ED 1 after getting a thumbs up on the pre-read.</p>
<p>When my son was talking to several NESCAC coaches (and one other D3 coach) for another sport, each coach asked for transcript, scores and tape. In his case these were definitely not pre-reads - it was really just so the coach would have an idea of his academic stats.</p>
<p>Idad- I think Swarthmore's analysis and decision was something many elite colleges should do. They should be commended for their honest approach to this subject.</p>
<p>In my son's case, three coaches gave him what they specifically called pre-reads, and these did not involve the entire application. They took his transcript and test scores and showed them to admissions, then got back to us with what admissions said was his chance for admission and what he might need to do to improve it. These were two Centennial Conference and one Liberty League schools. In two of the cases, they said they could support him and offer best chance of admission in the ED round, but no promises. As one of them was his top choice, he did ED and got in.</p>
<p>interesteddad: Thank you (sincerely) for all the info and links. If only all the DIII institutions were as open and transparent about the recruiting process as Swat and Williams appear to be! As a lacrosse recruit who will be looking at NESCAC and Centennial Conference schools next year, this is really valuable stuff.</p>
<p>tom1944:</p>
<p>Football is the elephant in the living room at every small liberal arts college, and many small universities like Dartmouth, Rice, etc. There isn't an admissions officer in the country who doesn't know the extent to which the academic missions of these schools are being undermined by the need to recruit and admit football players at 20 different specialty positions.</p>
<p>In Swarthmore's case, a viable football program meant devoting 10% of all male enrollment slots to recruited football players. That has repurcussions across every aspect of campus life. In fact, it can't help but define the campus culture, especially because it undermines the effort put into recruiting a diverse student body.</p>
<p>The problem is that colleges aren't even allowed to discuss whether football makes sense. Swarthmore took it on the chin. One of their board members was Neil Austrian, former President of the National Football League. He went ballistic. There are still many alumni who won't consider giving to Swarthmore again until the current President is gone.</p>
<p>One of the worst decisions Swarthmore ever made! It's gone
downhill ever since.</p>
<p>The irony is that getting rid of football has started to positively impact the other sports. For years, football bled the other sports dry consuming the bulk of the tips. Eight years later, using those tips for other mens and womens sports has started to pay some dividends. The other irony is that student support for the sports teams is also on the rise, with a successful student contest for a new sports mascot and big attendance at the conference and NCAA soccer tournaments hosted at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>Of course, Swarthmore's always had a love-hate relationship with football. Back in 1984, they fired the coach after a string of undefeated seasons.</p>
<p>I am serious when I say that people are going to start asking questions about athletic budgets at a number of LACs as academic programs start being sliced over the next 12 months. It hasn't happened yet, but it is inevitable. I don't think it's really dawned on alumni just how the deep the coming cuts will be.</p>
<p>Interesteddad - I hate to make promises, but I think Swat's basketball team will soon be improved if you get my drift. My son can't wait to put on a Swarthmore uniform and play his heart out for Coach Wimberly!</p>
<p>Interesting thread. My son is a freshman at a NESCAC school, and we went through our own version of "recruiting" (which isn't a very good description of the process in his case) last year. Among other colleges, he met with 3 NESCAC coaches. None of them promised him anything, all of them said things to the effect of being able to express their desire to admissions on behalf of an athlete, but didn't imply that would be a decisive factor in admission. All wanted his grades/test scores. One said "Admissions likes to see all SAT subsection scores and subject test scores around 730 or higher."</p>
<p>Just as a point of interest, after S submitted his ED app the coach asked him to call when he heard whether he was accepted or not. Then said something about how he wasn't allowed to communicate with S about admissions at that point or something like that. It wasn't totally clear, but I got the direct impression the coach did <em>not</em> know how the admissions decisions would ultimately go for the students on his "list."</p>
<p>I think the way the OP's daughter was dealt with is rather appalling.</p>
<p>re#67</p>
<p>Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Columbia, and Dartmouth they all send out likely letters - not sure about Penn and Cornell. Were told by the Stanford coach that they do not use likelies but athletes at the top of their list are expected to apply EA and hear in December.</p>