First time poster here. I’m posting because I’m a little nervous about my situation, and I’m wondering if anyone has experience with this.
First of all I’m international, entering college in fall 2018). I’ve contacted a number of schools and found my ideal college (I know you should always have multiple choices but still, this is an elite school with a DI team, and there’ll be room for me at my position), I’ve exchanged around 20 e-mails with the head coach (and had a call with the assistant coach). Our conversation sort of ended with him saying I should send my annual report and ACT score when I recieve them, but that he was very interested in me. I’ve done both - sent him my grades (converted GPA of 3.9) and my ACT composite of 33 almost two weeks ago. From my research around this topic, my academic achievements should be good enough for practically any school, but I haven’t recieved a response from the coach in almost two weeks.
Are coaches on holiday in July?
When should I write another email?
I agree with @Chembiodad…junior nationals just ended and some coaches are going straight into High Performance coaching. But maybe send another email just to make sure the coach received your scores. It seems odd there was no response at all.
Its hard to believe that an elite school with a D1 team has any slots left to fill going into Senior year - Ivy and Patriot League schools come to mind in that category. Even D3 conferences such as NESCAC are deep into pre-reads of their top picks for slots needed.
You’re entering college in 14 months. And you’re upset that the coach hasn’t gotten back to you in 2 weeks?
Maybe he’s busy with the incoming freshman class.
Maybe he just got married.
Maybe he and his wife jush ad a baby.
Maybe his dad died.
Maybe he’s simply on vacation.
Maybe he sent your stuff to admissions and simply doesn’t have the answers you want.
I don’t think that sending an email a week will accomplish anything other than to give you a reputation-- and not the kind of reputation you want. You’ve exchanged 20 emails with him, and haven’t even applied to his school yet?
I’m not in the Phys Ed department, but this seems kind of excessive to me.
@bjkmom, frequency of response really doesn’t mean much as some may keep in touch with student athletes that they have little intention of recruiting simply because they are rooting for them to find a spot somewhere, others barely say a word as they put together their team.
@volleyballer123, I wouldn’t worry quite yet. Is the coach running camps this month, by any chance? Going to U.S. club matches? If he’s exchanged 20 emails with you, our experience (in a different sport) is that you’re on his board, and he wants to recruit you. He is getting to the point, though, that he needs to make you an offer, so I wouldn’t let it drag on too much longer before you either follow up or write him off. Also, it could easily take two or more weeks to get a response from admissions this time of year.
I also would encourage you to ignore snippy responses that refer to a “Phys Ed” department, as anyone with experience in athletic recruiting knows that a phys ed department, whatever that is, is completely irrelevant.
It’s a different world now than even a few years ago. My daughter sent in a questionnaire because I read that a school was adding her sport. That was the end of July. I bet by the end of Aug that my daughter had exchanged 25 or more emails and texts with the coach, and the coach wasn’t even at the school yet. She was in another state, having a baby! D got texts about the baby, pictures, stats, and we hadn’t even been to look at the school yet.
Even now, daughter gets a bunch of texts from the coach every week. She even gets them from an old coach who left this year.
As @planit noted, pre-reads are happening NOW through generally the end of August, and then D1 official visits and D3 overnights are scheduled in September and happen through the Fall so make sure you are working with 3, 4, 5 coaches - if you haven’t heard back in the next month it generally means they have moved on.
@bjkmom makes a good point - that there are any number of possible reasons that the coach hasn’t gotten back to the OP. However, there is that other reason that @chembiodad points out that also could be the reason - that the coach was corresponding with an athlete further down on his or her list, and the coach has filled out the available spots. Rather than committing to not being interested at this point in time (one never knows when another chair will need to be filled), the coach simply doesn’t respond. This is a real thing. Coaches do “speak” by not responding, and it can cause anxiety for the athletes. Incidentally, I am not for a moment suggesting that this is the case, it is just another possible reason for the coach not responding.
Unlike bjkmom, I am a firm believer in figuring out exactly where you stand. Emails are great, but they also easy to ignore. Why don’t you give the coach a call and ask whether the coach is interested, and if so, find out where you fall on his or her list. Learning what seems like bad news is not necessarily a bad thing. It allows you to focus on other options that may end up being better in the long run.
@gointhruaphase, absolutely agree as our DD has a classmate who experienced this same sudden stoppage of communication mid-summer; as advised, she had other paths in place, was able to pivot to another school, and it’s all worked out.
That said, doing nothing and waiting would have likely resulted in an unpleasant outcome - silence is not golden in recruiting…
Absolutely, if your kid was looking for a job, you would not advise applying for only one opening. To be sure, an important part of the process is learning how to market yourself. Another part, however, is keeping an open mind and choosing a path. Having several options is a good thing. It is just as important for an athlete as a coach having 40 athletes on his or her list in July to whittle down to 5 recruits by September.