Hello-
My son has emailed with a few div 3 XC coaches. His race times are on the border of recruit and walk on. We will be visiting one of the schools soon, and the coach hasn’t responded to 2 of the emails my son sent. Is this common? Most other schools have responded, or had an email that said they were out of the office. His first email was early June, and sent a second last week. Should he try again?
Thanks for your thoughts.
What year is he? If he is a ‘24 D3 coaches are in the thick of getting that class sorted out and likely focused on their top recruits.
This thread is SO long, but despite being about swimming, a lot of the information will translate to XC since both are time based sports.
Most coaches will still meet with you if you are on campus though. Make sure you write Visit - (date)? On the subject. Also make sure to CC any assistant coaches if there are any. Do this for all communications.
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Also make sure the email goes to all the coaches not just head coach.
What’s the downside to continuing to email? I would imagine nothing. So why not?
Some coaches are disorganized. Some are not interested. But you won’t know what’s going on at this stage.
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This is pretty common, especially at a D3 school, where they typically have fewer resources and support staff. If your son is a ‘24 and hasn’t heard back after say 3 emails, probably time to put your energy elsewhere.
It’s also summer, which for xctf coaches is probably their only time off.
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Man, although I agree there’s good advice on that thread, I would never advise an inexperienced family to look there 
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I know…. I was conflicted. Maybe op can just ask their questions and we can answer them again. Would not hurt to have a cleaner thread.
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It’s not unusual for some coaches to be spotty with communication. Sometimes they’re disorganized, don’t check email much, not interested in a particular recruit, etc.
There can be other factors also. This is the time of year when contracts end/start and job search season when coaches are moving around. Web sites aren’t usually updated in real time to reflect those changes. It’s also the time of year when a lot of coaches check out for vacation and/or focus on other things (D3 coaching is sort of a side gig at a fair number of programs, and coaches have other full time jobs). Some schools consider recruiting applicants to the school part of the coaching job and others don’t, so sometimes it depends on the school.
If you’re not having luck contacting the XC coach you could reach out to the head track coach if it’s not the same person. At most colleges, XC is under the T&F umbrella so the head coach or Director of T&F is ultimately responsible for all the programs and the XC coach is technically an assistant track coach. This can get confusing when looking at websites, as the head track coach—who might be the sprint coach and never interact with distance or XC at all—will sometimes be listed as head XC coach. So try to identify who it is that actually coaches XC and if you can’t get in touch with them, try the head coach of track if it’s a different person.
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All great advice so far, I would just add grades and test score and any other academic info should be included - short and to the point.
As others said, customize the subject line at this point with visit date and then do the same with relevant updates.
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Thank you for the advice. My son will be a senior next year. He did add on the assistant coach for his second email to the school. Adding the date we will be visiting to the subject line is a great idea, I will suggest that to my son.
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There were at least 4 times (out of 12-15 visits) that my son wrote to a coach saying he would be visiting the school and the coach waited until the very last minute to confirm they would meet with him. These confirmations came as late as the car trip to the school. These were places where my son ranged from clearly solid to very strong on the recruit scale. I think it might be a method to confirm a real interest in the school.
Plan the visit, schedule the tour or info session, and about a week before you go, have your son let them know he will be on campus that day, and would be available before or after the tour/info session and would love a chance to talk about their program.
Of course, there is no guarantee the coaches will reach out, but it is good to visit some schools just to get a feel for what different college look like and talk about themselves.
It’s also possible the coaches are just taking some downtime. College coaching takes a lot out of people, so they need some time to re-charge.
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I should add that XCTF recruiting is typically later than most sports, especially at the D3 level. The higher profile D3 programs probably already have their top recruits identified. Lower level D3 programs recruit well into spring of senior year as recruits trickle down. And many D3 programs carry a very large roster of walk-ons. Maybe check the roster size for all the schools he’s interested in.
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I would also let the admissions people know that you play a sport and would like to meet with the coach. They can usually schedule a meeting as part of the visit day.
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If he is not doing so, he should add Name/Class/Time to his subject. Particularly if its new communication. He can also create a signature that includes some of these details plus contact info for his emails.
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We had one as we were driving back home… and nothing to do about it as we were trying to beat an incoming snow storm.
I’ll just chime in that yes, coaches can be incredibly unresponsive and not necessarily an indication of their true interest. My son received an email the day before we were due to arrive (despite sending messages months in advance) that scrambled everything as we had zero expectation that the coach was interested considering their non-responsiveness. It turned into his #1 pick and coach offered support, so you just really never know. A good 50% of my son’s contacts resulted in zero response (and stayed zero response) - interestingly some of the most reachest reaches - both on times and academically were incredibly responsive - kudos to Harvard’s coach who was amazingly responsive- some where he needed zero coach support for admissions as he was academically above the schools 75% and would be an impact swimmer immediately had no interest and never responded - it’s truly a crazy process!
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Thank you for your thoughts! This is so helpful.
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I would try calling. It is the summer. If you call, you might get a live person who could tell you, “oh, coach is on vacation.” You also could ask a live person about the best way to get in touch, such as a textable phone.
There could be a reason for the coach not getting back or no reason at all.
from our experience and for what is worth, responses ranged from
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Best (which my D didn’t get, but it’s happened to others): excited coach sees your times and wants to recruit you right away
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Direct & transparent: email response with cuts necessary to be recruited/considered.
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Standard: cut and paste information about the school and program, necessitating further follow-up with your own times, and questions about their refuting process
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Ignored: keep emailing, call after 4 unreturned e-mails to both head/asst coach
I agree you shouldn’t give up and that you need to be sure your times are in the subject line and you need to include all coaches when sending emails. Additionally I know that XC and track often have a much later recruiting timeline then many other sorts. However, I think it is also worth pointing out that sometimes no response is a response and it is often the most frustrating response.
In the recruiting process I had to continually remind my daughter that she couldn’t fall in love with a school because there are so many variables outside your control. Remember it is often best to go where you are wanted.
Good luck to your son and enjoy this exciting time period as much as possible.
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I wonder if number 4 (calling after 4 unanswered emails) ever worked out in the positive for you? We were never advised to nor did my daughter ever try to cold call a coach so it is interesting to read that some people do that. What were the responses to and net outcomes of a cold call?
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