I’m a high school senior ('24) and prospective student-athlete currently in discussions with a coach at a prestigious D3 school that issues likely letters to athletes.
Our relationship so far has been quite positive. The coach gathered my documents and submitted them for a pre-read, expecting the results to be back by early July. About ten days later, he sent an update stating that admissions asked him to re-submit the pre-read and he anticipated having the results in the same week. Now it’s been two weeks since that message, and I’m still in the dark.
I did reach out to him about a week ago for an update, but I haven’t received any response yet. This silence feels quite unusual given the coach’s expressed interest and our in-person meeting at the beginning of July. Notably, he’d mentioned in an earlier email that I would need to make a decision to commit once I receive the likely letter results, which makes me wonder why there would be any delay if he indeed has the results.
I’m confident in my academic profile: I have strong test scores and a rigorous course load that I believe would meet the school’s admission standards. However, the delay and lack of communication are starting to worry me.
Does anyone have insights or similar experiences they could share? Could this delay be a regular part of the process, or should I be concerned about it? And if anyone has advice on how to proceed or manage this uncertainty, I would truly appreciate it.
There is a chance that the coach has made another offer(s) and is just waiting to hear back from another recruit. He may have your pre-read results, but is waiting for more clarity before making you an offer. It all depends on where you stand on his list.
I wouldn’t hesitate to reach back out to him to get an update.
It’s totally understandable that you would feel concerned and it’s easy to speculate worst-case scenarios. @cltrising may be right, or they may be all sorts of other reasons - the coach is on vacation, the AO is on vacation, the AO is prioritizing other sports/athletes/whatever that has nothing to do with you, etc. It’s also worth noting (you can find this in other threads) that many D3 schools postponed their pre-read process somewhat this year, presumably waiting for the affirmative action decision and its impact on the college’s admissions policies.
The question I’d ask, if you want to dig and speculate more, is what “coach’s expressed interest” means. What has the coach actually said to you? Did he say “we will be making an offer to you, pending the pre-read results,” or “we’re submitting you for pre-read and then we’ll see where we are,” or something else? It is common for a coach to submit more students for pre-reads than he will end up offering, but the ratios there can vary quite a bit, and could just be to have some backups or to increase the coach’s selection options. I’d go back to what the coach said specifically to you before the pre-read to use that as guidance.
And yes, after a week, it seems totally fine to reach out again. If you need to be putting backup plans in motion, it’s fair to be asking at that cadence.
This happened to my son – things were progressing really well at the school (had been invited to spend time with the team, sit in on classes etc) – every indication was that my son was a top recruit and would get an offer. Then, mid July – radio silence. Repeated outreach (email, text) got zero response. My son’s high school coach had played at the school under this coach, and he reached out on my son’s behalf. Nothing.
So, we figured that the coach had moved on (without the decency to say so). My son continued with his recruiting, found another school he liked better, got an offer there and accepted.
Two weeks later, guess who called my son, with an offer? Yup, that 1st school.
The moral of the story – the silence may well have nothing to do with you. (It turned out admissions had paused all prereads and coaches were not allowed toake any offers while admissions sorted through the consequences of covid.) And, the silence does not mean all is lost. Hang in there!
I agree with previous posters that they’re focusing on other recruits. You’re clearly in the running or they would have stated that (at least that was our experience) - one of my friend’s daughter didn’t hear back until September - it was painful, but worked out in the end.