When my D talked with several schools during the fall, except for a couple, most said that their recruiting class is confirmed in April. Fall commitments are for the highly ranked athletes and then Spring is for all the other athletes…(the schools want to see how their spring season progresses). So my question do academically competitive schools recruit athletes after the application deadline? Will admissions give special consideration?
From what I’ve seen, the Ivies seem to have things pretty much wrapped up in the fall for track and field with many recruits applying Nov. 1 EA or ED, but as you say a lot of times it’s later (after the standard application deadline) at the scholarship D1 schools as coaches want to see how athletes do in the spring season.
Yes, that was my impression too. However, last year an athlete she knows committed to an ivy in May… or at least that is when it showed up on the mile split website. Maybe she had already submitted an application and was on the waitlist?
I wonder if that was someone who was admitted either EA/ED or RD and just made up their mind by the standard May 1 date? In that scenario it would make sense to show up on the Mile Split website in May.
^I think this is true. In addition, my understanding is that the date displayed on Milesplit is when the information about the college commitment was posted to the web site and not necessarily the date when the athlete made a verbal commitment or signed. The college commitments are mostly self-reported by the athletes to Milesplit so timing is all over the board. I don’t know that you can safely read much into how those dates correlate to recruiting/admissions timelines.
Showing up as having committed to a school on a sports blog has nothing to do with when the student did commit. Even at big D1 schools, the athletic commitmentioned may happen before the student is even admissions to the school. Early signing is around Nov 15, and some schools don’t issue admission until Feb.or later. Some students (or the school) don’t report commitments to the blog immediately.
My son’s experience is with D1 track, non-ivy, and schools do recruit well into senior year, so things are certainly not set yet. My son did not become a highly ranked recruit until his senior year. He had a mediocre junior year but a very strong indoor and outdoor season his senior year. Dialogue with the school he ultimately attended his freshman year did not begin until Feb. and he was approached at meets well into the early summer (after he graduated hs) by coaches, one of whom was an Ivy League coach, who was not aware than he had signed. So our experience was opposite of what you have been told, if you are a good enough performer coaches will “find” a place for you.
My son signed his NLI before he submitted an application to the school he attended. His app was not completed until over 2 months after the RD deadline for all apps had passed. We also know of another athlete who decided to attend a D1 academically strong school two days before fall classes started. He did not fill out an app at all, the athletic academic adviser signed him up for classes and all his parents did was submit a housing deposit. The caveat is that very late in the recruiting cycle there is no academic money left only athletic, but this does not even come into play for the ivy leagues.
We had the same experience and timing when my son transferred, he asked for permission to contact at the start of outdoor season and was having dialogue with D1 coaches for most of the spring, so keep up the contacts as there are still plenty of opportunities as athletes and coaches figure out plans. You will see/hear about hs athletes signing but coaches routinely recruit for track from transfers and community colleges ranks as well, so if your daughter is a solid performer there will still be opportunities.
As others have mentioned, the commits that you see online are generally self-reported. Could be the recruit you mentioned took the usual Ivy route and committed by the EA/ED deadline andreceived the LL but they weren’t comfortable putting it out there in a public forum until the official acceptance came through in April. Or she was accepted at the Ivy but was waiting to see what kind of scholarship money was available elsewhere.
EDIT:^ EA/ED notification is mid-Dec, RD is late March/early April.