<p>I've read some contradictory posts regarding OVs for DIII (swimming specifically). Do schools allowed to pay for transportation or not? And how many are you allowed? I've tried to look up the NCAA website, but could not find anything pertaining to DIII. The schools we are interested in are all on the East Coast and we are on the West Coast. If they don't pay, it will be prohibitively expensive for us to go, especially when we can only see one school per weekend during the fall as we can not do a summer tour due to schedule conflict. Any light on this would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>DIII schools can not pay for transportation. They can house your kid on campus, provide meals, and entry to athletic events–essentially anything they would provide for a non-athlete student doing an overnight.</p>
<p>I’m surprise when I looked this up because I thought it was NOT permitted as well. </p>
<p>However, air transportation appears to be permitted. I got this straight off the NCAA Publications website under D3 and 2012. I would call the NCAA at 877/262-1492 just to verify.</p>
<p>Air Transportation Bylaw 13.5.2.3 (page 83) of the D3 Manual Constitution, Operating Law and Administrative bylaws states that :</p>
<p>"The airfare for commercial transportation for the official visit may not exceed coach (or comparable) class. Coaching staff members shall not accompany a prospective student-athlete to or from an official visit when air travel is used, except as permitted in Bylaw 13.5.2.4. <a href=“Revised:%201/10/95%20effective%208/1/95”>R</a></p>
<p>NCAA PUblications linked page: <a href=“http://ncaapublications.com/p-4226-2011-2012-division-3-manual-august-2011.aspx[/url]”>http://ncaapublications.com/p-4226-2011-2012-division-3-manual-august-2011.aspx</a></p>
<p>[NCAA</a> D3 Detailed Manual](<a href=“http://www.ncaapublications.com/DownloadPublication.aspx?download=D312.pdf]NCAA”>http://www.ncaapublications.com/DownloadPublication.aspx?download=D312.pdf)</p>
<p>Whether or not the school offers transportation may be another matter altogether.</p>
<p>Thanks fenwaysouth for that prompt reply. Of course, they have to bury it under the thick manual. I thought the manual was for the coaches and they would have something short for prospective student-athletes. Anyway, I will call NCAA and report back the answer.</p>
<p>I never knew ANY of this! I thought in D3 there weren’t any “official” visits, just “recruiting weekends” that you might be invited to…and therefore we would have to foot the transportation bill. Would appreciate any info that you dig up, techmom! my d is not interested in any schools further away than about 4-5 hours drive, but still! I didn’t even think to ask and would like to know the rules.</p>
<p>techmom13</p>
<p>No problem, and glad to help. I have a 2013 that is looking at D3 baseball as a possibility…so I wanted to know the I answer too. I thought I did know the answer after having gone through the recruiting guantlet before, but I didn’t. That is why this site rocks!</p>
<p>Please keep in mind that typical D3 recruiting & operating budgets are slim to none, and those budgets pale in comparision to typical D1 schools. So even though it may be allowed, they may not be able to offer it or only use it in rare cases. I know in our case that my oldest son was not offered transportation from Virginia to New England as a few NESCACs offered OVs.</p>
<p>You’re right on fenwaysouth. I called the NCAA. They said the schools can pay for transportation, but it’s up to them to offer one or not. That explained why people on this site has said both ways. I guess that would be one way of gauging how badly they want you.</p>
<p>Thanks for making the call and sharing, techmom, and thanks for reading the fine print, fenway! Yikes, always more to learn.</p>
<p>Remember that colleges --any college can bring a potential candidate to campus (many have programs for example for URMs or FGCs) and thus an athlete would not be excluded from having the college do what it could do for any other applicant. That being said–very few if any DIII will pay transportation coats because their budgets will not permit it–as has been written above ^. While a DIII might not use the OV designation as it has specific NCAA definitions associated with it, many have “recruiting weekends” (NESCAC schools do, for example) during which the recruits are put up and meet with students, coaches, administration liaisons and to get a sense of the college and for the coach to get a sense of them. Most high school athletes will refer to such visits as OVs (if for no other reason as to obtain official permission from the HS administrators to miss school to attend the event).</p>
<p>Are NESCAC coaches only allowed to speak to an athlete on campus? Hockey coach made a comment to my DD that she could only speak to her when she was on campus.</p>
<p>02hockeymom,</p>
<p>It depends what year your D is. </p>
<p>A D3 college coach may begin to have off campus contact with you and your parents/legal guardians off the college’s campus after your junior year. You may make unlimited number of unofficial visits any time for D3. You may make official visits for D3 starting the opening day of classes your senior year. You may make only 1 OV per college.</p>
<p>This straight out of the NCAA College Bound Athlete 2012 on page 23. This may be a good document for you to “google”, download and review.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>^ NESCAC has it’s own recruiting rules which are more strict than the general NCAA DIII rules … I would not be surprised at all if they had stricter limitations on coach’s communications with recruits. </p>
<p>(The NESCAC / DIII dynamic is very similar to the IVY / DI set-up … with additional league specific recruiting and academic requirements of recruits compared to the NCAA rules).</p>
<p>3togo,</p>
<p>I know NESCAC has very specific admissions requirements related to potential athletes. I 'm very familiar with that. However, as it relates to “contact” it would not make sense to me if the NESCAC schools deviated from the NCAA D3 contact policies. In other words, why would they (NESCACs) want to put themselves in a disadvantaged position when it comes to contacting athletic recruits. Ivy’s use the same “contact” rules and calendar as traditoinal D1s. Of course, where Ivys are different than traditional D1s is in the Admissions process for potential athletes. </p>
<p>IF the NESCACs do have a different “contact” policy, I would think they would post it on their website. I couldn’t find it.</p>
<p>[NESCAC</a> Admissions](<a href=“http://www.nescac.org/admissions/admissions]NESCAC”>http://www.nescac.org/admissions/admissions)
[NESCAC</a> Prospectives](<a href=“http://www.nescac.org/admissions/prospectives]NESCAC”>http://www.nescac.org/admissions/prospectives)</p>