D3 Football Admissions Help?

Athletic Recruits
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<p>So I have been in contact with a couple college coaches til now and a couple of them seem very interested but I am unsure of how much admissions help they can offer me. Is it appropriate to ask? </p>

<p>Sometimes I feel like the conversations I have had with the coaches are dragging along by my weekly progress reports. They all have told me to come visit but I haven't had time to due to school/football/etc. Do they want to meet me first before they decide on if they will offer me what people call a tip or slot?</p>

<p>These schools I have been contacting are highly selective Liberal Arts D3 schools.</p>

<p>I have put up very good numbers as a WR in my first two games and produced a early highlight film.</p>

<p>Can someone give me advice on what I can do in situation?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

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<p>What year are you?</p>

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<p>I am a senior, Class of 2014</p>

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<p>Fballer11 - Congratulations on the interest you’ve generated from these schools and on a strong start to the season!</p>

<p>A few comments from our experience:</p>

<p>First, never be afraid to ask a direct question. You may not get a direct answer, but that may be because the coach may not know the answer yet. No coach worth playing for will get offended by a question you ask.</p>

<p>It’s early in the year. These coaches are at the start of their own season and are a bit distracted at the moment. I would expect them to become more definitive in their interest in you as their seasons near an end and they begin to focus on recruiting for next year’s class. Some coaches start earlier than others (November or so), others much later (January). Be patient. Have a strong season, keep updating them on your academic and athletic progress and stress your interest in their school. Send them an early season highlight tape after the first 4 games or so. Again, be patient.</p>

<p>If you live in the Northeast, take a drive on some Saturdays to visit the schools and see them play. Make sure the coaches know you’re coming and that you’re there, even if you see their team play at another school.</p>

<p>If you live farther away, don’t worry. Coaches know you have games on Friday night and that you can’t make it to their school during season.</p>

<p>Focus on raising your Academic Index, if possible. NESCAC and D3 schools may not formally use the AI but they all use a similar formula to rank players’ academics. It’s easier for them to recruit you if they don’t have to push so hard with Admissions. And yes, these coaches do have sway with Admissions and can help. The amount of help varies depending on the coach and school, and most importantly on how much the coach wants you.</p>

<p>Our experience is that many of the NESCAC schools may not show true interest/offers until January. Then they may take your transcript to Admissions for a read, call to gauge your interest in their school, and invite you on visits. Some schools pay for different things, some don’t offer overnight stays on campus.</p>

<p>For the types of schools you’re looking at, try to narrow down the list to 2 or 3 you’re most interested in. IMPORTANT: Schools that want you will want you to apply Early Decision (1 or 2). They will only show real interest in you if you show real interest in them. Most, if not all, schools will only throw their full support behind you when you tell them definitively that you are coming if you get admitted, and they will tell you this. They will say that Admissions says thing look good and when you’re ready tell them you’re coming and they’ll talk more to Admissions. You can string along a few backup schools for only so long. Again, all of this may not occur until January or so.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>

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<p>FBaller11, if you are a senior class of 2014 I’m going to have a very different answer for you. The football schools are recruiting NOW and you are going to have to light a fire under yourself ASAP. The NESCACS football programs started making offers to top players over the summer, and are making them right now. November is going to be on the late side, most programs hope to fill the majority of their slots in ED1 and only then fill through ED2.</p>

<p>Have you been filling out questionnaires? Have you indicated strong interest in any schools to the coaches? Right now if you are not making very pointed inquiries about whether there is any interest in your film or recruiting you, coaches WILL presume that you are probably talking to other programs at this juncture. Overnight visits for game days in the NESCACS just started with the first game of the season. Football players may also already have been for campus visits, starting with junior days last spring through camps this summer, and even early admissions interviews and pre-reads with admissions were going on in August and now.</p>

<p>You said “a couple of schools” - you’re going to have to be bolder now than that. Do the schools who have indicated some interest (“come visit campus”) have your transcripts and SAT/ACT scores, as well as your video? Also, the short answer is no, schools like to see you as a sign of interest and to lay eyeballs on you, but you really don’t need to visit campus to be recruited. Many players are recruited and offered first, and visit later.</p>

<p>Do they have your transcripts and SAT scores?</p>

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<p>FBaller, coming in again for a second swoop - re-reading your OP more carefully, it looks like (I hope) you might be further along than I thought. (That is a great relief to me if true.) That said, I still think you should not hesitate to get a much better feeling right now with the coaches of the schools you really like for where you stand. </p>

<p>This is because, if there is any chance that you are not being treated as a top recruit (for example directly offered an overnight visit), these months are critical for identifying other schools where you may be a better fit for football - if you are indeed intent on playing as part of your college experience. Or, if the schools that seem to generate the most interest in you for football turn out not to be places you could see yourself (for example, you may have academic stats that make you a candidate for schools a little “higher up” on the education foodchain), you may want to use this time to start identifying some schools where you might not play football. My son, for example, would probably be a decent candidate for Boston College or Notre Dame. Football wise, however, he’d only ever see a field from the bleachers, and he wants to play in college.</p>

<p>If you are not getting very positive feedback when you send your updates to schools - more than just “thanks for keeping up with us” - you may be lower on a recruiting list than you’d hope, which is a sign to look at a few other schools.</p>

<p>This has happened to us. For whatever reason some schools stopped communicating with our son over August where they had been communicating before; some schools still send weekly emails with their game schedule and coach’s cell number; some schools send handwritten cards or texts asking our son to call. Lots of other schools were total non-starters, they never showed any interest in our son at all, and now I know it’s because from the start, though I wanted to believe he could go to these schools, he was not a player that would fit into their kind of program. Hard lessons.</p>

<p>On the other hand, our son is further down the line with a couple of schools where he is a great fit; has had academic pre-reads and he has already done one overnight and has one slot offer under the belt (offered this past weekend).</p>

<p>Sorry again for writing a novel in response to your original questions, I just want to be of as much help as possible. Are you having email communication only? Does it feel mostly one sided? Are you getting calls from coaches on your cell phone?</p>

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<p>Hi fballer, I’m another mom of a football '14. I have been out for a while because my player had a hand fracture in his first season game and we are on a bit of a hold in terms of the recruiting. On the one hand there is still interest from the schools we were talking to, on the other hand we are stuck without game video to send for senior fall and we have been able to palpably feel some of the coach interest go temporarily slack, even though long term it’s an injury that will not be a issue.</p>

<p>All this to say you really need to read the tea leaves clearly. Coaches that were clearly interested in my player seemingly full steam ahead have dropped to doing just what it seems like you have, which seems like polite but maybe reserved interest? </p>

<p>Don’t listen to what they say so much as what they do. I learned from lots of threads here about that. One of the schools that was super interested in my player had us up for an interview. He broke his hand a few days later :(</p>

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<p>Some good info here…Just based on our experience with our son (class of '17, now playing NESCAC) If things slow down in the next month it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve fallen off the radar. As luckydog said, its all hands on deck time in college football. Coaches are busy! If they don’t respond to emails you send immediately with gushing words, don’t read too much into it. But do keep in touch…Pass along links to press (personal or team), congratulate them on a win. This was big for us…it’s not necessarily a nail in the coffin if you can’t apply ED. We were told over and over that 90%+ of freshman recruiting class was going to be filled with ED yet my son was agressively recruited at 7 schools where he applied RD. Coaches know that alot of kids are working with real FA concerns. If 90% of their recruits were truly ED it would eliminate a whole lot of kids who need financial aid.</p>

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<p>joBenny, good point and you are absolutely right about the financial aid. We were told ED1 and ED2 but it might have been another example of coach speak.</p>

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<p>I definately think some coach-speak going on. Plus, adding to the financial aid stuff, is the fact that for a lot of kids…and this is certainly no bash on NESCAC - my own kid is loving life at a wonderful NESCAC school right now…but NESCAC schools are often the safety schools for the Ivys. The coaches are well aware that this is the case and they know they want to consider those kids who are ED-ing at the Ivy 8 but don’t get accepted.</p>

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<p>Fballer11 - if you are a D1 or D1AA scholarship prospect, then as ChicagoMama said you should be getting a lot of attention right now when the high academic D3 coaches are trying to “pick off” some of these top prospects from the D1s and the Ivies, and if you’re not getting this level of attention from the D3s you should be thinking about what you need to do immediately to get this level of interest.</p>

<p>Otherwise, just be patient, keep in touch with everyone, show them your interest in their schools, and your interest/offers will come in November or even thereafter.</p>

<p>Best of luck!</p>

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<p>I am a mom of a 2014 Football recruit and I can tell you, it is a tough process! D3, we pretty much had 5 schools willing to commit by november, and to get into the best academic match, had to go ED1. Several D1AA schools indicated my kid should apply regular decision (only 2 encouraged EA) and we would hear in march if he got into the school and onto the team as a preferred walk on. We really struggled with this…is it best to take a sure thing at a D3 school where coaches indicate you are in their top band, or wait for a D1AA school who can’t let you know for sure until march (when the other options have evaporated?). Most kids aren’t going to the NFL. Take the best academic school where coaches indicate they really want your kid. Then, you get playing time.</p>

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<p>Hassyny, I know this thread is a few months old, but I am killing lots of vacation time because my kids are all old enough to “do their own thing” so have been spending time catching up with my iPad.</p>

<p>Basically just wanted to agree with you, and repeat what I said on another thread, sports is a great way to get a leg up into contributing to a college where an athlete would otherwise not be admitted on academics alone.</p>

<p>Now that we are on the other side, I wanted to share that it sometimes now actually gives me a bad feeling to remember how we kept shooting for schools that really were not a good fit - i.e., the Ivies - and there were times we actually ignored schools that were a good fit. We did it wrong.</p>

<p>If your athlete needs the boost of the ability to contribute via athletics to a school where they might not otherwise be admitted solely on the regular HS record, then pay attention to which schools WANT them more than which schools your kid wants.</p>

<p>Also, if your kid wants to play in college, that needs to come into consideration. Academics aside, we always knew our son wanted to play his sport in college. I won’t lie and say we would not have possibly considered advising him to take a certain degree over never playing his sport again, but in the end it’s your kid’s college experience and they need to make that decision.</p>

<p>“Preferred walk on” language for a selective school where the academics and scores were not otherwise well within the range would worry me.</p>

<p>If your son is being told he is a sure d3 admit for ED2 and you are comfortable with the cost potentials, and like the school, I would say that’s a fantastic opportunity.</p>

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<p>Thanks. We are really lucky. It is a fantastic little school…yes, some very good schools (patriot league and other good D1AA schools said he had a 50/50 chance of getting money by year 2…but I really pushed him to think hard about it. the little school he got into is in the top 10 in the country…and the coaches there were intelligent, polite, articulate, very well educated…they called him regularly and established a relationship with him. It is a tough school academically, which does worry me a little, but someone from admissions met him in our state to figure out for themselves if they thought he could actually handle the academic workload. My kid actually had two interviews before we went out to the school and checked it out ourselves. Sure, scholarships would be nice; we don’t qualify for financial aide, and this school is very committed to helping with needs based scholarships…as much as the ivies do. The problem with some of these scholarships at D1AA schools is an expectation, if a kid gets a scholarship, that you earn your keep at 17-18…practice before tests, etc. We saw kids as practice at 6 AM, no matter what. Don’t get me wrong; it is off season and my kid is in the gym at least two hours a day…but that is enough, already. Also, he likes to play multiple sports, which is an option at D3 schools. This school made it clear, keeping grades up and doing well academically was absolutely expected, and that they would help him. Anyways, until last year, I didn’t even know colleges offered money except for exceptional kids…and I did it the way my folks did it for me…I have saved since my kids’ births–old cars, old everything, but cash in hand for school! I would say though that our one of our state school offered him a pretty good deal, too, and I really loved that school, too…and that would have been D1AA…they wanted to red shirt him a year, have him study and train hard, then 5 for 4 (getting a masters degree the 5th year). They definitely offered him a spot on the team…and it seemed like a good idea, but my kid wouldn’t buy it, without a scholarship his freshman year. He wanted the “power” school academically and he sure got it! </p>

<p>If I had any advice for an athlete, after all this…go where you are wanted! Be honest with coaches and let them know your interest–yes and no. No point leading anyone on…frustrating for them and you. There are very few “bad”…nasty, ugly, mean coaches out there…but if you run into one, stay as far away from that school as possible. No amount of money is worth 4 years…or even a day…of verbal and emotional abuse. Finally, make friends, have a great time, and play your very best! </p>

<p>If I had any advice for parents, start verbal prep for SATs in the 9th grade, and early on, take your kid to college campus camps. I had no idea. Those coaches love kids…if it is 50 bucks, or 100 bucks…they give kids great coaching and my son learned so much. The difference in his junior film and senior film was amazing…and much attributable to personal attention given him by college coaches. All high schools athletically are not the same. If yours is not great, get a personal trainer if you can. There are kids training from a very young age (not mine, he was singing and playing a guitar until 14). We lucked out, anyway, or maybe it was divine grace.</p>

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<p>Good morning - just waking up and coming in with a last piece of advice which I also learned on this forum.</p>

<p>In October son was down to 3 schools he liked very much. One of the schools had a great recruiting coach who went the distance for our kid. He was GREAT, even traveling several hours to watch his games, texting him with pictures from campus. Our son LOVED this coach and would have loved to play for him. Telling him he was going with another school in the end was a very, very difficult phone call which made son feel bad for weeks. </p>

<p>However, as we learned here - don’t make a final decision based on coaches, or even your sport. Coaches turn over, injuries happen, programs have good years and bad years. Even though your sport gets you in, choose your school with the assumption that it could go away at any time. Will you enjoy four years there? It’s your degree that will stay with you.</p>

<p>Sure enough - just found out that wonderful recruiting coach just got tapped to be head coach at another school. He would not have even BEEN there when our son would be playing. Just more lessons learned here!</p>

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<p>ChicagoMama, I’m going to respectfully take another perspective to your comments. To the first point…that is the beauty of this process. You & your son learned together what is possible and what he wants. You can’t be afraid to make mistakes as you are researching, learning & communicating with coaches. Mistakes are essential.</p>

<p>For my oldest son, we made lots of mistakes including our initial strategy. There are too many mistakes to list. At first, we were chasing athletics with the hope of fitting academics into the situation…wrong approach for us. We turned the previous strategy over and began chasing academic schools whom we could fit athletics into. In other words we began engaging with schools where there was vastly more demand for his talents. He went from being just another Right Handed Pitcher at the upper echelon D1 programs to a highly sought after Right Handed Pitcher by the Academic schools. We re-tooled our approach and strategy right in the middle of the recruiting season. So, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, and don’t be afraid to change strategies if something isn’t working. Supply and demand forces are constantly at work in the recruiting marketplace. The trick is to figure out where does your son or daughter separate themselves athletically and academically. In figuring out that recruiting continuum, you will make mistakes. Mistakes are essential to this process. JMO</p>

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<p>Very good way to look at it !!</p>

<p>I guess you never know when you’ve got something that’s working until you know what doesn’t work, and it’s impossible to figure anything out unless you just jump in and swim. :)</p>

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<p>I’d say that’s a mistake for anyone who isn’t looking at the prospect of a professional sports career. </p>

<p>If I even had to do college recruiting again, I think the only think I might do differently is cut down on the summer camps we went to. For my son, and for his sport, at the level he’s playing at, I think they’re 10% educational/networking and 90% revenue stream for the school. In the end, the three schools that recruited him most assertively never saw him play live aside from his highlight tape. Live and learn!</p>

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<p>keepingitlight,</p>

<p>What may seem like a mistake for someone isn’t necessarily a mistake for everyone. Everybody is different. That is exactly my point. In our case, until you realize your son isn’t a pro prospect (just because he throws 90mph) or decides he doesn’t want to be a pro prospect (he decides he wants to be a material science engineer) then you decide that isn’t a path worth pursuing. When you combine 90mph fastball with outstanding grades and SATs then your kid has options that not everyone has. You have to get to that point of contacting coaches, networking researching, etc… You’ve got to make mistakes. </p>

<p>If I had a mulligan with my oldest I could have saved many, many thousands of dollars with travel baseball. However, it did get him D1 offers that led to other opportunities and other Ivy offers. While travel baseball wasn’t directly related to where he is, it certainly led to it or is at least indirectly related. I think his current coaches saw a kid that played at the highest baseball levels and accomplished high levels academically. He was a fit for them. So, I chalk it up as the cost of doing business.</p>

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<p>I agree. “Take the best academic school where coaches indicate they really want your kid”. Also, like non recruits, athletes should feel good about size, location and all the other things that make up the college decision.</p>

<p>We had no plan. It was the feedback from coaches that told my son he was someone to be recruited. I was an “I will believe it when I see it” kind of gal. We just went where he was invited. We visited a ton of schools and spent some great time together. My s may have had goals, but I didn’t know what they were. I found myself in Oz a few times wondering how did we get here. </p>

<p>One thing that is strongly encouraged on here that we didn’t quite follow - Keeping many balls in the air. My son had a large starting group that was more of a whose who of who is calling/emailing him. But, of those he had a few favorites. he just couldn’t see himself at 17 schools to invest the time in all when some were not going to be academic, location, social or program fits.</p>

<p>A college choice is so personal that not one journey is the same. But, I think we can all agree that it has some stressful moments.</p>

<p>Chicagomama - we also experienced a coaching change. Fortunately, it was not at my son’s first choice. It would have been devastating because the transition was handled so poorly.</p>