<p>So junior D has been visiting colleges (LACs in Northeast)...Coaches are asking her to return in September and October for overnight visits. Some have strongly suggested she apply to X or Y school as an early decision applicant. Is this the expectation? Coach support for the ED round only? If so, then fall will be a very busy time! Did your children go this route and did they prepare RD applications just in case to other schools?</p>
<p>In our experience, if you want/need coach support for admission to one of the LACs in the Northeast (?NESCACs) you will have to commit to ED
Many of the NESCACS have an ED2 option (apps due 1/1) which is what my son did. He put all his apps in but one was ED2. Prior to submitting the ED application he had a conversation with the coach and directly asked him “If I apply ED2 will you give me your tip with admissions?” The coach said he would. I might add, the coach got a preread on his application prior to this and let our son know there were “no red flags” with admissions
Once he was admitted to this school he withdrew his other applications</p>
<p>Coaches have much more pull at LACs for ED. So they will commit to support your D’s application, if you commit to them with an ED application. This can happen very quickly in late September to late October.</p>
<p>I agree. If it’s a good school and she needs that support, you have to be prepared to commit to the school. We ended up with my daughter applying at an early ACTION school so it wasn’t binding, but she was at a few LACs on official visits and she would have had to apply ED for those. Otherwise you just have to be prepared with a backup plan. It depends how badly she wants to go there, and how strong her stats are. But remember, stats are not everything - so many perfectly qualified applicants don’t make the cut these days in many schools.</p>
<p>Yes, coaches at NESCAC colleges that have admit rates between 10-30% are bringing up ED. So, some support would likely be important (her stats fall in the middle 50% range --and no other major ECs).</p>
<p>The one school (in the Liberty league) she visited with a 42% admit rate did not mention ED, OV or continue to send emails… suprising to D who really liked the college when she visited. Not sure how she should read that one.</p>
<p>I wondered about ED2 and whether it had any weight (the deadlines are the same as RD).</p>
<p>In our experience, ED2 was fine for our son. He needed his fall club season to show further showcase his skill in his sport and needed his first term senior grades to up his academic stats…this was at a NESCAC. Even if your daughter 's stats fall w/in the mid 50th centile for the school she may need coach support to tip the admissions decision in her favor</p>
<p>The coaches have a certain number of “slots”, which means as long as the “pre-read” is acceptable, which is another way of saying meets certain minimum criteria for the school, those candidates will be accepted.</p>
<p>An Amherst coach told us he had 4 slots per year for the entire team (mens and womens).Those students will be accepted. The coach will want those students to apply ED, because s/he doesn’t want to waste his slots on someone who won’t come, plus he doesn’t want to end up with 4 first basemen, and no catcher.</p>
<p>The NESCACs all agree how many slots each school has based on enrollment and some other criteria, so no school gets an unfair athletic advantage over the others.</p>
<p>The coaches also have “tips”, which means they tell admissions they would like the student to come, but it is up to admissions to accept them. This seems to depend more on the sport and the school. My S was told by the Amherst coach he would give him a “tip” but not a “slot”, and he needed to get his ACT up to 32 from 31 to be more “competitive”.(He had a 4.0 unweighted in IB at our public school, and was in the top 5% of his class)We later learned there was another recruit who competes in my son’s niche sport who was much better than he, so that explained the coach’s candor with us.</p>
<p>Saying that, recruited athletes who apply ED have around an 80% acceptance rate at the NESCACs…If you can play , and you are smart but have no “hook”-poor, URM, 1st generation, legacy-it really helps a lot at these uber-selective schools.</p>
<p>It also may depend on the school and sport. I can tell you that coach interest in my daughter from both Williams and Amherst increased after ED deadlines, presumably after faster athletes committed to either Ivys or D1. She ultimately did not apply to Williams; was admitted RD to Amherst.</p>
<p>Oldbatsiedoc has summed it up very well.</p>
<p>Rough numbers but at Bowdoin this year about 580 kids applied ED, 180 or so were accepted and of those accepted over 90 were athletes. </p>
<p>I’d say it may not be NECESSARY, but in our experience it was very helpful.</p>
<p>Our experience with NESCAC’s : If you choose to not apply EDI or EDII and go RD, you are putting yourself in a much larger pool of very qualified applicants and may also be risking the coaches support/interest and any extra pull he/she may have had with the admissions committee during the ED rounds. It can sure be a long and stressful wait between ED II decisions (first week of Feb) and RD (end of March)…</p>