<p>I was just wondering does being recruited for a D3 sport, football in particular, help a student get into a high academic standard school. And if it does, to what extent? I'm primarily interested in knowing about schools in the NESCAC division. UW Gpa: 3.4 Weighted : 4.18, I am currently in a rigorous magnet program. ACT: 31</p>
<p>Short answer: Yes - being a recruited athlete can help with admissions in the NESCAC. The extent? Well, that’s the big question that’s impossible to give a definitive answer. It’s going to vary from school to school within the NESCAC. </p>
<p>The academics have to be there and coach support isn’t as clear cut as you might have in the Ivies or other D1 programs. 31 ACT and 4.2 weighted GPA are pretty darn good - are they strong enough? That depends on the school and, of course, your desirability as a recruit.</p>
<p>Are you a junior? Have you gotten a tape together and filled out the school questionaires?</p>
<p>Also what sport-- more leeway for so-called “helmet” sports. Yet the admissions committees at NESCAC, esp the top NESCAC schools want kids that don’t fall too far outside of the class profile. The workload is too high and there aren’t many “guts” as in large universities in which a poor student can hide. It wouldn’t be fair to the student to take him or her and have the student not succeed.</p>
<p>If you are a top recruit for the school and your stats are in range, it’s very very very helpful!</p>
<p>Do you know how “low” schools are willing to accept in terms or GPA or SAT/ACT scores? Im particularly interested in schools such as Tufts.</p>
<p>JoBenny, yes I have. I have actually gotten quite a lot of generic emails and some personal ones too asking me to come to prospect camps. Do these camps have a huge impact on your evaluation as a recruit?</p>
<p>^ The Tufts coach is the only one who can answer that one, Fballer. Actually, Tufts admissions is the only real answer. (Although I’d phrase the question a little differently)</p>
<p>Get some video up and start emailing.</p>
<p>Is it appropriate to ask the coach that question (phrased differently). Could it hurt to ask?</p>
<p>It’s appropriate to introduce yourself and give him a few bullet points re your grades, test scores and athletics. His response will give you an indication of whether you’re in the ballpark.</p>
<p>Academics are solid. Sincere interest by coaches will boil down to your size, athleticism and football IQ (the higher the level of competitive play you faced in HS - the better), when compared to other recruits. </p>
<p>If your highlight film has a WOW factor to showcase the ^above^ qualities …you will get the attention of coaches, which will position you for meaningful dialog.</p>
<p>@fballer11</p>
<p>A few things:</p>
<p>1- Your grades and scores are good enough to get into Tufts if you’re a strong enough footballer that Coach Civetti wants to use a slot for you, but you need to be careful here - Coach might think your grades might be good enough to get into Tufts without his having to use a slot on you, in which case there is a possibility you could fall through the cracks and not get in on your own but not get Coach support even if he wants you on his team. (You are aware that Tufts hasn’t won a football game in years, right?)</p>
<p>2- Every coach is going to tell you he really needs you to come to their camp so that “his coaches can work with you.” It’s all a lie. Coaches want you to come to their camp because their camp is a revenue generator for the coaches, period. If you’re a good football player coaches will recruit you whether or not you go to their camp. If you tell a coach you’re going to the camp of a competitor but not theirs, watch how much immediate attention you get from them. It means nothing.</p>
<p>3- Unless your times (40, shuttle, etc.) are so impressive that you’re going to wow everyone at camp, camps are likely to do more harm than good. If your times aren’t that great, coaches will weed you out based on times alone and won’t pursue you further and you’ll never get the chance to have them see your film. Alternatively, if the coaches don’t have camp times for you, they will recruit you based on film alone. </p>
<p>4- If you decide to go to one or more camps - if it’s a multi-day camp, only go for one day (even if they don’t offer a single day, they will let you if you ask.)</p>
<p>5- Know that the NESCAC and other D3 coaches will go to most Ivy camps, but an Ivy coach will never go to the camp of another Ivy.</p>
<p>6- NE Elite is fun but it’s a zoo. Over a thousand kids. Very few kids get serious looks there, but it does provide you with an opportunity to get some face time with coaches.</p>
<p>7- Start sending film and emails now, then send them regularly whenever you have anything that resembles news to report (eg, 1st quarter grades, awards, etc.) You need to make the coaches familiar with your name, etc., so that when you introduce yourself to them at camps they recognize your name.</p>
<p>8- If you go to one or more camps, you MUST(!!!) take every opportunity to go up to every coach and introduce yourself to him. If you’re going to go to camps and run your drills but not be VERY aggressive in meeting coaches the camps will be of little value.</p>
<p>9- Be prepared that if you want to go to a NESCAC school you will only get coach support if you apply ED to that school. More support with ED1, less with ED2 depending on how many commits they already have.</p>
<p>10- Know that the only players who get serious looks and offers at these camps are those players that the coaches are trying to “pick off” from D1 schools or, at the very least, schools higher up the food chain than them. All other players (which includes almost all of the players who eventually end up on their team) are recruited through the regular fall recruiting schedule.</p>
<p>11- The Yale and Harvard camps are, for the most part, D1 camps filled with D1 prospects who are entertaining the idea that they might consider going to Yale or Harvard (maybe to make their moms happy).</p>
<p>12- Don’t forget about the high academic non-NESCAC D3 schools that have football programs - MIT, Hopkins, WashU, UChicago, Carnegie Mellon. Your grades and scores are definitely good enough to get into one of these schools with coach support.</p>
<p>I’ll be sure to post anything else I can think of.</p>
<p>It’s an exciting time, but filled with much stress and uncertainty.</p>
<p>Try to enjoy the process.</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>@myluckydog</p>
<p>Thank you so much for the info!</p>
<p>I have already gone and filled out tons of questionnaires. I got some pretty generic emails telling me about their school and inviting me to their camps. Should I now take a step forward and email the coaches personally?</p>
<p>And could you tell me about slots? I have heard about them but I would like to know how it exactly works (# of slots, effectiveness, etc.)</p>
<p>What year are you in high school?</p>
<p>@fballer11 - I am assuming you are a junior because if you are a senior you are too late to the recruiting game and you already have an ACT score.</p>
<p>Fill out the questionnaires because they ask you to. They likely serve no purpose other than to get your contact information into their system.</p>
<p>Visit the schools’ football websites and find the recruiting coach for your area or, if there is none, the recruiting coordinator.(If you can’t find the name of a recruiting coach/coordinator, send it to the head coach.) Send this coach an email with a link to your Junior highlight film and a short note about yourself - name, high school, position, gpa, scores, rank - and tell them that you are interested in attending an elite academic institution like [insert the name of their school]. </p>
<p>Then pay very close attention to the emails you receive in response. If you don’t receive a response from a particular school, send another email to someone else. Whomever you receive an email from, this is your contact person at that school. Send all future emails to him - every few weeks or so whenever there is some good news to report - grades, scores, spring football beginning, etc. It doesn’t have to be real news, it’s just an excuse for keeping in contact with them. </p>
<p>And be very suspect of their urges for you to attend their camps (see my earlier above).</p>
<p>Now, slots v. tips? Good question.</p>
<p>I’ve read everything I can find on this, and spoken to 3 NESCAC coaches trying to get a coherent explanation. The coaches were very murky about this. I don’t think they were trying to be evasive, it’s just that it’s not a very clear cut area, more touchy-feely. Here’s my synopsis of the slots v tips dilemma:</p>
<p>NESCAC coaches can’t offer admission to recruits - all recruits need to be admitted by Admissions. Basically, coaches get two “levels” of support they can give a particular recruit with Admissions, and get a limited number of recruits they can support within each level. Slots are the stronger level of support, tips are the weaker of the two levels. (Coaches can also give no support, even to recruits they might want on the team.) I think that basically sums it up. I’m sure others can offer a more comprehensive explanation, but I don’t think more specificity necessarily adds value.</p>
<p>Now here’s the rub I was alluding to at the end of item #1 of my earlier post. Say a coach has one slot remaining and 2 players he strongly wants to recruit. Player 1 is an impact player with a 4.2 gpa and 31 ACT. Player 2, also an impact player, is marginally less desirable and has a 3.3 gpa and 27 ACT. There’s a chance that the coach might think that Player 1 has a good chance to get admitted to his school without his help, and try to get both players by using his slot on Player 2 and hoping Player 1 otherwise gets admitted. He’ll tell Player 1 that he looks forward to having him on the team as a walk-on (and he’ll mean it). (The same scenario could make a coach decide to use a tip rather than a slot on a more desirable player.) The risk is that the better player doesn’t make it through Admissions without the coach’s support.</p>
<p>Now if you’re considering Ivies, the Academic Index and bands are much more clear cut, and coaches will be pretty up front with where the ranges of their bands fall. For more on this, find the NY Times article from December 24, 2011 (google: New York Times Academic Index).</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Fballer, myluckydog gave you some great, thorough advice. Just to add my .02 about ‘tips and slots’ - some NESCAC coaches seem to get a little uncomfortable with that terminology. One coach said something to the effect of, ‘every school in the conference has a different vocabulary they use with regard to supporting their athletes, and every school is going to handle it a little differently’.</p>
<p>He went on to say something along the lines of, ‘admissions has the final say - so if a recruit wants to know how solid he is, he needs to ask direct questions - ‘how did his pre-read go with admissions?’, he also needs to know how successful that coach has been in getting his recruits.’
I don’t know about football, but in some sports word gets around about athletes who went ED with coach support and ended up being rejected.</p>
<p>So, if and when you get to that point, there are a lot of subtleties to evaluate.</p>