<p>Just for the heck of it, my son submitted the athletic inquiry form for his sport at very good D3 school. He wasn't expecting much, but less than a week later, he got a letter from the director of admissions saying she had received his name from the coaching staff. She basically called it the first step in ongoing communication with the school. We had zero expectations of his being noticed. Does a letter like this mean anything? Can he get a little excited? Is this an indication he should be using his athletics more pro-actively or does it vary school to school?</p>
<p>I say go ahead and be excited, the same thing happened to me for NYU and Ohio State, now I'm just waiting on my decision for NYU. Most people say that if you want to get into sports at schools, you have to wait for them to contact you. But I believe that is wrong, across all Division levels, the coaches reallly like to see the athlete take a pro-active step into getting himself recognized. Only the very elite athletes have nothing to worry about because they will have their phones ringing off the hook. Try to keep an open line of communication with the coach and have your son e-mail his progress about every couple weeks or so. Tell him to keep it up!</p>
<p>You absolutely should not only fill out the online forms, but also email the coaches of the schools that interest you (your son). Make sure it is your son that is making the contact! He should include his stats in the sport and a summary of his academic profile- i.e. what his SAT scores are etc. If he is planning to visit, he should ask the coach if he could meet with him. At best, this could help a lot with admissions. At worst, it gives your son another contact at the school and another way to meet people and get a feel for the school. My son was recruited by DI and DIII schools, and we loved our visits to meet with coaches and team members. If your son's coach has any contacts and/or is willing to contact the college coaches, that helps a lot, too.</p>
<p>Its a good sign. I was in the same boat last year. First, I emailed 30 schools (D3 some lower D1) with my academic and athletic info. About half replied. Then I kept in contact with about 10 of them this summer, was recruited by 8. And ended up appling to 4. GOT IN EVERYWHERE! University of Chicago (Econ EA), NYU (GSP-Stern), Carnegie Mellon, and Babson EA ( with $$). Athletics help soooo sooo much! So invest lots of time into trying to get coaches to notice your child. Good Luck!</p>
<p>These are all good suggestions. We hadn't considered contacting D1 coaches, but what the heck. The worst they can do is not respond. And we'll definitely follow up with the school that wrote to him. We're planning a visit and it would be a good opportunity for my son to decide how seriously he wants to pursue his sport, which is wrestling, by the way. Not easy finding schools that have the academics, size, social life, geography he wants AND , by the way, offer wrestling. He had pretty much decided to forget it and just do club wrestling until we got such an encouraging response from a college. Thanks for all the great feedback.</p>