<p>My daughter is a solid B student and athlete. She is applying to small liberal arts colleges which are not highly selective but nevertheless don't accept everyone--places with 50-70% admission rates. Four schools have told her she will get a spot on the team. We explained that while we don't qualify for financial aid we would like to see whether we get merit aid and factor that into our decision since our daughter would be happy at any of these schools and if we got merit aid it would tip the balance for us. So we are not willing to apply early decision but are applying early action. One of the coaches has told us the admissions office has said she is a likely admit and she will tell us soon how much merit aid if any we might expect. Then this coach says she wants our daughter to commit by mid Novemberor she will have to give her spot on the team to another student willing to commit. Is this normal? Should we ask the other three coaches to get the admissions offices to tell us about admission and possible merit aid early? Is that a normal thing to ask for? We would hate to lose a spot on one team and then not get admitted to the other schools, but we also wanted to be able to compare the four schools after she heard from admissions and possible merit aid in December. Any advice on this situation? In terms of her athletic situation, she is not a top recruit, but she is a very good player and has done clinics and showcases and been offered a spot on the four teams by the coaches after they see her play. All of the coaches at these schools say she is in the middle of the pack of kids they would recruit. In other words, they would be happy to have her on the team but I don't think any of them are going to go all out with admissions for her. On the other hand they have all made her feel great by recruiting her, having her for overnights, praising her etc.</p>
<p>Some of the D3 coaches do want a commitment but it doesn’t mean anything because they aren’t giving you any money and you can always walk away from the commitment and they don’t have to let her on the team. Will the coach hold it against your daughter because she failed to commit so she loses a spot on the team? Maybe, but would you want her playing for that type of coach anyway? </p>
<p>I’d advise you to hold your ground, say you need to hear from each college’s FA office and you are sorry if that coach needs an immediate answer, you don’t have one.</p>
<p>We had one coach who pushed for an ED. My D can get in without support at that school, and it wasn’t a first choice. She eventually declined the ED fearful that the offer would be lost. It wasn’t. Coach said to call if things changed and she was admitted. She will be applying regular decision there, if the ED school doesn’t work. Coach was honorable in the end but she did feel pressure early on. </p>
<p>it is a normal thing to ask-look, the coach only has so many athletes s/he can support. Let’s say the coach needs a catcher, and he has 3 likely prospects. Of course he wants one of them to commit so he can give his other spots to a pitcher and a second baseman.He can’t waste his spots on prospies who want to leave their options open if he has other comparable choices.
You have to decide what’s best for you. You can go RD without support and get in and then slug it out with the other catcher, but the coach needs commitment to form her/his team.</p>
<p>This is normal.</p>
<p>Coaches need to balance recruiting enough players to fill a competitive roster with recruiting too many players which leads to an unhappy team with people not getting the playing time they were expecting.</p>
<p>With the rare exception of the super star players, most players are commodities. The coach may slightly prefer your daughter to the next player on the list, but the drop off is probably insignificant. They are better off getting a roster of players that they know will be there than having a slightly better roster where only 25% of the players will be there.</p>