My son has contacted coaches at several DIII schools and some appear to be very enthusiastic while others have implied that there is nothing that a coach can do to improve the chances of admission. For example, it appears that the coaches at MIT and CalTech are not able to do much in terms of recruitment, whereas others have already given a verbal commitment for admission. Another school told my son that the coach has 10 slots that he can give out to promising athletes, but it requires an early decision application. How do I find out specific information regarding what coaches are more capable of offering “slots” and “tips”?
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The enthusiastic coaches like him so he needs to keep talking to them. The ones that seem disinterested probably are. I think its kind of a year to year roll of the dice–does kid hav right times or stats and or right grades or right combination of both-- unless a kid is a top recruit in his or her sport. Thus the whole cast a wide net adage. Yes athletes apply ED when a slot has been offered and accepted. Your son/and you will ask the coach can I be admitted? Will you support me?
Be prepared to do ED. Coaches are not going to use their capital with admissions for a kid who is not committed to attend. This will mean an accelerated decision making process, and that can be challenging for kids with competition schedules.
We had found that the coaches are pretty straight up about their process and where your kid stands if they are indeed interested. What year is your son, which sport and which schools? There are a bunch of parents on this forum who can give you great advice based on direct experience.
My son is a track & field athlete – throws discus ~155 feet. Very strong math/science. Ivy Academic Index =217. None of the Ivy League coaches have expressed interest. Some very good LACs are ready to commit now it seems. He is very good for DIII and not quite at recruitment level for DI it seems.
Use the search function on this board, there are a number of parents with experience with different sports and schools. Broadly, regardless of sport, MIT and Cal Tech coaches have the reputation of having little influence, at all on admissions. At the NESCAC schools, there is a clear structure, and coaches do have some influence, in most sports, at most of those schools, though it will vary by sport. You can read about “tips” and “slots” etc. Other schools have reputation of some influence, but nothing like a sure thing, so that admissions decisions for a recruited athlete are unpredictable, such as Haverford.
Specific questions to the specific coach will get an honest answer – along the lines of, “how many recruits with my stats that you provided my level of support were rejected/admitted/deferred ED over the past 5 years?” At D3 schools, recruited athletes can get an admissions pre-read, where coach sends transcript and test scores to admissions for a preview, and will be told whether it is a “green light” or some such other characterization. It can feel opaque at the outset, but keeping digging, and you will find lots of insight.
Your son needs to a make a list of schools he is most interested in and contact all of the coaches at those schools. When he finds a coach that wants him and will support his application with admissions your son will have to apply ED ( if he wants help with admissions). If he doesn’t want/need help with admissions then he can take his chances and apply to a wide range of schools and see what happens. Most coaches would be happy to have a non recruited athlete show up on their radar, especially if the kid can produce results.
Remember, there is no athletic $ in DIII or Ivy. If his grades and scores and athletic achievements are good enough he might qualify for some athletic and academic $$ at some D1 schools.
I’m going through this process right now with my son too. Good luck figuring out what your son wants.
From what I understand, MIT won’t give support to athletes but is happy to have them apply RD and play if they are qualified for admission - of course that means you need to wait and give up the “bird in the hand” of a school telling you to apply ED. Many people don’t want to take that gamble and I’m not sure I would encourage my child to do that unless she really wanted MIT and felt it was a good chance she’s be admitted. One of my daughter’s teammates is headed there to play lacrosse and she applied RD so it does happen.
Before considering ED at any school you need to be completely certain the school and team are good fits, so visit and try to get an overnight. And be very direct with the coach about your place in the recruiting class and your expected role on the team before you send in that app. ED is binding, so any better offers that come along later can be anguishing unless you’re completely comfortable with the move. Also, announcing your ED acceptance to the other coaches you’ve been talking to can reduce those later offers and avoid some potential regrets.
MIT and Caltech coaches can and do offer athletic support, they just can’t assure admissions to the extent that NESCAC and other DIII’s can that have designated athletic slots for that particular sport. S’s sport was baseball and he had visits with MIT and Caltech. His stat’s (GPA/ACT/SAT2’s) were well within the median for both schools, but no national recognition and no STEM EC’s other than the school math team. MIT head coach and Caltech head coach and AD gave him 50/50 odds if he applied with their support. I think his chances would have been much lower than 50/50 for those schools without the athletic boost. A friend of his did get into MIT as a pole vaulter, and I think his stats were median MIT, but again not earth shattering. But yes, it may be a bird in hand choice if he gets offered by a DIII program with real slots, which will almost always require ED. If he has exceptional skill and academic stat’s, the coach may still have some juice after the ED round if he falls within the top band where it is easier for the AO to accept the candidate since there would be no academic dilution.
As you’ve probably gathered from the thorough responses so far, there’s no good way to know what you’re asking for without asking each coach. Nescac has the most clarity in terms of process, similar to Ivy. I would have your son just ask each coach directly about the recruiting process and whether the coach can provide meaningful admissions support (which is a different question than whether the coach wants your son there). I’ve heard several UAA coaches (Washington U in particular) say they have no pull with admissions. But I don’t know what is true and what they’re telling athletes.
I think it’s a careful dance and you come right out and ask the coach where you stand as far as recruits and if they’re willing/able to offer support. That verbiage began really at the first meeting at our son’s college with the coach. Later were told by the coach in our son’s sport that there were x kids to support, and you need to know if you’re one of those kids. Once your pre-read is done, you’ll look for these words (or something similar after your pre-read): “I have the green light. Admissions has told me that if you apply ED1 or ED2 you will be admitted”. That was almost verbatim what my son heard. Coach gave us a time frame to make the decision after the OV, so that they knew if they needed to move on to the next on the list or seal the deal. We kept that specific news to ourselves until his acceptance, but people definitely knew he had applied and that it was his top choice.
Bottom line is, you can only pick one to go ED1 at, so you really need to make sure it’s the top. We had our son apply EA to a couple of his other schools (we were very confident he’d get in to those) and then kept the ED2 for his #2 on the back burner in case he needed to use it (I used to call it our lifeline - like from “Millionaire”). I would certainly do that again as I’ve heard many instances where kids do not gain acceptance after telling the universe. As I told my son, “You heard this from the coach, not from an Admissions Officer and until you get that letter, nothing is 100%”…we erred on the side of caution.
The final piece of the puzzle is the $. We had a financial pre-read done at his top school (which, after talking to Financial Aid was really the same as the NPC), but again, still didn’t believe it until I saw the financial aid package come through. I wasn’t going to put him through the process if it wasn’t doable financially for us.
Good luck!!!
Just a comment @heartburner on Discus, is that, as you may know, it’s a “national” represented sport in that your S would be a top 500 Junior nationally, but top 10-20 in a given state, think out West. Also consider if he’d like an Indoor season in addition to an outdoor one.
Thank you @bigfandave. He throws 155 feet for disc and 46 feet for shot. Those marks seem to generate some interest with D3 schools but have basically resulted in zero interest in D1 schools, including all the Ivies. This is a little disappointing since his involvement with the team is an important aspect for him right now. He is academically qualified for Ivy league schools, but won’t look at them unless he has a spot on the team. As a parent, this is a little bit difficult because there is more to an education besides athletics and looking at only D3 schools limits things.
oh gosh, lots of great DIIIs. Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Swarthmore, Haverford, etc.
@heartburner you said his AI was 210 and then 217. This “qualifies” him as a recruited athlete. I am not sure those schools are realistic targets otherwise.
My son and I are one year in front of you for T&F and Cross Country. He was recruited at some D1 (Patriot League) schools, but focused primarily on DIII. D2 in my opinion was really not worth considering. For the most part (there are a few exceptions), D1 appeared to want Athlete/Students and D3 wanted student/athletes. D2 really seemed to be a weird spot in between. For your child, I’m pretty sure D2 is not a great option.
My son at this time last year had a list of six schools that he had made contact with at the D3 level. Bowdoin, Carnegie Melon, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Washington & Lee, and Williams. He also maintained contact with two D1 programs, Colgate and Navy. To be honest, he never really was recruited at Navy, but did go through the application process and was told if admitted he would be allowed to walk on to the track team. He ended up visiting 3 of the six after he did more research on the school environment, those three were Chicago, Washington & Lee, and Williams.
He then put down some possible future careers and found a few programs that would help him reach those careers. He contacted each of the DIII schools plus Colgate and began the conversation. All asked for his current transcript and test scores. All took his information to admissions and got a pre-read which said he was in good shape with admissions. All told him that he needed to pick one school and decide to apply ED (Chicago even allowed him to choose between ED1 and ED2). However, it did mean making a decision in the September-October timeframe.
He chose UChicago and informed the coach that he was applying ED if the coach would advocate for him in admissions (this is an important step, you need to inform the coach). The coach did advocate and he received a likely letter in November.
Now, it did move the stress up a little, but knowing that he was going to UChicago in November of his senior year was also a huge, Huge, HUGE de-stresser for the rest of his year and if asked (I have) he has absolutely no regrets in how this all turned out.
If you want more help you can message me.
@heartburner your son is in line for discus with Ivies. It could have been the timing of contact. I would try to reach out again. Most Ivy coaches like to recruit at CTFC in the summer and during senior summer in general. How did your son perform at state? Any post season national competitions?
Here are 2018 outdoor Heps results
https://results.leonetiming.com/?mid=1407
@CALSmom –I don’t think a 155’ high school distance (using a 1.6kg disc) converts to a college distance (2kg disc) that would be very competitive at Heps. The thrower that came in 3rd with a 164.5’ threw 199’ in high school, for example.
@Startingblock thanks for clarifying. I know nothing about discus or shot lol. Good luck to the OP! I still think he should reach out to Ivies once more now that their season is finished, you never know.