@BrianBoiler - you hit the nail on the head. You described it exactly as we are finding it to be, paraphrased below:
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1- Contact each of the DIII schools
2- They ask for his current transcript and test scores
3- They took his information to admissions and got a pre-read
4- All told him that he needed to pick one school and decide to apply ED (September-October timeframe)
5- We 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).
6- The coach did advocate for him
Fairly straight forward. Additional comments on the above:
Make sure you get a pre-read from admissons and not just a “looks good” from the coach. There is a huge difference. Also, confirm that the coach will advocate for him with Admissons.
Finally, do some internet research on the specific college and how much ‘pull’ the coach/sport has with admissions. We found stories about one particular university where a few students in prior years said they had completed steps 1-6 above only to get waitlisted after applying early. We were surprised, but the number of stories was large enough to make us think twice about it. Needless to say that college came off our list. So, do your homework.
Just to expand on @SoxDog great list. We did items 1-6, but also had a #7: my kids asked the coach how much pull he had with admissions and if he applied ED could the coach guarantee that he would get in. We found that the coaches’ answers mirrored the comments that we had read on the internet (mainly here.).
I think @SoxDog is referring to Haverford. That’s because the pre-read at Haverford is just a confirmation that the athlete is qualified for the school, but hundreds of applicants are qualified. The schools seems not give the coaches as many slots or tips or ‘sure admits’ as other schools do.
The Haverford coach in my kid’s sport was very upfront with us when we asked how much pull he had with admissions: he told us that he doesn’t have as much pull as coaches at some other schools have. D3 recruiting is tough since there are so many recruiting variations. In our experiences, it is very important to ask the coaches how much pull they have and not assume that when a coach says that he will support your application that his support automatically guarantees admission at every D3 school.
agree with @shuttlebus, but I do know that the competitive schools (top 20 in the Learfield Directors Cup) all give their programs some influence. The kids need to be at least in the middle 50% stats range (so acceptable without athletics), but if you have that and you can contribute on the team, the coach can at least move some weight onto your side of the scale.
For us that was the real tension. We only get to use one ED, and if we do and we get rejected then we enter the RD round at a bunch of schools. For that we had a solid plan ‘B.’ It was a wacky game theory experiment. Fortunately the likely letter took a lot of that away.
I think @SoxDog is referring to Haverford. That’s because the pre-read at Haverford is just a confirmation that the athlete is qualified for the school, but hundreds of applicants are qualified. The schools seems not give the coaches as many slots or tips or ‘sure admits’ as other schools do.
It wasn’t Haverford I was thinking about. But apparently there are a few D3 schools where coaches have less ‘pull’ in getting their athletes accepted. And sometimes those coaches don’t let their recruits know that their help in admissions is limted.
You need to do your research. I was very nervous when my D applied to a D3 school without some commitment, except “support” from coach. Even after getting admitted ED1 I was still not on board she was on team til PT and coach contacted her. As others have said, ask the questions, has everyone you supported gotten admitted? Who hasn’t? WHat does your support mean? etc.
On a somewhat similar note, for student athletes who are not at the top of their prospective coaches recruiting lists, one possible way to get on the team is to wait it out. While it creates a great deal of angst, we have seen this strategy work with two kids on my son’s soccer team. These were talented athletes who were not in their coaches top tier of recruits, but they kept in touch with the coaches and applied RD to 6-7 schools and heard back from some coaches in late December / early January.
It seems like there were many schools fighting for the same pool of “tier 1” candidates and when the dust settled some coaches ended up with only 2-3 of their top recruits through ED. To fill the other roster spots they moved on to their next set of recruits, “tier 2”, only to find that a fair amount of these kids had already gone elsewhere. Some good colleges ended up calling our son’s teammates in January hoping they applied ED and telling them if the got accepted there would be a roster spot for them. While they didn’t get any help with admissons, they will have a chance to play if they get accepted.
So even if the recruiting process doesn’t start off as planned, there’s always hope.
Yes. My D was told, by basketball coaches recruiting her, that if she did not get in ED1 to her first choice school, they would support her app ED2 at their school. I imagine it is the same for all sports.
We saw similar for swimmers from my daughter’s swim team. One kid was not admitted to a top D3 school even with coach support but found a home at a mid level D1 team. Another never got support from the team he really wanted in the EA/ED or RD rounds but has landed at a lower level D1 that had rolling admissions. Both committed to their teams in the spring.