My son was just waitlisted at an elite D3 school. We have been working with the school’s coach and the he is “supporting” his application. Is this waitlist the end of the road, or is there a chance the coach is allowed to pull from the waitlist? Thanks for the replys.
I know of a kid last year that was supported EA (UChi) and deferred. He was pretty upset. He did, however, receive a likely for the RD round. (I know, I was also surprised that the LL was used by this school)
Whiz,
I think this is a really good question to ask of the coach because it really depends on the school. The NESCACs are more open than some other D3 Schools to coach support (e.g., MIT, Chicago).
That said, the usual quid pro quo in D3 schools is applying early decision in exchange for coach support through admissions. So, when that scenario doesn’t happen, you wonder what happened along the way. When did you start working with the coach? If your son did not apply early, did you at least verbally tell the coach that if your son gets in, he will attend and commit to the team?
if asking the coach is awkward because you are working with him, another option is to have your high school guidance counselor call the admissions office. Sometimes the high school guidance counselor can get a good read on things like deferrals and the wait list.
Thanks for the reply Gointhruaphase!
My son was deferred in EA and the coach said no worries as he has plenty of kids on his team that did not get in EA.
Yes, I really do wonder what happened along the way. Either the coach has little to no pull or he decided not to support my son after all. We started working with the coach at the end of last summer. Yes, my son made it very clear he would be committed if admitted.
We just emailed the coach today, waiting on a response. Would sure be nice if he could grab him from the waitlist, but I think we are dreaming here. Pretty bummed but that’s life I guess.
You used the terms wait listed and deferred interchangeably. You also used early action. Did you mean early decision?
If wait listed, chances are slim as those spots are few. Schools can have a 200+ name wait list and pull less than 10 off of there.
If deferred, you have a little breathing room. My S was deferred in the early decision 1 (not early action) round by a school who’s coach offered support. S didn’t get a good indication of the level of support. His plan B was applying ed2 to a school that offered solid, verified support. Didn’t have to wait to see if the deferral school would eventually take him, ed2 worked out.
My take is that a deferral by a school offering coach support is either a coach not having the pull he thought he did or the student-athlete not getting clarification on how strong the support is from said coach.
A wait list decision is next to no support in my opinion. Probably a token way of showing coach support by not flat out rejecting. Rosters are almost complete by April 1 between ed1 ed2 and regular rounds. Wait list offers can be extended as late as May/June. Again, just my opinion.
@whiz05403, my son is on the same boat as your son: EA, deferred and waitlisted. I am pretty confident that your son and my son applied to the same school as recruited athletes…
The way I deal with this is to ask my son how deadly he wants to attend this particular school. He is fine on giving up hopes on this school. He has received an early writes from a prestige liberal art school and a potential big scholarship from the state school.
If your son is stuck with this school, I will suggest you to continue to communicate with the coaches, seek their feedback, also continue to update academic and other achievements with regional admission officer, telling them the school is still his first choice. On the other hand, keeping upbeat with other schools which announce their decision latter of the months. He will have other schools which accept him and he likes.
The bottom line is that it is time to look forward and start plan B. It will be wonderful if coaches/adcom pull your son off the waitlisted, but it will not happen until May/June. Be optimistic but realistic.
Thanks again for the replies. Ireadcc, yep it’s probably the same school and maybe even the same sport :).
He has a roster spot at another very nice technical school and just got in RD on the 14th. Some grant money there as well but still a very high tuition. He applied to 12 schools total so we have options but many will be without playing his sport.
The more I read here, the more it seems that the coach support did not happen.
We should have asked the coach many more questions, like where we stand on the list of his recruits and what level of support we would receive. We didn’t and I regret it.
If we don’t hear back from the coach in a couple days I will be calling him. Thanks again.
@whiz05403
“My son was deferred in EA and the coach said no worries as he has plenty of kids on his team that did not get in EA.” The coach said the same thing to my son as well when he was deferred. He visited the team in January to show his interests and commitment. We paid for the transportation (D3 school), but it was an official recruited trip with other prospective athletes. Some of them were also deferred from EA but I do not know what happens to them (admission decision-wise). Along the conversation, the coach at some point did mention to my son that he did not know how much influence of his recommendation would have on the admission (in retrospect, this was a bad sign). My son has excellent academic credentials and we were hoping that this was enough to get him in. We were wrong.
The LAC which accepts my son also has the sport my son plays, and my son will be a top player if he attends. Technically, my son is also a recruited athlete in this school because he had previously sent his sport credential to the head coach. During an open house visit last May (general school open house which was not tailored to athletes), the coaches honest told us during an open forum that they had no pull or any influences at all on admission. The head coach contacted my son via email after ED1 and ED2 to see where my son stands. Other than these 2 emails, there was no exchanged emails or phone calls. In fact, my son applied for RD.
We are still waiting for FA package from the LAC to determine whether we can afford the school. For the State school, he can only do club sport but he might potentially get a full ride or free tuition at least.
Whiz- your son should be the one talking to the coach rather than you. Most coaches do not want to talk to parents. Once you get to the financial details it is OK to get involved but prior to that the student should be doing the contact. I would have your son go ahead and call rather than waiting for an e-mail. It shows interest and let’s your son know where he stands. I would tell him not to leave a message but to keep calling back til he makes contact. Leaving a message puts the ball in the coach’s court- if he returns the call unexpectedly it may catch your son off-guard.
Whiz, one more thought.
It appears that there are two posters right now with sufficiently similar stories that they believe the stories come from the same schools and maybe even the same sport. Where there is smoke there is fire. I have to believe that if you search back past years in the “athletic recruit” forum you will find that others have had the same experience. You may glean some wisdom about your chances from those older posts. For the rest of us, the lesson is that not only should we ask advice from current posters, we should also look back on the experience of others from years ago – both good and bad – to inform our decisions on athletic recruiting at a given college in a given sport.
Thanks Takeit, good advice.
So as an update, my son wrote the coaching staff last Sunday and still no response six days later. Very disappointing!!
Sorry Whiz- that is so disappointing for your son. This whole process can be so frustrating because the coach’s obviously have the upper hand and athletes are somewhat at their mercy, especially in D3. Has your son looked into playing at a club level at some of his other top choice schools that are financially feasible? Some of the club teams that we have seen have players that could clearly be playing at a higher level but have chosen to play club for any number of reasons. They still usually travel and games are very competitive. I don’t know what sport your son is in, but he might take a look. Again, so sorry it didn’t work out.