Early Commits - Do they exist at Ivy League/D3 schools?

<p>monstor344,</p>

<p>Your baseball recruiting timetable ^^ is pretty much what we experienced it. D1 elite baseball players commit during or after sophomore year. When I say elite baseball players, I’m talking about kids who may also go into the draft…very few. D1 majority of baseball players go after junior year and fall of senior year. Ivy baseball recruits commit summer after junior/fall of senior year. D3’s commit fall of senior year. </p>

<p>While this baseball recruiting is going on, you also have the EA/ED admissions process going on in conjunction with the athletic recruiting for some D1 schools, Ivys and D3s. That is where a lot of churn and confusion occurs. I see it on this website and others. But I think you nailed it on the head for the baseball recruiting timetable. So, what that means to me IMO, is that potential baseball players need to be 6-12 months ahead of the process, and getting to know the coach, program, and school.</p>

<p>The only exception to this observation is the strong D1 baseball conferences such as ACC and SEC for example. I know for a fact that their D1 baseball recruiting for 2011 is pretty much done and they are looking at 2012 as you noted with Stanford above. </p>

<p>fenwaysouth</p>

<p>Thanks for the info, fenway, my s is recruited for another sport but hoping to walk on in baseball…Pretty unlikely, but we can dream.There are 2 sophomores that play his position on the team right now…
Fog, our town is pretty much the fall for everything-this fall we had at least 3 boys LAX, 2 girlsLAX(One to Hopkins), swimming(Harvard), and 2 baseball…There was a big piece in the paper on it-these are the D-1s, of course.</p>

<p>^^ Is this DI or DIII oldbatesie (for your son?) That would be wonderful. My son is also hoping to either play both of his sports at the DIII level (what his coaches at prep school would love to see), or play his main sport at the DI level and try to walk on to the baseball team (a slim possibility, but I guess an outside chance depending on the school according to the coach).</p>

<p>DIII Midd, I can’t imagine a walk-on D1. Plus the D1 level of practice is huge, and I imagine all year, even for the 1 sport…so I hear…In D3 it is fairly common to play more than 1 sport.</p>

<p>^^We know of a few kids who do two sports at my daughter’s school (moderate-sized state university. The coaches have made accomodations for the athlete to practice their “other” sport). So it does exist. My D actually had two girls on her team play other sports (DI) while continuing to train their “recruited” sport - she is a gymnast so a very grueling training schedule year-round - even in the summer when gymnasts train more hours (24-30 hours/wk). </p>

<p>It would indeed be very rare for my son to be able to walk on in his second sport as both of his sports are more skill-based, but I guess it can be done. Not expecting it, but it would be prettty cool!</p>

<p>For years he has been intent on playing his main sport DI then pro and all of his coaches agree that he definitely has the ability. BUT, at the eleventh hour he is suddenly saying he doesn’t think he wants to give up his second sport and he might consider DIII so he can play both. A surprise.</p>

<p>HI
Fri eve I mentioned to our kiddo–</p>

<p>“hey, did you hear about so and so…and Stanford…”</p>

<p>Kiddo said, “yeah, and another so- and so (girl) has commited to Princeton for soccer (a junior)”</p>

<p>I guess barring any injuries/or unusual surprises, these are being touted as done deals.
Funny because Princeton sent our kiddo a package very clearly outlining the process and rules…and there wasn’t room in it for a done deal before fall.</p>

<p>So I wodner how this vaires so much from sport to sport and WHY it needs to vary so much…whats the point?</p>

<p>they are not done deals because both pricenton and stanford told these hs juniors that admissions is the only athuority that can tell them they r in and it’s a done deal. </p>

<p>now if they’re pre read and the coach has them as a top recruit then it is very very likely that it’ll all go through. but it’s not a done deal until the fall when admissions accepts them.</p>

<p>i wouldn’t pop off this early if i was their parents and keep it fairly quiet until they are truly in!</p>

<p>Top soccer players are recruited as sophomores and juniors. Have you seen the national recruiting spreadsheet for women’s soccer? </p>

<p><a href=“https://sites.google.com/site/soccerrecruits/[/url]”>https://sites.google.com/site/soccerrecruits/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Harvard, Princeton and Penn all have players claiming to have been recruited for 2011. Hopefully they have had some kind of pre-read.</p>

<p>Also interesting: the coach at the Div I university that verballed the number 1 recruit in women’s soccer for 2011 has just resigned his position. It does seem that in women’s soccer at least, coaching changes are very common and should be factored into the decision-making process for recruits.</p>

<p>^^maybe were just beating to death a fine point between “recruited” and officially “admitted”.</p>

<p>being “recruited” your sophomore or junior year doesn’t mean you’re “in”. That happens after July 1st your rising senior year. All athletes at all schools filled out an application and were admitted to the college by the admission office sometime during their senior year in hs.</p>

<p>^ You know, the thread title does say Early COMMITS…</p>

<p>:p</p>

<p>^^commits doesn’t mean in. it just means that admissions will most likely admit you. this is really a silly point because most verballed, committed or whatever you want to call it athletes do get in. but at the ivies and others you’re not truly in until admissions accepts you. there is no such thing as a sophomore or junior athlete who is guaranteed admissions at an Ivy</p>

<p>To clarify the difference between recruiting, verbal commitment and the admissions process, there is a difference of 5 months in there. An Ivy recruiting, verbal, admissions timetable may look like this for Early Decision (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn):</p>

<p>< July 1 - Emails, Phone calls to coaches, letters, camps</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>For Ivy Regular Decision (Harvard, Princeton, Yale), I believe it is a April 1 notification of admittance. That is a long, long time between verbal commitment, application for admission and final admission. My family went through the ED process and that was the longest 6 weeks of my life. I can’t imagine waiting 5 months which is why a Likely Letter is an absolute must for HYP.</p>

<p>And for the NESCACs there are no guarantees at all until you receive your admittance letter, unless you have a slot where the admission criteria is relaxed a bit. So even if you are a recruit and have had a couple of prereads from admissions ,and the coach tells you to apply ED because he wants you and supports your application , you still need to fully meet admissions criteria.</p>

<p>Agree with the timeline from Fenway for baseball in the Ivies. We are patiently awaiting the April 1 admission (no ED/EA option here) and not so patiently awaiting the financial aid number to be around what we were told.</p>

<p>That having been said, we have back-up plan on top of back-up plan ready to go in case of a nasty surprise (although S submitted no other apps). And, I would always suggest that a family have a back-up plan or two. </p>

<p>Of the two issues (admission and aid), the aid is the least certain. For many families, the amount officially offered needs to be close to the amount used to entice you to accept a verbal offer in the first place. Interestingly, in using some Ivy financial aid calculators during the process, I suspect that the amounts of aid based upon the SAME input has dropped from spring '09 to winter '10. So, while we are really not concerned about the admission; we are concerned about the aid – which may trigger a back-up plan.</p>

<p>We are in no way expecting any nasty surprise; a school really could not successfully recruit if you could not take the admissions LL as essentially an admission.</p>

<p>minor addition to the Fenway list… Yale does offer EA… so there is an opportunity for a LL before EA final decisions in December… my child’s recruiting timeline was similar to what you described… danced with several coaches… went on official dates at several Ivies… submitted an early app to Yale the end of October and got a LL in about 2-3 weeks… needless to say we had a joyous Thanksgiving… I have confirmed in several posts on different threads, every coach was very honest and candid with our child and with us parents… we were nervous and excited until the official email arrived on 12/15 </p>

<p>It is quite natural to have all the angst that one has… regardless of school, not knowing where and what our kids’ future holds is unsettling… not knowing how much that uncertain future is going to cost us is extremely unsettling… at the end of the day, I encourage all parents to guide their child to have at least 3 good affordable choices… so that there are no recriminations after the fact… by 3 good choices, I include 3 good schools to submit an early app to… or 3 good schools to submit a regular app to, or 1 EA and 2 regular, but 3 where the likelihood of acceptance is real. That way your child has a choice and thus THEY can own the decision. As a parent, you will never regret letting it be their choice… unless you have been unclear about the parameters before the dance even begins.</p>

<p>Yes, D3 colleges can take early commits. I know a junior soccer player who has already committed to Williams - there is no question that she will get in (she’s a decent student, but not fantastic) because the coach told her she is one of her slotted people to get in. I know two other athletes, both lacrosse players, that committed to Amherst College last year; one of them is very open about the fact that he would not have gotten into Amherst if he had not been a lacrosse recruit (I like him, but I’m pretty sure he’s right).</p>

<p>Another good friend of mine signed with Harvard this year as a rower. In terms of female sports, crew seems to be the way to get into college (haha). Guess I should have chosen it over soccer…oh well. ;)</p>

<p>My son got an email from an HYP assistant coach inviting him to an elite camp. Note the success of last year’s attendees.</p>

<p>“Anyway, we’d really like to have you at camp if you can make it. Our camp runs incredibly well. The facilities are excellent, the coaches are all proven head coaches and college assistants and the level of talent is very good. It’s a big part of our recruiting, too. Actually all 5 of our incoming freshman attended camp last year during their recruitment. In addition, we have a 2011 committed recruit that will be there and attended last year as a rising junior.”</p>

<p>I was aware of Brown offering a junior a commitment this year, but this is the first instance that I’m aware of that a HYP offered a slot to junior in son’s sport. Admissions will still have to pass on the app and send a likely letter. This must be relatively kosher. The coach would risk losing credibility in the market if his offers are not valid.</p>

<p>^^ for pre-read athletes their “offers” will most likely be fine, but at HYP and Williams you’re not really in until admissions accepts. And I know of one junior world champion athlete who was denied because the app was weak (very weak essay effort) and senior grades fell. The essay sunk the kid, dean of admissions said I don’t care how great an athlete…this kid doesn’t respect our institution enough to try on the essay, REJECTED.</p>

<p>also, I wouldn’t post verbatim notes from coaches here, it would be fairly easy for the coach to know which athlete/parent he sent that note to, and he may not like seeing it in a public forum…recruiting is a sensitive process.</p>

<p>DA trumps AD every time!</p>

<p>Dean of Admissions
Athletic Director</p>

<p>and coaches are way below both of these characters</p>

<p>I fully understand the process. The question is “Why would the coach put his reputation at risk in the recruiting community by making an offer he can’t honor?” Either the needle has moved in terms of what these guys have to do to land their targets or there is a new “pre - pre” read process going on. Many of this coaches would not take this risk without a process indicating that the candidate is within range by the Admissions Office. In S’s sport, with the advent of Amaker, a significant number of underclassmen are listing Harvard “offers” on the recruiting bulletin boards.</p>