Well, my son has been deferred to regular admission. We got the form letter with a handwritten note on it saying for him to please submit first semester grades from senior year. We knew they wanted to see grades from senior year but we thought quarter grades would be sufficient. However, they want to see the semester grades. The coach was not surprised at all. He said they were always going to need to see his semester grades. They are looking for an upward trend. The good thing is that my son has had his best academic year so far. So it looks like a few more months of uncertainty. His semester grades will not be available until the beginning of Feb. My son does not want to play his sport at any other school. He has been contacted by several coaches recently because of his performances at showcases (despite being listed as committed). He has zero interest in playing for those schools (or attending those schools). He has already been accepted to his number 2 school. So I guess we will just wait it out. Hope the time goes by fast because of the holidays.
Question: Since the handwritten note only mentioned the semester grades does it seem like that is the only thing holding him up from being admitted? If they were concerned about something else would they have mentioned it? Gosh all of this is so stressful! My son has been holding up much better. Although,he was absolutely crushed when he received the deferral. However, that seems to have motivated him to work even harder academically. He is very close to having all A’s for the next quarter. I would not be surprised if this motivated him to pull those two B+'s up to A’s.
Ouch, I am sorry. It sounds promising though. I think your son plays soccer and mine is a swimmer so I am not sure I will be of much help. Other than working on his grades, I would suggest that he should continue to demonstrate interest in the school. The school my son applied to tracks the number of times he contacted them, visited them, etc apparently. Maybe other posters have advice on what to do in that regard. Hang in there.
I too would show as much interest as possible
Email the admissions counselor who covers your region
Let them know how much your son wants to attend their university
Continue to communicate with the coach
After its all said and done you want to feel like he did all that he could to strengthen his case and show his interest
Best of luck
I’d caution getting too excited about a February admission. It sounds like he’ll be with the regular decision people now, and that date might be March 15 or 31.
It is difficult to provide guidance without more complete information, such as sport, type of college, nature of support offered by coach, pre-read results etc. Without such information, it is hard to analyze your status beyond suggesting that you obviously failed to perform necessary due diligence when the coach tells you that he is not surprised by the ED1 deferment because “they were always going to need semester grades.” Your S needs to start exploring his other options asap. It is now too late to go ED2 anywhere so your S better be in communication with his number 2 school to determine how long that offer will remain open.
Thank you for the comments. He has been in contact with the coaches on a regular basis. They respond right back if he sends them a text message. One thing he has not done is contact the admissions counselor for our area. Thanks for the suggestion. I will make sure he does that. The coaches did not hide the fact that he was on the bubble with admissions.They told him that over the summer. The director gave them permission to continue recruiting him but told them exactly what my son would need to do. He needed to take the ACT again and try to increase it. He took it again and he did increase his score. The director also said he needed to show an upward trend with his grades. The coach suggested that he attempt to get all A’s and B’s. He did that. We knew they needed grades from senior year. The surprise was that they needed the entire semester instead of the quarter. Grade-wise it does not make a difference. However, we just hoped to have the uncertainty behind us by now. Even if for some reason soccer fell through, he would still be admitted to his dream school. Also, he has already been admitted to his #2 school. If he ends up there, he will not play soccer unless it is at the club level. Thank you again for all of the comments. I will definitely make sure he contacts the admissions person for our area.
For once I will disagree with Zenator. I do not believe that it is too late to apply ED2. Typically the deadline for ED2 is the same as for regular admission, you simply hear earlier in exchange for agreeing to matriculate if admitted. In fact, ED2 is called by some the safe harbor for those not admitted in ED1, so naturally there is some time to submit the ED2 applications to schools that have an ED2 option. But of course, your son bears the ultimate responsibility for all deadlines so it is wise to double check those dates and not rely on anyone from CC for that information.
If your son is fine with matriculating at no. 2 school, even it means club soccer, then just keep the faith. If you son does want a school with a soccer option, ED2 is still an option at many schools and you should have a conversation about that.
Other than that, maintain the dialogue with the coaches. Perhaps they can give you a “if your grades are here at the end of the semester” pre-read.
gointhruaphase: I stand corrected and agree that different colleges have different deadlines and policies for filing ED2, a number of which have yet to expire. I apologize for not choosing my words more carefully by stating that it is to late to go ED2 “anywhere.”
Two months later and we are still waiting. My son completed the semester with 6A’s and 1B. I’m so proud of him because he worked so hard to make his dream come true. I told him that I am proud of him regardless of the outcome.
Two of the coaches showed up at a showcase. They watched two of my son’s games. There is another recruit for the same college on my son’s club team. I later found out that my son’s team was playing against a team that had two more recruits for the college. So I’m not sure if they were looking for new recruits or just trying to see the dynamic between the four recruits. The coaches were very nice to my son. The head coach seemed happy to see him and gave him a quick pat on the back. The assistant coach had a nice conversation with him. He told him that he thought he had an excellent shot a being admitted due to his high GPA for the semester. Not the same as saying that he would be admitted (and I realize that only admissions admits) but still gives a little hope.
Anyway, four more weeks until we have a decision. Hope the weeks go by fast. My son is using the time to get in shape (strengthening his core,running,weight training,etc) and finish up the remaining scholarship applications.
Just wanted to let you all know that my son was admitted to the university today. He is excited about playing soccer at his dream school. Thank you all for your help/support during this stressful recruitment process…
We got the form letter with a handwritten note on it saying for him to please submit first semester grades from senior year. We knew they wanted to see grades from senior year but we thought quarter grades would be sufficient. However, they want to see the semester grades. The coach was not surprised at all. He said they were always going to need to see his semester grades. They are looking for an upward trend. The good thing is that my son has had his best academic year so far. So it looks like a few more months of uncertainty. 
My son completed the semester with 6A’s and 1B. I’m so proud of him because he worked so hard to make his dream come true. I told him that I am proud of him regardless of the outcome.