<p>I just wanted to pass this on since I don't recall ever having seen this mentioned on the forum.</p>
<p>I recently discovered, when my son told me, that most incoming freshman classes for various schools now start new facebook groups as soon as acceptances start to come in. For example, "Confidential College Class of 2018." Although all the groups are closed and you can't see the messages the kids exchange, the group member lists are public, and you can usually click through to get a snapshot of a particular member's page. By far, most of the kids who are involved in sports make it clear from their page what their sport is.</p>
<p>Simply clicking back and forth a little, you can not only fill out the names of other admitted recruits for your kid's school and sport, but you can do the same for other schools in your kid's league and get an early picture of where the recruits who will be competing against your kid are headed, well before the rosters come out next fall.</p>
<p>In case anyone found this useful, I wanted to share. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!</p>
<p>Happy New Year resolution - discover a new hobby, instead of living vicariously through child. Instead of stalking the FB pages of 18 year olds to figure out next Fall’s roster for all the schools in the league (not just my kid’s school)! The sad thing is that I can so see myself going down this path, that this post is a wake-up call to me as well. Thank you @ChicagoMama</p>
<p>My daughter’s sport, lacrosse, lists the recruits on one of the national pages, and you can sort by high school, state, or college commitment. Within 2 days of her signing her NLI, she was tweeting and texting and snapping with all her new teammates (FB is sooo yesterday, just for old people). I asked my daughter how she ‘found’ all these kids with just their names and hometowns, and she looked at me like I had two head (I have no idea how to FB or anything else).</p>
<p>I think it is fun to look up not only my daughter but all the kids she’s played with over the years and see where they are going to college too, both girls and boys.</p>
<p>Aw, honestly I don’t mean any harm. I know the word “Facebook” brings up all sorts of weird connotations, but I don’t think anyone would look twice if I were checking out a lacrosse message board elsewhere online - as twoinandone mentioned, those boards have had commits published for quite a while now for the class of 2014 and no one calls it stalking. </p>
<p>It is all public information (FB makes it public, and you cannot see anything beyond the profile pictures and banners for kids pages, nor would I want to see any more), and it will be public soon enough as official commitments to different schools come out in local press in January and February. </p>
<p>I’m excited for all these kids, I recognize many of them as kids we met at recruiting events and wish nothing but the best for them. As a parent, I just look forward to knowing about the different kids coming in at different schools and enjoying the spirit of competition.</p>
<p>FWIW, there are message boards all over the web interested in which schools are getting which recruits, all sports all conferences. It is actually news.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is at all “living vicariously through one’s child” to have a healthy interest in what actually happens during their playing time in college. In fact my New Year’s Resolution is to spend more time watching football on TV so that I understand the game better by next fall. I still don’t understand as much as I should. Things like flags and penalties still elude me. ;)</p>
<p>I told my son about this and he joined his college group. I don’t think he was even aware of it, since I am the only one who is on these boards. </p>
<p>He’s already in contact with some kids from his recruiting class. Thanks.</p>
<p>It took my son about a day to find all the other recruits for his sport at his university and contact them. A few were through the facebook group.</p>