My recruitment experience is wrapping up. I received a lot of support from this forum. I just wanted to relay a lot of my experience, hopefully to help future generations. In the style of @njfbmom 's post: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/1840494-football-recruiting-ivy-nescac-patriot-league-other-diii.html
I’ll try not to repeat much of what she said, I’ll put my background at the end as I’m sure folks want to hear the info asap. I acknowledge the recruitment is a huge gift so my intention isn’t to offend anybody, but I may be somewhat candid to hopefully be helpful. I apologize if any information I provide is incorrect, but I’m relaying what my understanding and experience is.
2 notes of overall advice not mentioned in @njfbmom 's post.
a. As of this year, SAT 2 Subject Tests are rarely required short of 3-4 places, but they were highly helpful. Coaches and admissions officers seemed impressed, and they gave me a bump in the Academic Index.
b. Recruiting coaches (position coaches) may leave the college during the recruitment process after the initial contact, and it’s possible nobody will tell you. Yet the college may still want to recruit you. In fact, the new coach may have even more interest or be a coach that was recruiting you at his previous college. I had this experience multiple times. So loss of contact doesn’t always mean loss of interest as it feels were sometimes taught to believe here.
Here’s feedback and experience by college.
Ivy–ultimately I received no offer. I’m Band 3 academically. Each one took interest to varying degrees. All invited me to camps, and engaged in a lot of email exchange beyond the generic copy-paste “come to our camp” notes. I went to only 2 camps. By end of camp season, no real contact anymore of any substance. Perhaps should have went to more camps, but I didn’t like the idea of all the fees and travels without a clearer sense of where I stood in advance. Perhaps that was a signal that I never was going to be a top recruit for them. Did I not get offers only because I didn’t go to camps? Or was there really never that much interest up front because they weren’t more enthusiastic?
Georgetown–same experience as Ivies, although the coaches were less active with recruitment and hosting camps
Johns Hopkins–be in touch with them before October, but they will not say much until then. I got the same feedback as @njfbmom about the 30 ACT, so I was given strong consideration as a recruit because I had that. However, at the pre-read, admissions was very unhappy with the C from freshman year, so my support continued but became slightly more tempered. Lowered me on the boards a little.
Carnegie Mellon–similar to Johns Hopkins but slightly more forgiving on the GPA, or at least willing to compensate with extracurriculars and SAT 2s. Requires SAT 2s.
Chicago–the coach will not truly know anything until after you submit your application, despite what he says. That means you have to do the Chicago supplement, which is a pain. However, it’s a free application. Ultimately, the finished application is basically what’s required for the pre-read. @njfbmom is correct that they do operate late, so it’s ok to miss the Early Action deadline
Union–feels like an up and coming program. Was offered merit scholarship. They’re also very organized (and generous) about financial aid pre-reads. Overhauled it’s coach staff recently, and was very impressed with them. Perhaps less well-known but how I’d envision a NESCAC, but I found it to be a place I liked much more than any NESCAC. I’m not sure NESCACs give merit scholarships but anybody who’s academically at the level of say Bowdoin-Williams-Amherst will likely receive one. Likewise, anybody at the level of Trinity-Colby-Bates but looking to study Engineering will probably be recruited and admitted. Socially, good fraternities and D1 hockey.
WUSTL–the coach will encourage you to apply if your academics are good, but I suspect he has minimal support. There’s no pre-read or slots. In fact, they don’t even start recruiting until Dec, when the Regular Decision deadline approaches. His support can help push a border-line application over at best was my sense, meaning you have to be somewhat near what WUSTL looks for in non-athletes
MIT–similar to WUSTL, except the coach is much more enthusiastic about expressing desire to help recruits and recruits before Dec. Still, I’m not sure his support will go too far for similar reasons as WUSTL’s in that no pre-read, it’s just a place that values coach support only so much, no slots etc … I’m still waiting on the admissions decision, but I’m really not counting on it. Requires SAT 2s.
Case Western–sense was similar to WUSTL in terms of coach’s ability to help–his support seems even less-- but application is at least free
Carleton and Grinnell–will factor in remaining components of application. Coaches have support
Denison and Kenyon–seem similar but I stopped the recruitment there too early to know. Coaches seemed like they may be able to help.
Macalester and Oberlin–doesn’t seem coaches have as much pull but I didn’t pursue enough to say
RPI–offers good merit aid
Harvey Mudd and Pomona–need good academics. coach didn’t even bother with me. perhaps it is also because i’m not west coast based
Washington and Lee—never received response
Rochester—coach really wants to help and seems like he can
TCNJ–very confusing recruitment process, but the coaches seem to mean very well. I can’t still tell you what actually goes on behind the scenes because it was very disorganized. In fact, at times, I think the coaches were giving me factually incorrect info or bad advice about the admissions process. As a D3 public college that’s good academically—a true goodie but rarity rarity—I think they’re just in a difficult position athletically.
NESCACs—Received a lot of interest from all, but I was really only interested in Tufts and ultimately didn’t receive the offer. Did well with the others. My take-away: they seem to be particularly huge on face-time and phone-time, but that doesn’t guarantee an offer.
I don’t want to offend anybody, but I didn’t have positive experiences with them. Experience with other D3s and Ivies was positive. NESCACs were more aggressive, which would have been good if they were transparent but yet they were much less transparent or at least more misleading. In contrast, other D3s were clear about what they can and cannot do and where I stood, and very reasonable about how much face-time or phone-time they needed of me.
I’ll provide additional info in a separate NESCAC posting.
Background: I was a Band 3 at each Ivy. (That each Ivy uses a different cut-off is a whole other topic, but the coaches hinted I squeaked by at Band 3 even at the more competitive ones like Harvard and Yale.) My ACT and SAT 2s were highly competitive, and I believe my extracurriculars and application essays were strong, but my GPA was very mediocre for top colleges, even as a football recruit. I had all B’s in major classes, 1 C freshman year, and A’s in my electives with only 2 honors classes as a senior—I come from a highly ranked public school though.
Athletically, I’m not All-State, but I’ve received a lot of honors both junior and senior year. From the feedback I got from coaches, I’d guess I was a very low D1 recruit athletically but high D3 athletically.
Also, I mainly targeted D3s because I was nervous about the D1 time commitment and only wanted a college where I’d be happy academically. By happy, I meant a place that seemed to have good opportunities, ideally the subjects I wanted to study, and I probably couldn’t get into unless I were a recruit. I didn’t contact any D2s. Only D1s were Ivy, Georgetown, and about 5 others. However, the 5 other D1s never showed interest.