<p>Not having produced any athletic children, this is an issue which would never have crossed my mind but for the fact that for the past couple of days I have been seeing headlines in our local paper about kids being excited knowing where they were going to college next year. Including Harvard. There was a feature article yesterday on a girl who will be attending Harvard next year to play her sport. I guess I didn't realize how "early" the ED/EA process could be. ;)</p>
<p>In my area more kids seem to get in to elite schools to play a sport than for an unhooked academic transcript. I know that it cannot be true but it certainly looks that way this time of year.</p>
<p>Yes indeed, athletes routinely do get very early notification - basically, athletic recruitment is considered to be outside the purview of the ED/EA application pool. We had a discussion about an Iniside Higher Ed. article on this subject on the "Colleges Set Limits" thread (post 6):</p>
<p>I have a D who is in her 2nd year in college. Though she does play on a sport team, she was not recruited. Her college app experience was very low key and pretty much non-stressful.</p>
<p>My D who is a h.s. senior is being hounded daily by coaches looking to recruit her. They are all competing to sign the top talent and though they start off their conversations with "I don't want to pressure you", it then goes into a "but..."</p>
<p>In fact, she had a coach out of nowhere send her an e-mail (she had never even considered the school) - he got her e-mail addressy from a spy of another coach - and he said he knew she was being recruited by colleges in his same conference and if she told him the offers she was getting, they would match or beat them. (Can they beat a full ride?)</p>
<p>Another coach has someone at every single game (either herself, one of her assistants or players) and they bring a packet with an application every time.</p>
<p>She is at the point that she just wants to make a decision and get it all over with so she can enjoy her senior year - and I think that's what coaches are counting on.</p>
<p>I guess what I hadn't expressed well enough in my first post was my interest in the fact that somehow the admissions office at Harvard has already given their blessing to the coach re: this athlete. It's not a wink. The newspaper article states definitively that Harvard is where this current HS school will be in attendance next fall. Even with all of the discussions I have read on the board about athletics, I guess I just didn't realize the timetable. I understand about athletic "tips," as well as other hooks, but I assume that a nationally ranked trumpet player (I made this category up) would not yet be able to announce that he/she is going to Harvard next fall.</p>
<p>Asteriskea-Thanks for the reference to the prior thread. I had managed to miss that one!</p>
<p>At our school three athletes have already been accepted to Yale. I guess I could understand the importance of athletes to schools like USC or Notre Dame, which make so much of their money from their sports programs, but I was very surprised that the Ivies care more about athletes than academics.</p>
<p>I have two cousins who were nationally recruited volleyball players. Both had made firm decisions about where they were going by the end of their junior years in high school. I don't think that's the norm, though, and neither made a "most prestige/best team/most money" decision. For example, one made a commitment to a college close to home with a reasonably competitive team where she had personal ties, despite very active interest from "better" schools ranked in the top 5 in her sport.</p>
<p>A family I know has a nice, if unusual, situation. Their HS junior is projected as a baseball draft prospect. He has good grades at a good school and probable good board scores (based on sophmore PSATs); he cares more about education than baseball. Within the limits of the NCAA recruiting rules, it has been made clear to his parents that if he wants to pick any particular Ivy League school at the end of his junior year, all he has to do is ask.</p>
<p>From what I've learned on other boards dealing with college athletes a "very likely" letter is NOT the same as a "National Letter of Intent (NLI)". </p>
<p>Ther very likely letter basically is a promise by the coach to us a tip or other mechanism to help admissions and admissions has accepted that tip. I'm not sure how early they can be issued. However, these letters do not keep the coach from withdrawing the offer for scholarship, or even withdrawing the tip itself. Plus the kid still has to perform up to expected standards. The student is not committed to attend with a likely letter.</p>
<p>The NLI from what I understand cannot be issued until the senior year has begun in any sport. It is a two-way binding admit (barring the senior slouch extreme) and generally has (except Ivy League) the scholarship award worked out. It binds not only the institution but the student as well. Now, this student cannot apply/accept anywhere else until released by the school.</p>
<p>So as much as people would like to say "likely letters" are early admission, they are not. They only serve to clarify who is currently at the top of the coaches wish list for recruits. It is helpful to those students who are worried about where they stand in that it is an invitation to negotiate the NLI when that period opens.</p>
<p>Any D1 athlete parents want to correct or clarify please help. I am in my first year of researching this stuff myself. I thought I might share what I've been reading.</p>
<p>Two boys from my daughter's HS were accepted at the end of their junior year to two basketball powerhouse colleges. There was even a press conference with the coaches. I imagine that if they had failed senior year the offers might have been rescinded, but other than that it was certainly a done deal. It was a bit odd to see all the hoopla when the rest of the class had barely begun looking at colleges.</p>
<p>goaliedad, thanks for sharing your information about the NLI program. It certainly cannot be confused with a likely letter. It all goes to show just how much pressure is involved in the competitive - and early - college athletic recruiting business. The National Letter of Intent Program is tied to an institutions conference affiliation and its basic purpose is:</p>
<pre><code>* To reduce and limit recruiting pressure on student-athletes; and
* To promote and preserve the amateur nature of collegiate athletics.
</code></pre>
<p>
[quote]
By signing a National Letter of Intent, a prospective student-athlete agrees to attend the designated college or university for one academic year. Pursuant to the terms of the National Letter of Intent program, participating institutions agree to provide athletics financial aid for one academic year to the student-athlete, provided he/she is admitted to the institution and is eligible for financial aid under NCAA rules. An important provision of the National Letter of Intent program is a recruiting prohibition applied after a prospective student-athlete signs a Letter of Intent. This prohibition requires participating institutions cease recruitment of a prospective student-athlete once a National Letter of Intent is signed with another institution.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
This Letter served as certification that the student intended to enroll at a specific institution during the coming fall academic term. At the time of the Letter's signing, the athletics director would indicate the type and extent of financial aid the institution was willing to provide. Following the signing, other cooperating conferences and institutions would then respect his/her decision to attend a specific college or university, and would cease further recruitment of the prospective student. This agreement was subject to the prospective student qualifying for admission to the institution of his/her choice and meeting the NCAA requirements for receipt of financial aid.
[/quote]
</p>
<p><a href="http://www.national-letter.org/overview/%5B/url%5D">http://www.national-letter.org/overview/</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the quotes asteriskea.</p>
<p>As for what I've heard in girls hockey, a lot of players are sewn up by the end of their Junior year of play with "likely letters". I think the players seek it out to mark their territory as much as schools seek it out for committment. Unfortunately, the Junior year is way too early for many kids to have picked out their college. </p>
<p>And quite frankly, these kids are still changing both physically and mentally. I do wish they would back off the recruitment signings until near the regular admissions deadline. But I think that is never going to happen.</p>
<p>From what I'm learning, the coaches are getting more student athletes committing a lot earlier now than in years past.</p>
<p>More than 1 coach has said something like, "as long as you have a 2.2 GPA and 800 on SAT's, you're in." (I could be off on these figures a little - can't remember the exact - but I was surprised that the bar was so low.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
More than 1 coach has said something like, "as long as you have a 2.2 GPA and 800 on SAT's, you're in." (I could be off on these figures a little - can't remember the exact - but I was surprised that the bar was so low.)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What the NCAA will accept for a student athlete is substantially different than what the elite colleges will accept. The NCAA bar is pretty low. For more information -- and the real rules -- check out the NCAA website. The rules are very different (lower standards) from what we see with elite colleges in practice. It also varies by sport.</p>
<p>The trend in boys hockey to get hockey players to "verbally commit" to D1 schools as early as their freshman year in high school. I have never quite understood how they get away with this given the NCAA recruiting guidelines
however,on websites like USHR( US hockey report) and others these committments are reported on a daily basis.</p>
<p>You even see this with the Ivies</p>
<p>burnthis- i actually have recently heard of a 4th student who is commiting to yale for running from harvard-westlake.</p>
<p>Eskimo,</p>
<p>Argh! I can't talk my son into switching to Harvard or Princeton before Tuesday! Four already at Yale, Jeez. I'm looking at the list from last year and now wondering if any of the 13 didn't have connections or sports.</p>
<p>I would be a bit leery about the news that a kid is accepted to a school nearly 2 years before he is to start college. Too much can happen in that time span. First of all, it is illegal for coaches to recruit that early, so I don't know how the heck a school like Harvard would stick its neck out two years early. I don't believe it. I have checked out a number of stories like that, and invariably, they are untrue. I have heard of full athletic scholarships from schools that do not give them. I have heard of accepts when they did not happen. I have heard unlikely scholarship numbers, and they have turned out untrue. I know a coach at one college where I was told some kids where awarded money for a sport, and he says, he wishes. And if he had any money to parcel out, it would not have been for that kid. So you hear a lot of things.</p>
<p>My good friend has son who is a top hockey player and excellent student. I cannot imagine who would be recruited before he was, and I know his story well. As a senior, he now knows where he wants to go. Looking at the national team roster, I am sure my friend can tell me who is going where and some of the story behind it. When I hear about a "no name" in that world getting an early admit to Harvard, two years before he can even go, it sounds like a tall tale to me. Not to say, the kid won't end up there, but I doubt H is going to send out an acceptance letter that early.</p>
<p>burnthis- one of my best friend's sister is at yale. and she told me that her year there were a lot of athletes recruited as well, but she still got in scea.</p>
<p>Thanks, Eskimo. Was the fourth person's initials JC by any chance? S said he's really smart and a nationally ranked runner, so that would make sense.</p>
<p>burnthis- yes, that sounds about right.</p>