<p>A well-known basketball-related recruiting site has an article about a HS junior who it says has verbally committed to Yale to play basketball. How is this possible if he hasn't gone through the admissions process yet?</p>
<p>Well, a player can “commit” all he/she wants to any Ivy League school, so that aspect is certainly “possible.” However, such a “commitment”–public or private–means absolutely nothing in the Ivy’s unless and until the player receives a likely letter or–better yet–an actual letter of admission. Thus, while this player may have “committed” to Yale in his head, Yale has neither reciprocated nor is it bound to him in any way, shape, or form. Coaches can babble all they want, but at Yale nothing matters in terms of admission–and I mean nothing–until the admissions office formally weighs in. Just ignore these per-mature “commitments.” I would only assume that the coaches have indicated interest.</p>
<p>You can verbally commit whenever and to whomever you’d like - it doesn’t mean it’s reciprocal. 
Early verbals usually work out as long as his grades don’t tank - but nothing is firm until admissions says so.</p>
<p>It basically means that the recruit received an offer from the coach based on available academic and athletic stats and accepted it. Why it was made public at this time is a different question. It may not even be the player’s decision. If he is really an impact player the coach might advertise this fact to possibly attract other good recruits. I also know juniors in other sport who already received offers from an Ivy, accepted it and announced publicly, accepted but not announced publicly or received an offer and contemplating.</p>
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<p>But what is the ‘offer’? Obviously it’s not monetary, neither is it a guarantee of admission. Basically it’s a coach saying, ‘I’m going to do my best to get you admitted here when you’re a senior, so please stop considering any other schools.’</p>
<p>It may be monetary as well if the financial pre-read was done. The coach is saying that the student is admissible with his slot and so he is offering him this valuable slot. If the student does not do anything stupid and does not blow his app - he will be admitted in the Fall. Is there a risk - yes (actually for both parties involved.) Usually a lot of work and paperwork is required to get a desirable recruit to commit and there is no reason to assume that all this is wishful thinking.</p>
<p>CCDD14–I’m still unclear what you mean by the “valuable slot” within the Ivy context. The realm of the coin is the likely letter (and an admit letter), and coaches won’t (can’t) offer a likely letter until after a formal read by admissions. And this <em>has</em> to be the case insofar as likely letters come from <em>admissions offices</em>, not coaches.</p>
<p>Early Ivy commits are very common in New England, especially with student athletes who study & compete at prep (NEPSAC) or independent schools (ISL). These schools are respected fror their rigor and level of athletic competitiveness and coaches generally can count on PSAT scores and early transcripts to be worthy indicators of future academic performance. In 6 years of following HS sports throughout New England… I have never heard of such an early deal falling through. </p>
<p>It could happen… but if a coach knows the reputation of the secondary school and its administrators, he or she can generally offer with confidence early on, and eventually be able to issue the LL. I wouldn’t advise anyone who has entered into this kind of early arrangement to announce it until a Likely Letter was in hand, however.</p>
<p>There is nothing official or guaranteed about this process at all. That said, it starts for many sports the summer after sophomore year. The coach offers the athlete a spot on the team, their full support with admissions for a likely letter and the admonition that “this is your’s to lose. Just keep doing what you’re doing and you will be fine.” I’ve been following this for years in my kids’ sports and it seems to work almost all the time. An experienced coach knows what’s going to fly with admissions and they are careful with their offers for if they can’t come thru with their “committed” players, they really can’t recruit. For every athlete trying to go to a school with competitive admissions there is an element of the unknown until the LL or admit letter arrives, but it’s a lot less unknown than just about everyone else who’s applying.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity…can a likely letter to HYP be given to a junior -early junior year… if the student already has scores etc? Or are these always given early senior year?</p>
<p>^ 10/1 (of senior year) is the earliest a LL can be issued, This is from the Common Ivy League Agreement.
"
Within each institution’s overall admissions process, from October 1 through March 15 an admissions office may issue probabilistic communications, in writing, to applicants who are recruited student-athletes. (Such communications given by coaches, whether orally or in writing, do not constitute binding institutional commitments.)"</p>
<p>Cows - “valuable slot” - one of the few Likely Letters that the coach can request for this particular year from admission. This process involves some risk for both parties regardless of when this happens Spring Jr. year or Fall of Sr. year. I would assume most coaches would want commitment before requesting a LL although technically this is not required. I do not think every athletic recruit gets a LL. I know people who never got a LL but still announced in October. If you think you are a top recruit with decent grades/scores and no money issues - why not? When you accept an offer everyone in the athletic community will probably know very soon - many sports are a very small world. Coaches will not keep this a secret. Some coaches do not even make a secret out of making an offer to a particular athlete. You can ask them who else they recruit and the may tell you that X accepted and Y got an offer but did not accept yet. They may also tell you the number of available slots and if they are trying to get a transfer for previous year that will cut into yours year allowance or if they have a slot “reserved” for international.</p>
<p>This public message of committing to any Ivy early occurred both last & this year with two of DD’s team mates to a particular Ivy. The LL came for student #1 in early November & the LL will come at about the same time this coming fall for student #2.</p>
<p>Both students-athletes are academically worthy and outstanding at their sport. They could play at about any school of their choice.</p>
<p>After reading all of these posts, I can’t help wondering why a student would ever “commit” to an Ivy before a likely letter? It sounds like word travels fast and other coaches within the sport community hear of the verbal commitment and that the athlete is therefore off the table. Even if in the end it does work out for the student, what does the student have to gain from taking the risk and closing all other doors with other schools? What am I missing?</p>
<p>^ I agree with you, dragonfly. Sometimes it’s not the student at all, but an overzealous reporter. During the summer between my daughter’s junior and senior year a newspaper reporter interviewed her and asked where she would be attending college. She told him she’d been in contact with Harvard, but it’s a long process and nothing is certain, etc. Imagine our surprise when the article came out stating she 'accepted a scholarship offer from Harvard."</p>
<p>First, the basketball world in collegiate sports at most all schools is totally different from the real world. Secondly, in most schools basketball is a revenue sport and that means (even at an Ivy) they have a little bit of the extra swag that a regular old smart kid doesn’t have. Third a recruit in basketball is a prospect the day after he complete his last 8th grade game,if he is any good they already have tracked his progress for the two preceding years and finally,A recruit can verbally commit to any school he sees fit it means nothing. He is not taking a academic seat, he is taking one of the set-aside sport seats and if he’s that good his application is sliding scale admit. Now this situation is different if athletic money is involved in that if after he commits say to Indiana and changes his mind and decides that Purdue is a better fit–well he cannot accept any athletic money, so committing athletically within a conference freezes you out of athletic money,and recruits to commit to one conference and then de-commit and decide to go elsewhere…again if he has some brain power and some court skills and wants to go to Yale-----HE’S IN.</p>
<p>^ schoolhouse, basketball in the Big10 is a whole different animal than basketball in the Ivies. Yale plays in front of 2000 fans on a really good night (compared to 13,000+ at Ohio State) and has 2 televised games all season. The basketball coach isn’t going to call the shots for admissions.</p>
<p>^ schoolhouse: I’ll take varska’s good point one step further. At Yale, the basketball coach doesn’t even call the shots within the <em>athletic dept.</em> – let alone the admissions office. Just ain’t gonna happen.</p>
<p>V & H </p>
<p>Harvard’s appearance in this years Sweet 16 and the revenue that will be split by the conference for that appearance was a game changer…then same as it did when Cornell made their appearance two years before…</p>
<p>prior to that the frequency with which an Ivy appeared in the top-32 teams was once every 10+ years with Princeton being the only team to get some run? The new television contract signed in 2010 is game changer, Harvard’s Jermy Lin/NCAA run and all that exposure is a “financial game changer” and with that will come some admissions considerations. Please, let’s not kid ourselves about admissions either thousand of deserving candidates have already received their denial letters.</p>
<p>Yale might might be the absolute Ivy exception, because I know their fencing facilities are terrible even compare to the other Ivies. (television revenue is the new game changer and trust me if Harvard pulls another Sweet 16 and the rest of the Ivies fail to carry their weight trust me they will call for a quick end to the revenue sharing agreement with other Ivies,what school doesn’t want a 500K influx(that increases with each round the team goes further in the tourney))</p>
<p>schoolhouse, we’re going to have to agree to disagree. I know at the big D1 athletic powerhouses - basketball and football say jump, and admissions asks ‘how high?’
17 ACT? No problem.</p>
<p>The ivies know their whole brand hinges on academics. Now obviously they bring some players in the door that wouldn’t have a chance without basketball, but there’s no way they’re going to risk compromising the brand by ‘offering’ admission to a HS junior. TV revenue of 500K is a drop in the bucket with a multi-billion dollar endowment.</p>
<p>(and Harvard didn’t make the sweet 16 this year - they had a great win over New Mexico, but that was it)</p>