Does anyone know the approximate number of likely letters a college coach might be able to use in recruiting, broken down by sport?
It varies by university, and within the university, it will vary by year
Ok - any general examples or ranges?
Not as concerned about the big D1 sports like football or basketball, but more the minor ones
The minor ones are the ones with even more variability.
You could get a general sense by looking in the college’s athletic departments news archives. At Harvard, as an example, I can see that 6 students joined the MSoccer team in each of the last 3 years and for MLax, they added 9 to the class of 2022, 10 to 2021 and 12 to 2020.
And, of course, you can always ask the coaches.
For fencing, I know that one Ivy we spoke with generally had 3 per gender (which had to be used across all weapon types) while another had 3 total across all weapons and genders.
It’s not accurate to equate likely letters with athletic slots. Not all slotted athletes receive likely letters (sometimes a function of timing, even if they don’t receive an LL most are still accepted), and many schools send likely letters to non-athletic applicants as well.
While true, the number of LLs available to athletes is not, in most cases, related to the** total** number of LLs a college sends out. Continuing with the Harvard example - if, in the unlikely event that they opt not to use all of its allocated non-athlete LLs, the ability to roll them over to the Athletic Director is limited by school policy and by joint Ivy agreement.
Right, athletic slots have limits in total and by team (coaches can and do trade slots). But even slotted recruits don’t always get a likely letter, for example, if said recruit applies ED to Brown on the day apps are due, sometimes the likely letter committee doesn’t get around to getting all the letters out before the ED decision date. My point is that it’s more accurate to speak about number of athletic slots, rather than number of likely letters. Things become more complicated when adding in soft support/tipped athletes, some of which also receive likely letters, but those kids never had a formal slot.
Ivy open weight women’s rowing get 10-12 (at least at HYPB, not sure at CCDP) slots with admissions (that lead to LL based on admissions decision) .
I believe that Princeton swimming gets about eight per team.
OP – isn’t your S in middle school??? It is way too early to worry about this. Please don’t select which of his two sports he pursues (if he does have to make a choice) by how many likely letters are given out – that can change over time, it will vary by school, year by year etc. Not to mention that the most significant factor will be if your S’s skill level improves to the point where he will be a recruited athlete in one or both of the sports he plays currently and nobody can predict that. If he has to choose a sport go with the one you refer to in your other post as “his first sport and main passion.”
Thanks @happy1, now I remember OP. While we don’t know the sports he is interested in, based on username, I will say golf has few slots, and rosters are small (8-10 max, even at top D1 programs, and only 4-6 travel to tourneys).
What that means is 1-2 slots per year are typically available (e.g.,D1 men’s golf have 4.5 scholarships (but not the Ivies), which are often given out in piecemeal, full rides or full tuition scholarships are uncommon). PING golf guide used to show golf scholarship detail for some schools, not sure if it still does.
At D3 schools, like the NESCACs, again coaches typically have 1-2 slots/year. For some info on how NESCAC recruiting works, start here: http://ephblog.com/2017/10/10/athletic-admissions-details/ Some of the Ivy student newspapers have also had decent articles re: recruiting and recent Harvard lawsuit data dump has some info, not sure if it gets granular at the sport level though.
@skieurope gives good advise. Go to the target school website for that sport, see how many freshmen are on the roster. Take the total roster and divide by 4. That will give you an approximate range. The slots are likely less because of walk-ons and soft support, but for academic schools there will be some drop-off of recruits quitting before they graduate. As mentioned upthread, the total number of possible slots should be pretty far down your list of considerations. The first consideration is which sport your kid prefers more. If he/she still enjoys both sports and it is not a time issue (esp in middle school), I would not force specialization. As he/she gets into HS and the recruit path is a clear viable option, then the question is in which sport is your kid the more standout athlete if you are trying to cull sports. Most times outside circumstances dictate which path you end up on. Could be physical growth, interest or even injury.
there Is a featured thread here, titled How much support can a coach provide that has a fair amount of discussion on this question. It might be worth a read.
Basically, each Ivy League team is allowed to support a number of recruits equal to 1.4 times the travel roster of each varsity sport sponsored at the particular institution on a four year rolling basis. If a school offers all Ivy championship sports that means it can support up to 230 recruits a year. How that support is divided up is at the discretion of each school’s AD. The special AI rules which govern football, basketball and men’s hockey probably limit that discretion somewhat, although it is unclear to me at least how those rules effect the general picture.
Within that general rule, it is important to realize at least two things. First, all eight schools routinely provide 30 likely letter slots to football every year, which is more than would be allowed under the general 1.4 times the travel roster formula (which would be 21.7). Second, based on the very little public reporting available, no school uses all of their allotted likely letter slots on a regular basis. Based on these two factors, I think it is very unlikely that most sports at most schools offer the support you would expect by applying the 1.4 times the travel roster formula.
@Ohiodad51 I have also heard that there is often a lot of horse trading from year to year: i.e smaller teams may lose or gain spots to other teams in exchange for XYZ–i.e slightly lower scored recruits or an extra recruit next year and so on. Not sure what is truth and what is fiction. I suspect that many men’s teams outside of BBall, Hockey and Football are often at the mercy of institutional demands/needs. Womens’ teams less so due to title IX.
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@Center, it certainly is not hard to see how there would be a lot of horse trading going on among the sports that don;t have a kind of fixed system. The AD’s job is to keep all of the coaches and alumni interested in the various sports relatively happy. I am sure it is not unlike a playground monitor dividing up the kick balls at recess!
There might also be more LLs issued to women for the remaining sports to comply with Title IX. if the schools are issuing 30 for football, I’d expect to see more for females even in sports where there are both men’s and women’s teams.
And some teams don’t use up all their allotted spots from year to year. Not sure why a coach wouldn’t use all alloted spots but it does happen…
Perhaps like unused cell minutes?..can coaches roll over from year to year?
I know this is getting pretty far afield from the OP’s question, but I am not sure that Title IX has any direct bearing on the number or distribution of likely letters issued by any school. Title IX has to do with equitable access to athletics (and other things) so it has a fair amount of impact on scholarship funding, roster sizes, sports supported, budgets, etc. But I am not so sure it can be stretched far enough to cover equity in admissions decisions. In other words, if a particular school decided to use most or all of its allotted likely letter slots on athletes of one gender, I don’t think there is a violation as long as the participation numbers remained within the equitable range. For Title IX purposes, true walk ons count the same as likely letter recruits since there are no scholarship dollars involved.
All that said, I think it is very likely that the schools probably enforce a rough parity between likely letters in men’s and women’s sports for institutional reasons. Whether that means that women’s teams in the same sport get more likely letter slots then men’s, or that the distorting effect of football is covered by a larger number of women’s supported sports I think is anyone’s guess.
I’m not sure that there’s much guesswork involved. Looking at scholarships M v. W in comparable sports will give some directionality. (e.g. 18 vs.12.6 for track, 14 vs. 9.9 for soccer). I’m not suggesting that there’s a 1:1 correlation between scholarships and LL (there’s not), and in the final analysis, I agree that in any given co-ed school that the number of LLs for M and W will be roughly the same.