IMPORTANT: WHat are my chances of being recruited?

Athletic Recruits
1

<p>HEY Guys </p>

<p>I am a junior and i was wondering what my chances are for being recruited to a top tier divison one school for tennis?</p>

<p>Background: League and TEam MVP (10th grade), Most Improved Player(10th grade), i played number 9 on my high school team freshman year and now play number one singles with only 2 seniors graduating who were 6 and 7. </p>

<p>NorCal Rank: 84
State Rank(CA): 168
National: 201</p>

<p>I am going to talk to:</p>

<p>Stanford
Harvard
UCLA
Cal
USC
UCSD
Princeton
UCD</p>

<p>Weighted GPA: 4.28
SAT: 2140</p>

2

<p>I do not know tennis in particular but it is VERY hard to be recruited at a top tier D1 program in any sport unless you are one of the elite athletes in the nation. We have had 4 kids from our area go on to play D1 tennis and they were all major standouts, top in league, ranked USTA etc. None of them are at a top tier program. They are all at mid majors. Make sure you do not target only unreachable schools. Make sure you are casting a wide enough net. And trust me, it is much better to go to a school where you are really wanted then to try to get on a team where you might ride the pine for your entire career. Just be realistic with what would be a good fit. Best of luck to you.</p>

3

<p>While it is nice to have reach schools, you need to have some safety schools too. </p>

<p>Try to put down ten safety schools in terms of tennis that tennis players of YOUR LEVEL ( ranking) have gotten into… </p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

4

<p>I still have a year left and I believe I should be top 50 in California. Should I wait till the end of my junior year or should I just start talking to schools?</p>

5

<p>You should be talking to schools and should have been for months now. Start emailing coaches, get a video together, etc. I agree that you need some realistic choices too. Even if you are top 50 in California, there are 49 other states with tennis players too. Shoot for the top schools but also get a good, realistic list of other schools. Right not your stats are reasonable for GPA/SAT but they could be better.</p>

6

<p>clippers32,</p>

<p>You should try to start a dialogue with coaches now. You are considering national schools, so your national ranking will have a big part of a coaches interest. Try to bring your national ranking up by playing in more national level tournaments. In addition, I agree with other posters that these schools you’ve listed are pretty stout. You may want to consider other mid-level tennis conferences or schools across the country where your national ranking will mean more. Just by looking at your tennis numbers, your national numbers will carry more weight than your CA numbers where it is quite competitive. If you want to play in CA, it looks like you may have to wait in line. If you open up your recruiting nationally, I think you’ll have more choices except possibly in TX and FL where the supply/demand is similar to CA. </p>

<p>BTW - Your SAT numbers are very good, and you may have choices with some Ivys. I would strongly encourage you to consider Ivys. You’ve got the academics and the athletic ability may be in line with what they are looking for. We had a couple kids in our area (mid-atlantic) go to Ivys last year, and they held a national ranking similar to yours…but it was not H or P. Both were very sharp kids and really good tennis players, but not at the Stanford, USC and UCLA caliber. Good luck, and keep up the good work!</p>

7

<p>I would also carefully review the team roster of any college you are interested in. Your national ranking should be greater than 25% of the freshman class for schools that you are interested in. I would pick some school that are higher and some that are lower. I would select some schools based on your current ranking and some schools based on the ranking you hope to achieve.</p>

8

<p>If you want to send me a private message with your TRN ranking,
I can try to help you more.</p>

<p>Or you can list it here. Your call.</p>

<p>Did you play Kalamazoo and Winter Nats?</p>

<p>Are you playing Easter Bowl?</p>

<p>If yes, 16’s or 18’s. </p>

<p>These events do have coaches…</p>

<p>And are your Norcal and National for 18’s or 16’s?</p>

<p>Big difference if you just aged up…</p>

9

<p>With those rankings, I doubt you are recruitable at any of those schools. You need to look up your ‘star’ rating on TRN. From there, you can pretty easily determine which schools could be a tennis fit for you.</p>

10

<p>One more thought: it looks like you are interested in going to school in CA. There are some great d3 tennis programs there: CMS, Pomona Pitzer, Whittier, Redlands, UC Santa Cruz. That is a great way to go. Check out division3tennis.com.</p>

11

<p>TRN says I’m a four star </p>

<p>Also I chose these schools because they offer great educations and that is my main priority going forward however my passion for tennis is so great I was just wondering if I could take it to the next level</p>

12

<p>cbw123
How would I play in those tourneys, such ad yhe easter bowl? I usually just play local national levels, opens, and challengers.</p>

13

<p>Keep in mind that there are MANY unranked international players that are also competing for spots. Check the current rosters of the schools you are interested in.</p>

14

<p>As a 4 star, Stanford, USC, UCLA and the Ivys are out of your reach. They recruit 5 star, blue chip and international. If you are interested in a great academic school that you can use tennis to get into, I would again recommend the really great D3 schools such as Emory, Hopkins, W&L, anyone in NESCAC, Chicago, Wash U and the others I mentioned in CA. Most of these schools would love to recruit you, and it would work well for you because your academic stats, while impressive, are probably not good enough to get into those schools via regular admissions.</p>

15

<p>Excellent! Good TRN ranking. </p>

<p>However, you are not in the ball park for USC, Stanford, Harvard, UCLA, or Princeton. Period. </p>

<p>I can’t speak about Cal or UCD or USCD as I am not familiar with those schools…</p>

<p>Maybe… you might be able to get into one of the lesser IVY"S, but skip Cornell, they won’t look at your level.</p>

<p>And a lot of times when you look at the IVY’s, you might see some strange pairings of who is on the team, they might be a legacy, deep pocket, professor’s son, and usually they are sitting on the bench.
So, not everything you see is actually what it is.</p>

<p>You state - </p>

<p>"… still have a year left and I believe I should be top 50 in California. </p>

<p>Should I wait till the end of my junior year or should I just start talking to schools?"</p>

<p>I am guessing you just aged up into the 18’s, and assuming your rank will go up…</p>

<p>But, you are a junior, your tennis level today is what the coaches are looking at,
not what you MIGHT BE next year as a senior, and by then, everyone has already committed.</p>

<p>So, you have to start communicating now, not at the end of the year.</p>

<p>You need to look more at Division 3 schools, not D1.
You have great grades and SAT, maybe John Hopkins, MIT, Emory, Wash U, University of Chicago, etc, etc, etc.
Do your homework here and look at your TRN ranking and where those kids have gone in the past two years.</p>

<p>The select D3 highly academic schools care more about academics than tennis,
so don’t listen to what the coach says when he promises you that you are definitely in.
Your tennis gives you an edge, but that is it here in the select D3 world.</p>

<p>You ask, “How would I play in those tourneys, such ad yhe easter bowl? I usually just play local national levels, opens, and challengers.”</p>

<p>Easter Bowl is a Super Nats Level 1, the draw is 128 and you still have to minus out 8 wildcards, so realistically about 120 juniors or spots.
You can get in either two ways, off your National ranking or your sectional ranking.
So, you have to be about top 120-140 to get in off your National ranking,
and I am not sure how many spots NorCal has for sectional, but would think 10, so you have to be top 10 - 15 or so in Norcal.</p>

<p>Last high school tennis is great to show LEADERSHIP, so definitely help out the team and the younger kids on the team and try to be one of the captains. Looks nice on the resume and shows a different dimension to you…</p>

16

<p>You might want to look into this too.</p>

<p>[Donovan</a> Tennis Strategies : College Showcases](<a href=“http://www.donovantennis.com/showcases/index.php]Donovan”>Showcases – Donovan Tennis)</p>

17

<p>Wherever you end up looking, don’t wait around to be recruited as it probably won’t happen. Coaches are working on tighter budgets than they used to and are not traveling to see recruits. Be very proactive and self- promoting. Send out a lot of emails, call coaches, become familiar with ! various programs. Have a video and follow up with coaches routinely. Tell coaches why you would be an assett- w/o sounding too cocky. Good luck</p>