My son is currently a junior and has sent emails to an Ivy coach since freshman year. Back then the responses were “I’m not allowed to talk to you until xyz date”. Then xyz date came but he got no response to his email. Ivy coach was spotted watching his game at a tournament spring of sophomore year but no communication. Son sent an email with updates fall of junior year with no response. Son figured coach was not interested so didn’t send any more emails updating about school season or tournaments. Son got a very nice SAT score this spring and figured why not send it to the coach. Assistant coach emailed back thanking him for his continued interest and said they would add him to their recruiting database and try to watch him at the next tournament. Then coach said they would love for him to consider attending their camp over the summer.
My thought is that when the coach was spotted at the tournament, he was there to watch another player since my son hadn’t been in their recruiting database. Is there a way to find out if they’re actually interested in him or if they just want another body at camp along with our $450? Should we have the club coaches reach out? Do you think they are actually interested since the coach responded to his last email? I don’t want to make a wrong move but I don’t want to waste money either. He is playing a lot over the summer. Their camp is good but he can also use the rest since it’s right before the fall season.
My son has had much success in this sport but is considered undersized for D1.
I forgot to say also that son got a decent ACT score after the SAT score and emailed that to the assistant coach but didn’t get a response to that email.
My interpretation (fwiw) is that DS will need to attend the camp to be considered. It doesn’t mean the coach is particularly interested but that without attendance, he definitely won’t be. I would guess that if coach had been watching him and really liked him, the interaction would have been different up to this point.
In light of the time and money, I would make this decision based on how much your son likes this scool in particular and how important playing in college is to him.
Given that your son is under size, you might also take a look at the school’s current roster and see how those kids compare in terms of size and position. If there isn’t anyone that matches, perhaps there isn’t a good fit.
However, keep in mind that your son can apply without the coach endorsement and still walk on / try out if he gets admitted. Even if the coaches like your son, most have a limited number of spots that they can endorse.
He is getting looked at by a few D3 schools but like a lot of kids, he’s got Ivy dreams. I don’t even know if that’s the best place for him but I don’t want to limit his opportunities at this point. One D3 already casually mentioned ED to him but we’re not even close to being there yet. I’m just trying to figure out if the Ivy is serious about him given their limited communication up to this point. I will pay the $450 if it gives him a chance but if they’re not actually interested in him, I won’t be happy about losing that money.
I’m assuming it’s football? Not my area of expertise. I will say that my S got an invite to an Ivy baseball camp that we decided not to go to, as the same coaching staff will be at the Headfirst Camp, along with many others. While the camp was a reasonable price and good value(under $400 for two days), once you threw in plane tickets, car rentals, and hotels then the cost was well over $2000.
If we were local we definitely would have done it, but unless the coach is calling us up personally and indicating a lot of interest and knowledge in S, then we have to pick our spots. Like you, S is very busy with his sport during the summer, both with games, working out, seeing schools, and doing the odd local Showcase/camp, as well as a couple of National Showcases. Going to a bunch of individual school camps is not realistic both financially and timewise.
I’m guessing not football, since OP talks about club teams and tournaments.
Talk to your club coaches. They’ll know if your son has a chance based on athletic talent and most are pretty good at knowing if top grades with pretty good talent will get him a spot on the team (but maybe with very little chance of playing).
Oops. Saw the “undersized”, and immediately thought of football.
FWIW if this is a sport involving a racquet and a ball, they are just interested in your camp tuition and that your son’s involvement would help amp up the playing level at their camp. My kid is a solid D3 prospie, and will also apply to some Ivy’s. However if my kid is selected to an Ivy would not play as a member of the team, would just play at club level. I have already had an off-the-record discussion with a coach at a lower level Ivy about this very same issue when I received their email inviting my kid to their summer camp.
Thanks for the feedback. Since there is another tournament coming up, I’m just gonna wait to see if they have a coach at his games, seek him out afterwards, or come talk to me. If they are interested, at least one of those things should happen. Thanks again to all who responded.
I am assuming this is for soccer. Coaches will invite players to camps regardless of whether they are interested in that player or not. However, it is an opportunity for your son to be seen closely by the coaches. If he can play at the level of D1 and impresses the coaches, it could pay dividends. If the coaches saw your son play and hasn’t reached out to your club coaches or more upfront about the recruiting process, I think they aren’t actively interested.
My guess is soccer, too. Our experience is that if the coaches have already seen him play and liked him, they would have been all over him once they were allowed to talk to him. We found camps to be sort of a waste of money. Coaches who were really interested after seeing our son play invited him for a visit, rather than a camp. He did get a couple of invitations to camps where they waived fees but that is a little different- in those cases they knew him when he arrived and gave him a lot of personal attention. The general invitations to camps were not useful. He should definitely keep emailing them to invite them to any tournaments he is playing in and include specific schedules. Best of luck!
@alwaysdriving My son went through this process and it ended well for him. You seem reluctant to name the sport, and if you did so, you might be able to get more specific answers. Can vary somewhat from sport to sport and school to school.
Someone above mentioned Headfirst, which was a great “showcase” for baseball players targeting Ivy and D3 academic schools (like MIT, Caltech etc). My son got to play in simulated games right in front of many coaches, include most of the Ivies. At least 2 Ivy coaches expressed interest and wanted him to email grades/test scores. This showcase was very expensive, but worth the cost since he got to play in front of many coaches, and speak to them directly during downtime. From this you decide which schools are of greatest MUTUAL interest, and then decide which ones makes sense to go to camps. We paid for one of the more expensive camps at a top name school and another less expensive camp at the school he ended up attending and now playing. Even with unlimited money, you have limited time to go to camps. Some of the schools that expressed interest had camps on the same weekend, impossible to attend both. You have to choose how best to spend time/money. The showcases, if the right schools are there, are the best way to figure out the right camps for you.
Best of luck, this is not an easy process, to find an academic and athletic match.
If you are a small person with great grades and EC, aim high. There are more showcases better for the larger more athletic kids with lower grades, make sure you go to the right one for your profile.
Yeah, I think it’s really important to know what your target schools are, including the division, and plan your camps accordingly. Again, where we are in the cornfields, there are only so many camps we can attend without it being time and cost prohibitive. If the game in question is soccer, I don’t know what is the most sought after commodity in a player. Would it be speed, skill, size? If it’s speed or size you can often just email his stats to a target school.
In baseball, it’s usually pitching and pitching velocity. If you can throw in the mid/high 80’s some college will have interest. It’s sort of a pet peeve of mine, because many pitchers are leaving their brains at home and just chucking the ball as hard as they can to get the radar gun’s attention.
I have some sympathy for the coaches/recruiters. At any given event with, say, 200 players, there are probably about 10 that EVERYONE wants. After that, it’s a bit of a guessing game. They are going by hunches, seeing the right play at the right time, or the aforementioned stats(which often lie).
Money maker or true interest – I think it is pretty tough to figure out before the camp. I think taking every avenue of contact is advisable, so if your son’s coach can make a promotional call beforehand to take the coach’s temperature, why not? The best way of figuring out the level of the coach’s interest is to make an appointment and meet with the coach before the camp. Unfortunately, this could add another $450 on top of the $450 for the camp.
College camps and recruiting showcases are always money makers. In addition, for team sports a coach needs x number of players for scrimmages, so they also want your kid’s warm body for games.
I always had mixed feelings about camps/showcases. I can’t think of one kid I saw at a showcase that was outright terrible. It was mostly standout level varsity players who were being asked to standout among standouts – or else they wouldn’t play at the college level. It makes sense to go to camps where your kid can stand out and the desired college coach is in attendance. That may mean going down a camp level, provided the sought after coach is there. It may be that the camp you are thinking of paying the $450 for will have fewer quality player than some of the regional elite showcases. It is just something to think about.
A difference between camps and showcases is that at a camp, the coaches can assess how the player reacts to coaching. Cut this way, try holding a stance longer, be quicker off the draw.
I really wish my daughter had gone to more camps as a rising junior. She was still really small that summer so I don’t think coaches would have been hunting her down, but I think SHE would have seen more opportunities, what schools were looking for fast players or huge players or this skill or that skill. At showcases, there was little or no contact with the coaches. The only feedback was IF the coach sent an email or responded to one after the event.
450 sounds pretty cheap for a camp IMHO. My kids play Lax and squash. Camps are about $1200 - $1500 per week.
I think it depends on the camp and sport. Head First, which incidentally is as good for softball as it is for baseball, is a almost $1000 for baseball and around about $750 for softball – for two days, not a week.
This comes back to the strategic use of showcase camps. Give the kids some showcase experience to learn how to show off their skills before the important showcase. Then don’t go overboard. After it was all over, the lesson I learned from my kids was less is more.
Thanks for the responses. My son emailed the coach with his tournament schedule. We saw that the coach was at the tournament but didn’t notice him specifically at our games. He did not reach out to my son or to us in any way. At this point I will assume he is not interested and is just looking for another body at camp. Son can literally play camps and tournaments the entire summer up until one week before school season starts. He has to choose, he can’t do all. Plus he has a summer job and summer AP work to do.
Just wanted to update this since maybe it can help someone else decipher coach speak. Ivy coach did not come talk to my son or us at the last tournament of the season nor did we see the coach watching at a game so we didn’t sign up for the camp. My gut was telling me they were just looking for another body at camp and some revenue. He received an email over the summer saying they will not be giving him admissions support but if he gets into the school on his own they will consider him for the team. He was not invited for a visit. He didn’t apply early since there were other schools he was interested in and the Ivy restrictions prevented him from applying to both. It all ended well, he will be playing at a D3 school which he loves and got into early. I’m glad I saved my $450.