<p>We've sent in the deposit and I think DD has contacted all the coaches she needs to (including those from schools she didn't choose) and we're now official.....DD will be part of the Denison class of '10!! This was a big commitment for her, because it will mean that she will need to work every semester, take out loans and constantly be on the lookout for more scholarships and opportunities along the way, whereas at the State U. we could have just paid for it and she'd graduate without debt for any of us. But she really thought it would be worth it in the long run and so did we. Now I just have to wrap my mind about her being so far away from home!</p>
<p>Congratulations!!!!! My s is really leaning towards Denison. He was waitlisted at another school but the chances off getting off the waitlist are pretty slim, so it looks as if he will attend Denison this fall.We will be mailing a deposit out soon. We are 6 1/2 hours from Denison- where are you located??? It is nice to see others that live a ways a way also. I can't wait to visit the campus . Have you been?? What was your feeling??? This is my first child going of to school-can't believe it is happening :( Well at least I have time to get realistic about the whole thing. My son never contacted any coaches about sports. He ran on his Cross country team for years and was 2nd in his times for 4 years?? Do the kids contact the coaches before he attends?? He kinda dropped the ball on this becasue he wasn't sure he wanted to run but now he wants too. UGH KIDS???</p>
<p>Lewis1212, congrats on making the decision! I'm looking forward to getting to that point -- but I think we will need most of the rest of the month to figure it out. My D is 27 hours (but who's counting?) into her stay at Denison. She survived Saturday night, including two parties with "a fair amount" of carrying on going on. The good news is that she said she did not feel pressured in any way to participate. Her host is from Calif., a thoughtful choice by the school, and D likes her a lot. Host is also in a sorority, an unexpected benefit since it's giving my D a first-hand experience of how that might impact social life, both positively and negatively. So far she seems favorably impressed with everything, but is looking at her experience with a critical eye. The official program just started today, and she won a sweatshirt for coming from farthest away. Also -- can't remember who mentioned it in another post, but last night she had the famous Granville frozen custard! Meeting with swim coach tomorrow -- hoping that goes well.</p>
<p>Lewis1212, you are in VA right? KMH, where are you? I grew up in upstate NY.</p>
<p>Hey- we are in the eastern suburbs of Rochester, NY-(Fairport-Macedon) Out in the country where I love it!! Where in upstate NY did you grow up!!! At least my s will be used to the cold weather!! Wow I am glad Denison is attracting folks from oither aras-I heard that the majority is from OHIO- I am glad to see others!!!</p>
<p>Not quite as upstate as you -- in the Binghamton area. I do not miss the weather one bit! The Denison climate would definitely be something different for my D, but she determined when we visited in Feburary that she could deal with it. We went in Feb because I figured she should be there when it was snowy and cold. She is there again in part to see how all those Ohioans and other midwesterners might be different from the left coasters she's used to.</p>
<p>Congratulations Lewis! Isn't it nice to have the decision made? If you need any help with dorms, let me know, I might be able to help (or maybe not, I dont' know).</p>
<p>kmh - We're practically neighbors! Webster NY. :)</p>
<p>rix - I hope your daughter's visit goes well. ;)</p>
<p>kmh----we're in Virginia, I think its about an 8-9 hour drive. DD went to visit a few months ago, but we haven't been. We used to live in Ohio and I remember driving through Granville to see Denison many years ago when we were going to/from a vacation to Southern Ohio and thinking what a nice place it was. DH doesn't remember that trip at all, but he does recall driving by the Longaberger Basket Headquarters, in Newark, which is a site to behold <g>.
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/nyvvm%5B/url%5D">http://tinyurl.com/nyvvm</a> </g></p>
<p>We do plan to all go out in June (there are 5 of us) for the orientation program. For cross country, your son might want to just email the coach so he can get a feel for whether its something he wants to do---they're usually pretty honest about the time commitments and what it involves. I'm assuming that running's similar to swimming in that the objective use of times makes it pretty easy to tell where/if you'll fit in on a team. </p>
<p>rix, I'll be interested in hearing more of your daughter's impressions. My DD was there Super Bowl Sunday (ie, "National Beer Holiday") and I think was impressed that the entire swim team hung out together to watch the game and there was no drinking.....I'm sure they're no saints, but that's right in the midst of an important time in the season so they all seemed to stick together while I'm sure there were many parties going on around them.</p>
<p>weenie, i'm sure my DD would be interested in any dorm feedback. I know she's hoping to room wiht a swimmer (which they seem to facilitate) simply because its nice to be with someone else who has to start the day at 6am rather than just going to bed at that time :-)</p>
<p>Lewis - Let me know what dorms they are giving you as options. I'd assume they are the same ones, but maybe not.</p>
<p>D is on her way home, seems generally pleased with her experience, but needs to think about it more. There wasn't anything she didn't like.</p>
<p>She met with the swim coach and said he was really nice. But it doesn't sound like it's a sure thing she can swim. He said in the past that he's had swimmers at her level on the team (although it doesn't look like anyone who competed last year falls into that category from what I can tell looking at results. There is not a lot of variation.). However, he said that he was doing something different this fall, running practice for the first two weeks as tryouts, and then accepting no more than 30 girls on the team, all of whom will travel and compete. The current roster lists 40 girls, of which only 7 are seniors. I guess her times are not strong enough to guarantee her a spot, so that may turn out to be a deal breaker for her. (She's not the slowest swimmer on the block, and she's versatile, but she is not a sub-27.00 50-free swimmer.) She's certainly willing to put in the effort, but that may not be enough. Lewis1212, did you or your D hear anything like this from him? Maybe your D's times are strong enough so that he felt that she would be on the team, no matter what. I think I might need to give him a call to clarify.</p>
<p>My daughter faced the same thing two years ago; a decent high school swimmer, but she had nowhere near the times to be competitive at Denison. She has friends who swam as freshmen, but it's not much fun to put in all that work if you're not going to swim at meets. Fortunately, there is plenty to do outside of the pool, and she has not missed the chlorine too much.</p>
<p>flatlander: Did your daughter ever compete on the water polo team? I just wondered how hard that is to get on, and is that a team swimmers who can't make the swim team would like. We went to one game during parent weekend and it was fun!</p>
<p>Rix,
I'm glad she at least got a chance to talk to the coach so she can make a good decision that's right for her. We didn't hear that, but I know that DD did say the team was by far the largest of all the schools she visited and I can't imagine it would be any fun for girls to go to all that hard work and practice then not even be able to compete. She was deciding between some DivI schools, where she'd probably rarely finish well or have a shot at going to NCAA, and DivIII where she'd definitely be more of a contributor. That was one of the main reasons Denison was so appealing-----its still a very challenging and fast team, which she wants and needs, but there's also more a feeling of being a "big fish" than at the DivI mid-major schools she was looking at, both team wise and in terms of actually having a shot at doing well in the conference and maybe making the NCAA if a miracle happens <g>.</g></p>
<p>weenie, she rowed for two seasons and now is on dry land in the running club. Water polo sounds like a lot of fun - I'll ask her about it next time we talk.</p>
<p>D is a year-round club swimmer and she thinks she has a lot of improvement left in her, so letting go of swimming would be a big deal. She just started competing again after rehab from a shoulder injury and about 3 months of doing kick sets! She's probably at about 50% and now swimming best times. Honestly, she is so focused on training and improving that she would probably be OK with not competing so much, if she had the chance to train. She was welcomed with open arms to swim at all the other DIII LACs she applied to, except Kenyon. We are off to Whitman this Thursday, where she can swim -- but where there is no nice scholarship (well, we haven't received the award letter yet, but I'm not counting on one) and she has to make the move from spring admit to fall. </p>
<p>D said that the coach said that making the team was a matter of "keeping up" in the workouts. I am going to call him to get a little more detail.</p>
<p>When my daughter met with the (same) coach two years ago, he said the same thing. I thought it was great, because he seemed not to go into the season with preconceived notions about what a kid could or couldn't do. As a parent, I appreciated that message.</p>
<p>Does your daughter love, love, love swimming for the sport itself and want to train with some of the best swimmers in an intense program? Then she should definitely go for it. My daughter says the girls on the Denison team are nice - not at all arrogant like some other teams - so cliquish behavior is minimal.</p>
<p>But if she would find no joy in those exhausting two-a-day practices with a chance of not swimming in meets, or would prefer to be one of the better swimmers in a less demanding program, she might want to think about it some more.</p>
<p>Some advice we were given during The Search: Make sure you love the school despite the sport. That is, would your daughter be happy at a particular school where she wasn't swimming? This was from a parent whose daughter had to stop swimming because of blown shoulders (yes, a butterflyer). She found she had not considered what the university was like outside of the pool and was quite unhappy. I think she ended up transferring.</p>
<p>Swimming is not the main reason she's looking at any school, which is good! Life outside the pool is her primary focus. If she can't swim at Denison, but she otherwise loves it, I don't think it would keep her from choosing it. But she isn't quite there yet. And all things being equal (which they NEVER are), she wants the opportunity to swim. </p>
<p>She started swimming much later than most year-round swimmers and has had a lot of catching up to do -- something that took grit and determination. Now that she's "caught up" I think she would like to see how far she can go. She said yesterday that if she were to have a chance at making the team at Denison, she would have to work her butt off in practice this summer. She sounded willing to do that -- but I want to talk to the coach to get a better idea of how likely (or unlikely) it is that she would get on the team. Better to be realistic.</p>
<p>rix, your daughter sounds like a coach's dream, being willing and ready to work so hard. It's great that she has so many options. </p>
<p>flatlander</p>
<p>I finally was able to follow up on swimming opportunity for my D. Coach (who she met with when she visited) passed the return phone call off to an assistant coach who wasn't familiar with my D, so that was not a great start to the call. But the conversation confirmed what I thought -- which is that absent a miracle, she is not swimming there. He said that the coaches had just had a meeting with the team members who will be returning next year, and told them that noone was guaranteed a spot next year since they are going to be limiting each team to 30. They only have a 6-lane pool, don't feel they have room for as many swimmers as they've had, already have a lot of depth, etc. As an example, he said they would have four girls (I thought he said coming in as freshmen, but he may have said overall) who can swim a 500 free in under 5:10, so there wouldn't be room/opportunity for a girl would swam slower than that (or slower than 1:56 for a 200). Not a chance that my D would get there by this fall! I'm sure they don't like saying "no" to a kid, but I think it would be better if they just said it!</p>
<p>Still not sure what D is going to do. Aside from not being able to swim, I think her only issues with Denison are how far away it is from home and a vague concern about whether she would limit herself by getting "stuck" in a particular type of social group. I don't know if I totally understand what she means (and she might not either). The idea of a sorority is very appealing to her, but I think she is worried that she might find out that it isn't exactly what she wants, and that she then she won't be able to stop being that person. Like getting caught in a current, maybe?</p>
<p>At the other choice - Whitman -- she can swim. They open a new aquatic facility this summer. The coach is wonderful. It's closer to home (as the crow flies, anyway). Although they have a similar percent of students in sororities/fraternities there, I guess she saw more greek/non-greek interaction than she did at Denison. Concerns with Whitman: academically it seems to be more challenging, possibly more similar to high school experience she is not anxious to repeat, higher cost (no nice scholarship like at Denison), and possibility that she would have to start in spring, rather than fall.</p>
<p>She thinks she would be fine at both places, and I guess I do too. Somehow the idea of Whitman is more comfortable to her. Overall, more challenge with going to Denison (a large part of which is distance, I think), it feels like it would be a bigger change. But that isn't necessarily bad...</p>
<p>I know the decision will get made. I wish it was easier, but I guess all this consideration is healthy.</p>