Ivy Football Recruiting 2014 - one family's experience

Athletic Recruits
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<p>The kid "committed to the admissions process" at Princeton yesterday. I found quite a lot of helpful information on this board over the last year or so. However, some of what I have read here does not seem applicable to football recruiting as it occurred this year. I thought I would try and set out a frank description of the process of football recruiting in the Ivy League today based on my son's specific circumstances. Not sure that what we experienced is generally true, or the only way things were done. But hopefully this can be some small help to others trying to navigate the process. This will be long, and I will break it up into a couple posts. I apologize in advance. I will update it as the application process formalizes, but for all intents and purposes the drama is hopefully over.</p>

<p>WINTER/SPRING JUNIOR YEAR</p>

<p>As a predicate, the kid is a very strong student. 4.2 unweighted in an IB diploma program, 2300 SAT, 34 ACT, 750/720 SAT2's in Biology and Literature. He was far into Band 4 on the Academic Index everywhere. His high school has also finished in the the MaxPreps top 25 national poll each of the last four years, including twice in the top ten. They play a national schedule, and the competitive level is well beyond what a "normal" high school experiences. Both factors were huge in the interest he generated early because he did not start as a junior. His actual height is somewhere around 6'2" (he measured between 6'3" and 6'1" at SPARQ and the various camps). His actual weight is @255. He will play center or guard at Princeton. Learn your kid's AI score. The Tier One calculator gave us a number that was either dead on or off by one point at five Ivys. It sounds obvious, but academics matter a lot in the Ivy League. The higher up the bands your son is, the more options he will have and the less risk to the coach for pulling the trigger. </p>

<p>For us, the recruiting journey really started with the Nike SPARQ combine in the winter. The purpose of SPARQ is to get actual, verified measurables to send out to coaches. My son also filled out questionnaires at fifteen schools, all of the Ivys plus most of the Patriot League. This was done over the winter break. I put together a very short highlight video using Hudl. The video contained fifteen plays, and was designed to show him executing various blocks (reach, pull, down, second level, double team) as well as some defensive clips (he got more time on defense last year than offense), As a former player at a D1 school who has watched a lot of tape, a note about highlight film. In my opinion, coaches don't want to see ten minutes of double teams, one kid running over an obviously smaller kid or knocking some kid over a pile. Pick a few plays that shows your guy doing basic things against good competition. A couple pass sets, a couple reaches, etc. I am pretty confident that most college coaches don't care if your guy can run over somebody who is fifty pounds lighter and not athletic; because that kid isn't playing at the next level. </p>

<p>During the winter contact period, many, many schools visited his high school. Coaches can use two evaluation days for a specific kid in the period between February and May. During the early part of that period, the coach is not supposed to meet directly with the player, although I have been told it occasionally happens that the kid is hanging out in the coaches' office when a particular college coach happens to stop by to talk to the coach about that kid. Funny how that works. During the later half of that period college coaches can come in and watch the player work out (many now film part of the workout on their phones) and/or have a more formal meeting with the kid. During this period, our son received quite a lot of formulaic e mails from the Ivy and Patriot league schools among others. Most of this was "wide net" stuff, form letters introducing him to the program, asking for film, inviting him to junior days, etc. Not one referenced the questionnaire he had filled out in the winter.</p>

<p>Over spring break and Easter, we went on unofficial visits or junior days to Dartmouth, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Cornell and Bucknell. These visits were in my opinion invaluable in that they gave my son some time with the coaches and a chance to see the campus. He also sat in on a class at several, which he really enjoyed.. The one exception to this was the Princeton junior day, which was a mess. Pouring rain, 1,000 kids in a gym, no personal contact with coaches, nothing but a canned presentation that could have been sent out over e-mail. My son actually wanted to leave at lunch because he disliked the junior day so much, and if we weren't headed to Penn for a junior day the next day we probably would have. Since the choice was sit in a hotel room in Philly in the rain or stay for the rest of the junior day, we decided to stay. Glad at this point we did because he really loved the O-line coach's presentation. We will see how he feels in a couple years. </p>

<p>After the unofficial visits, he started getting more personal e mail from a lot of schools. During the April 1 to May 15 contact period where a school may place one call to a recruit, he received phone calls from several. These were mostly place holder calls, telling him they would be at his school on a certain day, or that they were glad he came out over the spring, wanted to see him at camp etc. </p>

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<p>SUMMER CAMPS</p>

<p>If I had to do it all over again I would have taken my son to one Ivy camp before his junior year. At the time, I was worried that coaches would look past him because of his size and strength at that point. After going to five camps this summer, that was a baseless worry. I think the exposure to the camp process would have helped him going into this summer.</p>

<p>In May, we plotted out his camp schedule. We did not do NE Elite or any of the other big academic camps (Northwestern in our geographic region) for two reasons. First, given his high school program, we felt he had already achieved the level of exposure those camps could give him. Second, Ohio does not permit kids to wear shoulder pads at camp and all of the big academic camps are shells. He did a total of five one day camps out of an anticipated six. The camps he chose to attend were all at schools where the communication at that point had gotten beyond form letters and generic camp invitations and was down to written letters or a series of personal e mails. He attended Colgate, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Penn and then skipped Cornell. He skipped Cornell’s last camp day because he was tired, and it was fairly obvious at that point that three schools he liked better (Princeton, Dartmouth, Penn) were very interested in him. We did one long trip, doing Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth in a week. Other than that, the camps were point to point. I would urge whoever reads this to schedule at least a day off between camps if you are doing them serially. Several boys who were on the same circuit as my son tried to do camps back to back and it clearly hurt their performance as the camps added up. While attending camps, he took the opportunity to visit some NESCAC schools on the off days. He absolutely loved Amherst.</p>

<p>At the Colgate camp, they did not follow the schedule and for half the camp the coaches were not on the field, drills were being run by D3 coaches and Colgate players. It was half the price of the Ivys, but still of little value in my opinion. The Ivys all stayed tight to their schedule. Each Ivy o line coach ran each drill and was engaged throughout the day. Each camp contained somewhere between 15-25 offensive linemen. Excepting Penn, there were maybe 2 or 3 at each camp who were legit D1 level players, then a band of perhaps 6-8 who looked good but maybe needed to lose/gain some weight or whose form and technique was really raw. The rest were quite simply there. At Penn, there were probably 8 out of a group of 15 o linemen who could really play. Not sure if we just caught it on the right day or if Penn attracts better o line athletes. Overall, I would guess that the skill level (speed, balance, power) is pretty far above what a normal high school kid sees in a practice. Be prepared.</p>

<p>The camps are basically raw testing and then each school’s individual practice session. Each differs a bit based on what they are looking for but all include stance work, kick step, hand position, reach drill, pass pro. Some are helmet only, some are helmets and shells. The camps that wear shoulder pads make provision for guys from states that don’t allow pads to be worn. Make sure your guy is in shape. I saw many kids drop out of drills or let their concentration lag as the day wore on. At Princeton, they had a relatively light morning with combine style testing, form work, etc. Then the guys went to lunch. My son later told me that he ate a piece of chicken and a salad. The rest of the o-linemen ate burgers and pizza. When they came back from lunch, they ran an agility circuit and went right to pass pro. Beware. A point about effort. I was shocked at the number of kids who were obviously skipping reps or were trying to jockey their position in line to avoid going against certain kids. To be blunt, if you aren’t there to compete, why come? At Yale, my son and a kid from IMG Academy in Florida went against each other probably six times in a row in pass pro because no one else wanted to go against either. Not the message you want to send to the coaches watching. </p>

<p>if you pay attention, the camps are very illuminating. At each camp we attended, by the middle of the first individual session it was fairly obvious that the Ivy coach was really only interested in 3 maybe 4 kids. Not that they didn’t work with each kid, but you could see them always watching a certain kid, or moving them from guard to tackle or center. In drill work they would pick certain guys to go against others, stuff like that. Plus, each camp he attended finished with a best on best o-line/d-line pass pro series. Overall, there were plenty of reps for each kid at each camp. There are also a number of NESCAC and other high academic coaches at each camp. I think they must break down their responsibilities by time rather than school. We saw the same coaches from Amherst, Bowdoin, Tufts, Williams at each camp on our big trip and then different coaches from those schools two weeks later at Penn.</p>

<p>Once the camp finishes, there is an opportunity to talk to the recruiting and position coach and the various D3 coaches. Here I want to echo something I read on this forum last year. There are buyers and sellers at that point in the recruiting process. Some kids are getting sold on a particular program and some kids are trying to sell themselves to a program. You can tell because the coaches, both Ivy and D3, are going to come up to certain kids. The Ivy coaches from what I saw will come up to one or two kids, that’s it. Those are the kids that “won” that camp day. Those kids are “buyers” that day. The coaches will also stick around and talk to kids who come up to them. Those kids are “sellers”. The NESCAC coaches seemed to operate similarly, but talked to more kids from what I could tell. Dartmouth was the most obvious in this process, taking maybe 20 kids total from the camp up to the coaches’ office for a formal presentation after the camp concluded. Coach Teevens bluntly stated during that meeting that the group in the room was the group they would recruit from that camp.</p>

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<p>POST SUMMER CAMP RECRUITING
At the camps my son attended, he bonded like teenagers do with several boys he had met earlier at junior days or whom he had seen at earlier camps. Generally speaking, I think the guys seek out others like themselves and most of the kids he developed a relationship with were, like him, the kids who were consistently picked for the best on best sessions, won the agility drills, etc. This turned out to be invaluable to him after the camps because it gave him a network of 6-7 guys, some of whom were getting the same message he was, with whom he could talk things out. It was good that they talk, because quite clearly the Ivy coaches are getting information about kids relative position with other schools. I am not sure how this happens, but as a pure guess I would be willing to bet that as a price of admission to the camp, the D3 coaches share with the Ivy coaches what they saw a particular kid do at a prior camp. I don’t mean that in a nefarious way at all, by the way. I know that the Ivy coaches get information quickly however, because after the Dartmouth camp, my son’s recruiting coach spoke with us and said flat out that he knew Princeton had “targeted” my son, and that Dartmouth would match Princeton’s financial aid and that they “would not lose him because of money”. This had to come from the camp (which was three days before the Dartmouth camp), because prior to attending the Princeton camp my son was not receiving any more interest from Princeton than a half dozen other schools. </p>

<p>The recruiting message becomes muddled as the camps end, by the way. Several assistant coaches spoke with my son and his new buddies in very strong terms about their future role in the program, to the point that some were convinced they had been given an offer by one school or the other. At the same time, at each camp we attended (except Yale) the head coach flat out said no offers will be made by anyone but the head coach and only after academic pre reads are completed. I do believe that Harvard and Yale kick out a lot of early offers, hoping to snag a kid or two headed to Northwestern or Stanford. Based on my experience this summer, the other Ivys do not operate in quite that way. </p>

<p>In my experience, the first real formal sign of serious interest is being asked for a formal academic packet for a admissions pre read. This can be done by admissions beginning on July 1. My understanding is that this is the process where the coach is given the go ahead to recruit a particular kid in a particular band in the coming recruiting cycle. For football at least, this is a pretty formal process and the coach will ask for a full transcript through junior year, score reports from the SAT/ACT/SAT 2 and a senior schedule. I put a packet of these documents together in a pdf prior to taking my son to camps so he could send it out easily as needed. </p>

<p>Given what I heard and pieced together at the three schools who were most interested in my son at that point in the process (Princeton, Dartmouth, Penn), each school has a set number of kids they want to target in the ED round of admissions, and kids in that pool are going to be taken through a pre read very early in July. Each of the three schools wanted this packet of academic information as soon as possible, even though all three had seen his transcripts and test scores in the past. At the same time, it was clear that my son was at best a late roster filler at Yale. The coach had been very complimentary, and asked for film from the fall, but he did not ask for the academic information and did not discuss early visits. On the other hand, both Dartmouth and Princeton said he would be taken to admissions on July 1. We attended the Penn camp on Sunday July 13. The Penn coach told my son if he could get him his academic packet that evening, he would take him to admissions the next day. Each school also spoke with him either immediately after the camp or in e mail contact within in the next few days about taking an official visit early in the fall. </p>

<p>E mail contact from Penn and Princeton really picked up post summer camp, to the point of several personal e mails from the head coach and/or recruiting coach each day. Not so Dartmouth. Both Coach Teevens (a very impressive guy, btw) and my son’s recruiting coach told my son not to expect much in July, and they have been true to their word. Other than a long, very complimentary e mail shortly after camp, Dartmouth’s message seems to be enjoy your summer, get ready for your senior season, come up to campus in the fall and we will talk. Probably works well for some kids (would have worked on me most likely). But for other kids it is less effective. For my son, who liked Dartmouth and Princeton equally, the ability to close the process down early and the obvious interest shown by Princeton tipped the scales.</p>

<p>In any event, on July 18, my son received an e mail from the head coach at Princeton, telling him that academic pre reads had been completed and asking him to set up a time so my son could call the coach. Several of his buddies from camps had similar messages from various schools (Cornell, Brown, Penn) at right around the same time. No one had heard from Dartmouth, although my son and one other guy had Dartmouth in their top two schools. My son spoke with Princeton on July 19, and at that point was told he would be supported with a likely letter if Princeton was his choice. This was, according to my son, a pretty formal conversation. They talked about the application process, what to say to the media, when Princeton could send things to my son, etc. He did not commit during the phone call. However, after talking with several friends, his HS coach and his parents, he came to the decision that if given the choice he would pick Princeton over every other school where he had a reasonable chance of landing so there was no point in keeping the process going. He committed in a phone call two days ago, and announced it on twitter yesterday. As this process was going on, we also began the financial aid pre read process. That has not yet completed although we have been assured that the online calculator is pretty accurate. We will see. </p>

<p>The plan going forward is to get his application in by September 15 and he will hopefully have his likely letter very close to October 1. This is possible in large part because he asked two teachers if they would write recommendation letters for him towards the end of last year and because all of his testing was completed in the spring. The hope is that this will make his fall a little more enjoyable than it would be if he was trying to juggle IB, football and college applications. </p>

<p>As the process finishes, I will update this thread. Hope it is of some help to some of you.</p>

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<p>Wow, first of all, congrats on your son’s commitment to Princeton, what a great outcome. Second, thanks for taking the time to provide the details of the process, no doubt this will be very valuable to others.</p>

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<p>Wow! What a great outcome. Thanks for sharing your story. Congratulations for your son. Keep us posted on how the financial pre-read comes.</p>

<p>When will he receive the formal likely letter? Will it come in the mail after he applies? Or before?</p>

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<p>Great distillation of the process! The posts should be pinned in some way so future aspirants can read about the process.</p>

<p>And, great choice. </p>

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<p>As far as applications, the ED (or EA for HYP) deadline is November 1. Likely letters may be issued beginning October 1. The complete application needs to be in before admissions will consider giving a likely letter. His coach suggested to my son that he get his application in regular decision by September 15. If he does, the coach believes he will receive a likely letter from admissions on or near October 1. If and when the likely letter is issued, his coach will then switch his application to SCEA.</p>

<p>And Stemit, yeah, it was a good choice. I knew he was done on Sunday when he looked at me and said “It’s the best school, has the best financial aid and they are defending Ivy League champs. What could be better?” I couldn’t answer him.</p>

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<p>Congrats again OhioDad51. That is a great read. Your son’s step by step experience can be leveraged for just about any sport. My hope is that many of the current and future recruits (and parents) on this site translate this into their own successful experience.</p>

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<p>@Ohiodad51‌ wrote:

</p>

<p>Warning bells. If he is getting this much interest from Princeton then why is the coach not demanding that he apply EA??</p>

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<p>I think the reason has to do with timing of the likely letter. If the recruit applied EA to School A and did not receive a likely letter, they would be unable to pursue their second choice school until EA was decided. If I read OhioDad’s post correctly, apply RD, wait for LL than app gets switched to EA. That way both coach and recruit are protected.</p>

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<p>I think the above summarizes what my understanding of the process is. One of the reasons I wanted to set this thread up is that football is just different. There are far more kids involved, and recruiting in our experience was just a bit off from what I have seen reported here in regard to other sports. One of the big differences is every school who is or was serious about my son recruits well into the RD round. So I am not sure that the "only get support in the ED round"logic applied to other sports works in this situation. There are approximately 30 likely letter slots available in each class, the band system is in place, etc. </p>

<p>Honestly, I think the process laid out shows a bit of trust on both sides. The coach is telling my son he will trust his word to honor his commitment to Princeton, and my son is telling the coach he will commit early and not seek other opportunities as the season progresses. I guess we will find out. Also, the fact that I am a lawyer compels me to note that the coach said HE would switch my son’s application to SCEA, not that he would ask my son to do so. </p>

1 Like
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<p>Great summarization of the process. We did the spring break tours. Then the summer camps. Afterwards my son committed to Yale. He is hoping to get recruiting and admission out of the way so he can enjoy his senior year. All the best to your son!</p>

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<p>And to yours, nine weeks out of ten!</p>

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<p>@Ohiodad51: Thanks so much. Please keep this post updated and let us know once you receive the LL.</p>

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<p>Football is clearly different. My kid has been to some Ivy camps on campus for soccer, and the programs say that they get five or more of their recruits each year from these camps. We have seen NO camps with more than 40 players, and usually there are around 30 or fewer. </p>

<p>I do understand that my kid is not on the top list for the Ivy of his choice, but feedback from others is that perhaps ten soccer players are getting a lot of interest, and they are getting it from many Ivies. My son and others like him would likely commit to D3 to “get it over with” than wait for the “top choices” to filter down at the Ivies. (my son is AI 218 which is in the top tier)</p>

<p>(his top choice has 3 MF and 1 GK commit, and he is a F which they said they need for 2015, but he is small and they laud his play without talking business - yet, but it will probably be too late if they change their mind - D3 is probably a better match for him)</p>

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<p>Yes, the others have it right. Football is different AND different conferences and even different schools do things different ways. The ivies that have EA definitely do recruit through RD. Two of my son’s older teammates were standout players who were still doing recruiting visits in January and February for different schools. They both finally announced their commitments to Ivies after RD decisions came in.</p>

<p>By contrast, nescacs have 14 “slots” for football to fill up front. It was a kind of back-ended way of seeing how it worked, but in February as soon as ED2 came in, the facebook group my son joined for X nescac class of 2018 had 11 members. You could easily look up similar football groups for other colleges in the conference and they were all a dozen or more strong. Seemed the overwhelming lion’s share of the team backbone came in early 1 or 2. Not that they didn’t tell us this up front as well - they did.</p>

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<p>Just to build on this a bit, all of the Ivys recruiting my son said they recruit into the RD round. In addition, of the four guys from my son’s high school currently playing in the Ivy league, two were offered in December (one Cornell, one Penn) if I remember correctly. I know that a third was in a similar position to my son and committed to Penn before two a days started. Don’t know the other guy. One kid from last year’s team got an offer from an Ivy (Yale I think) very late in December (like over X mas break). He ended up taking an offer to a MAC school. Having watched this process from afar the last few years, and now going through it with my son, I get the distinct impression that there are two “waves” of offers at the Ivys. One after the camps/pre reads (some schools may want an early game tape to confirm what they thought they saw at camp) and one after the ED round is completed, as the football season finishes. Different schools certainly have different target numbers to fill in each phase. Last year, Coach Surace from Princeton said in an interview that he had 25 kids he “really wanted” after the camp season and he “got” 21. Presumably that was his early offer list. The Penn coaches told my son that they try and fill one slot in each position (in offensive line terms, one guard/center and one tackle) ED, leaving the rest (they generally take 5) for the second round. As a thumb nail guess, I would bet that each school probably targets 15 to 20 slots (out of @30) in their class early. How many offers this translates to depends on the yield each staff achieves over time (one of the advantages of coaches working at a school for a long period). The second round is dictated then by what the realization was (both position and band wise) in the early round. In other words, if Penn wants 3 interior defensive linemen in their class and they get 2 in the first round, they are only looking for 1 in December. Similarly, if the early round eats up all of their Band 2 slots (Penn only has one Band 1 slot this year) then that defensive linemen better be a really strong student as well. </p>

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<p>As an update to this thread, we received the financial aid pre read via phone call with the financial aid office today, hard copy to follow by mail. It was virtually identical to the estimate from the online calculator. The only difference is the pre read gave an expected parental contribution in a range of $1,000, while the online calculator gave a single estimate which was almost exactly in the middle of that range. The person I spoke with insists the pre read is very accurate, and assuming our income stays within @10k of our estimate, we can count on the EFC remaining in the range specified. The pre read also calls for @ 50% less work study on an hours per week basis than set out in the on line calculator. All told, the process took slightly less than three weeks. </p>

<p>Next step is to submit the application by mid September. We (meaning his mom) have confirmed that Princeton and the NCAA Eligibility Center have received official copies of all his test scores. Kid has completed the Common App and essay as well as the Princeton Supplement (but hasn’t written the Princeton essay yet). He has also contacted the two teachers who he had previously asked to write recommendation letters and provided them with the Princeton forms. Both have promised to have his recommendations done by the first week of school. All of this was done prior to two a days starting last week, and since then he hasn’t done much (which was the plan). He still needs to write his Princeton essay and meet with his guidance counselor to get the guidance/school forms submitted on Naviance. Other than that, he should be ready. </p>

<p>As an aside, certain schools have continued the recruiting process even though he has publicly committed. Haven’t seen any real negative recruiting yet, but have frankly been surprised by the level of recruiting attention within the Ivy League given his commitment.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t be surprised about interest after his verbal commitment. At one point, a female soccer star (girls national team level) had verbally committed and decommitted to four schools, finally going to the fifth school.</p>

<p>There is no such thing as a real commitment except for accepting a student’s ED application or the NLI.</p>

<p>My son and I have both been told that the more interest you have from other schools, the more a school will be interested in you, and that goes for after the commitment as well.</p>

<p>It is interesting that your son is working on his essay now - from all the emails my son gets, you’d think that most kids applying ED to Ivies were done with their essays as soon as the topics were released.</p>

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<p>The school specific supplements were not released until July 1 for the Universal Application or August 1 for the Common Application. So I don’t think he is late at this point. He wrote a draft Common App essay as part of his English class last year and simply polished it up.</p>

<p>I understand about de commitments in “normal” D1. Three kids in his class have changed their commitments since the spring. My surprise stems from the fact that the Ivys hold themselves out as different, and recruit different kids. As I am learning it is a pretty small world. I would think in that kind of closed universe they would all be better off not going after each other, but clearly some guys think differently.</p>