<p>If you are fortunate enough to receive an Official Visit invitation, does that usually result in an offer/likely letter? In your experience, what percentage of OV invitees garner a likely letter?</p>
<p>At the end of the visit the coach will sit down with the recruit and discuss how the visit went, plans for the future, etc. If there is a strong mutual interest, coach may offer a LL. But with schools bringing in recruits over a period of several weeks and most kids taking 4 or 5 OVs, my guess is that maybe 20% of OVs result in LLs.
D visited 3 Ivies and only 1 was ready to offer a LL on the spot. (and when I say, on the spot, that means coach was willing to put her on the list he submits to admissions)</p>
<p>Edit: I see that you weren’t necessarily talking about getting the LL on the spot after the visit. The percentage of OV’s that result in an eventual LL offer is probably a little higher. I’m going to say 30-40% based on a typical recruit making 3 ivy visits, and coach bringing out more recruits for visits than he has roster spots.</p>
<p>It depends on the sport. </p>
<p>I believe my son’s OV weekend to his Ivy only included athletes that had been pre-read by admissions as admissible and had made a verbal commitment. This is a sport where recruiting is wrapped up very early.</p>
<p>depends on the coach as well, a few only invite athletes to OV’s that they will offer ll’s to, assuming the athlete wants to go.</p>
<p>I’ve seen a few athletes self-destruct after the OV: they had the grades and athletic stats to be admitted until they tanked fall semester grades. It’s completely possible to demonstrate insuitability for Ivy academics by slacking senior year.</p>
<p>riverrunner, what i am asking is whether the OV invite puts you on the doorstep, or is it still a long-shot for admission?</p>
<p>In our daughter’s case, all OV happened only after a “pre-read” from admissions. Most schools are not going to pay for an athlete to visit if they don’t think there is a good chance of them being admitted.</p>
<p>c’smom, I agree OVs happen after the preread, but I do know of more than one athlete this year who went on multiple Ivy OVs, lost focus during fall semester, and lost opportunities. I’m not saying this is common, but the point should be made that an OV does not absolve the recruit of the responsibility to keep up the academic profile they’ve carried through junior year.</p>
<p>ortho, the OV is no guarantee. It means you have made it through the first round of academic and athletic hoops, but you must know that there are many more recruits invited to each school than there are spots on the team. Of course, many recruits go on more than one visit, so that accounts for some of the numbers, but there will also be kids who go on OVs who do not get offers. What’s the percent? Very hard to know, and very sport and school dependant. </p>
<p>Coaches assume some kids will come on the OV and choose something else: especially kids who would be full-pay or close to it at an Ivy. These same athletes may be looking at a full-ride academic or partial athletic scholarship from a state school back home. </p>
<p>If you are fully qualified academically, and are pretty sure you are within the top group of athletes being brought in for an OV, and indicate to the coach that the school is your number one choice, it is highly possible you will be offered a likely letter. By “top group” I mean, for example, the coach seems to be able to bring 4 athletes in each year, and you are in the top 4 on his list. You can ask this question and bring a lot of transparency to the conversation.</p>
<p>OP, I see you didn’t specifically ask about Ivies. Please insert LOI for “likely letter”.</p>
<p>Of course this is all speculation and the early read on academics would be completed prior to OV invitation. How does one ‘close the deal’ after getting this far?</p>
<p>Reading this thread I wonder how many OVs a student should do in the fall of senior year (I know there is a cap for some divisions) --but I worry about the impact of academics during the beginning of the senior year (given training/meet schedules, AP courses and college apps). As a mom I may limit my D’s OVs to 2-3 of her top choices. If the OV is with a top choice school then her enthusiam and interest during the visit will be genuine. How many did your Ds and Ss go on?</p>
<p>We did limit the number of official visits my daughter took in the fall. We talked with her about it and decided together that she would try to limit her visits to 3. We knew this was a little risky, she turned down several offers to great schools, but with a senior schedule of 5 APs, 2 dual enrolled and two in season sports, there is no way she could have done more. Her last OV was sandwiched in between regionals and states and on the very last weekend before early signing. Fortunately, it was a team that really wanted her and she received a nice offer soon after she arrived. That made all the gyrations of getting her there worthwhile and she signed with this school during early signing. She had a couple of other OV offers that she would have taken in the spring if this didn’t work out, but she really could not have done anymore in the fall.</p>
<p>Also, taking too many visits can backfire on a recruit. Unless the athlete is a tippy top recruit, coaches are not going to wait around for a 17 year old kid to make up their mind. They want athletes that want to be there, particularly at the top schools. And there are plenty of other recruits that are willing to commit, they don’t need to wait around for an
athlete to visit schools w, x, y and z before making a decision. As has been said here before, it is like musical chairs. When the music stops, you want to have a chair, and there are only so many chairs to go around!</p>
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<p>The athlete is allowed five OVs in D1. My daughter took 4 and I think it was one too many. It’s kind of exciting for a 17 year old kid to be asked to fly around the country and be given the red carpet treatment, but after one or 2 visits, it can really become a grind. In addition to missing friday classes, the combination of sleep deprivation plus exposure to a whole new bunch of germs at each campus makes the likelihood of coming down with something and missing even more school pretty high.</p>
<p>pathways, my daughter did take the full limit of 5 OVs. It was a lot for her to handle with a full senior fall semester of APs, school leadership responsibilities, etc., and she was definitely burning the candle at both ends in regards to missing 5 Fridays worth of classes (giving her AP labs, etc. that she had to make up on her return to school, after an exhausting weekend of travel, etc.)
That being said though, I know she doesn’t regret taking all 5 OVs. They completely served their purpose for her - schools/coaches that she thought she liked based on previous unofficial visits showed characteristics, both positive and negative, that she wouldn’t have known about without the experience of 48 hours on campus with students, team, etc. Of the 5 OVs she took, 4 of the schools were ones we had visited unofficially, she had already met the coaches, had extensive email/phone communication with them prior to OV - so these visits really were illuminating and educational in that they showed the school/team in a far more thorough setting.</p>
<p>My D took 4 OVs (Ivies) - including 3 at schools she had visited unofficially over the previous summer. The 4th occurred after a coach contacted her in late summer and suggested she visit a college she hadn’t intended to visit. All occurred after providing transcript and test scores over the summer, and all were worthwhile, though the logistics were complicated. One key for her to fitting them in was that she didn’t stay for the entire allotted time at 3 of them. She just didn’t feel that she could miss much class time in light of APs, EC commitments. The coaches were flexible in accommodating her more limited visits, though we (parents) did help with transportation. For recruits relying on transport from the airport-college-airport, it may be necessary to stay for a particular length of time. She ended up attending the college where she stayed for the full OV - in planning for this longer visit (even though it meant missing a day of her own classes), she was already learning toward this college as a top choice. Most coaches were clear at the end of the weekend about the next step (support for LL or ED). However, I honestly have no idea whether most/all recruits were offered support for LL or ED - a lot probably depends upon the interest shown by the recruit and the overall strength of their application (including grades, scores, athletic credentials, and perhaps other variables). It seems that through phone calls and in-person meetings (official and unofficial), coaches try to gauge the level of interest as well as evaluate character.</p>
<p>i recently overheard my daughter answer a parents question; “which schools did you apply to” Her answer was “it’s not like that for an athlete, you just pick the school you want”. </p>
<p>And for her and several of her friends that’s what it was like, so the OV for some athletes is synonymous with an offer. I’ll add that it was an odd experience watching offers being made from 8 schools, and 6 others that were cut off earlier. I’m not sure it was an entirely positive experience for her. there is such a thing as too much attention.</p>
<p>:rolleyes: </p>
<p>OP
Varska, Fishymom and Riverrunner give good advice here…</p>
<p>[College</a> daze: The insanity of the application process - The Washington Post](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/college-daze-the-insanity-of-the-application-process/2011/03/24/AFK8MRYB_story.html]College”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/college-daze-the-insanity-of-the-application-process/2011/03/24/AFK8MRYB_story.html)</p>
<p>funny that George Will wrote the article. His BA through PHd at Trinity, Oxford, and Princeton are not exactly 2nd tier institutions. </p>
<p>the “craze” to get your kid into a good school has always been around, it just used to be a much smaller percentage of society, like the Will family.</p>