@downallunder New NCAA rules regarding OVs and start date do vary by sport. Most sports are Sept 1 of junior year, but some are different including football and basketball. Recruits wanting to take an OV for DI or DII schools also have to provide a transcript AND one standardized test score (PSAT doesn’t count) to admissions offices. Not sure if schools will all still do formal pre-reads before OVs, especially for those sept 1 of jr year, but needing a standardized test by then is early, and a significant rule change. Many schools may be more lax on these test scores/AI knowing junions have plenty of time to take tests again. If a student doesn’t have a standardized test score by sept 1 of jr year, they can take an unofficial visit.
The main thing is for families to understand each sport’s recruiting rules by division, conference and sport.
@tonymom , an experienced coach can easily calculate recruit’s AI (and compare it to target team’s AI), there is no need to involve admissions into that. I suspect that AD in some schools do require to run all recruits numbers through admissions before offering OV and support for LL. For example, Yale did do an official academic pre-read for my kid but some others did not.
Our experiences are stale now. Ivy League web site did not change a word yet on their web page since the new NCAA regulations came out. It still says that “an Ivy League coach may ask the Admissions Office to review the prospect’s academic credentials”.
@Mwfan1921 Yes thank you, I stand corrected. The rules will have variations depending on the sports. My kid is one of the niche sport, not football or basketball. One other significant change is the unofficial visits are not allowed before the junior year. If an athletes arrives on campus, the coach will not be able to meet with them to discuss recruiting prior to the beginning of their junior year. Again, not definitely sure if the same would apply to the revenue sports like football/ basketball.
Many sports (especially lacrosse and hockey) have kids commit early–often really early. These kids are not in yet. Sometimes they dont get in and quietly de-commit. Even those kids cant go on OVs until a pre-read is done. Yes the rules have now changed but I believe this year is unchanged -it goes into effect this September 1 (or start of school). So no current student being recruited would have gone on OVs last school year. Some Ivy coaches have the ability (sanctioned by admissions) to do the pre-read themselves- -others require all pre-reads go through admissions. There is an NCAA recruiting calendar that shows differences between sports, men and women and so on, Worth looking it up. This can be a very complicated and unnerving process. The schools or the NCAA needs to make little laminated cards with term definitions and schedules and rules–HAHA.
@Tanbiko
Well if coaches are doing pre-reads themselves, inviting recruits out, telling them they are officially being offered a spot THEN pass recruit’s app and stats over to AO some are finding they don’t end up getting in. I’ve personally heard about two young men where this happened. They were assured by coach they were good to go but didn’t end up with LL and then left with no offer.
I think most coaches are by the book as the scenario of athletes getting burned by specific schools gets known and shared by the community and hurts a program’s reputation. Some coaches may do it and encounter no problems but hard for those few student athletes who are the few who it doesn’t work out…
Back to OP’s concerns though…I’d proceed with caution as it doesn’t seem the ivy coach really has much to offer.
It really comes down to getting a firm commitment from the D3 coach, in my opinion, if the daughter is excited about that school.
My concern, as others have posted, is that there may be a misunderstanding or miscommunication between coach & family.
Also, who initiated contact with each school --the coach or the recruit ?
And is OP’s daughter being recruited by ANY other schools for this sport ?
This is no longer true for lacrosse. Sept 1 of junior year is first time coaches can talk recruiting, and the earliest any recruit can have an OV. If a recruit is on campus, they can say hello to the coach but that’s it. Of course younger student do tour campuses and go to sports camps, so do have contact with coaches, but no recruiting talk.
Registering with the NCAA clearinghouse is required for an OV for D1 and D2. I can’t remember how formal the info was. My daughter had sent at least one ACT score there, and I don’t remember if she sent a high school transcript or just self reported, but whatever it was good enough to go on an OV.
There is/was a firm commitment from D3 coach. In fact, as mentioned in PM, D3 coach was even very nice to tell D that she’ll find out how her app would fare if she applies RD without her support. This alone really made us(parents) like the D3 coach even more!
While D initiated contact with coaches back when she was a sophomore, both coaches have been watching D for awhile and have also been in touch with D’s club coach. There were other offers but she has narrowed it down to these two schools. Obviously, she regards both schools as top of her list. Both coaches also know of D’s interest in both schools.
When OV invite came, D3 coach mentioned about Ivy coach calling or vice versa. What transpired in their conversations we don’t know.
This is how we see D’s situation: D is obviously higher up in D3’s recruitment list but not in the Ivy. Perhaps basing on our D’s transcripts and no test scores yet on NCAA, Ivy thinks D can swing app without full support. We think it’s a gamble. D is now realizing that while an OV invite is nice, she’ll probably have to decline and do EA for D3 and see if she can still get the LoR for an Ivy RD application.
Thank you all! We would have been more conflicted and still undecided had we not posted this question and ask for the community to chime in. Your posts were all helpful in guiding us to our decision.
Can she not do ED for Ivy and EA for the D3? Or does the D2 school have ED2? (boy, that sentence could be a CIA code)
It sounds like the D3 is willing to let her go RD and still be on the team. Going ED at the Ivy might not be such a risk.
For the D3, I would recommend asking coach specifically about what “support” in admissions means – how many recruits with those stats and that level of support have been deferred or rejected over the past 5 years or so. Having coach support is great, but the unknown is what does that mean at that school. If the answer from the coach is something like – reputedly at MIT or Haverford – some number get in but a fairly sizable number gets deferred, then that affects the calculation.
@LaPulga10
Would it be possible to ask the Ivy coach what percent of athletes with this rec letter typically get in? That might help to see if the letter carries much weight. Also, ask how many rec letters the coach is writing this year. Please let us know the answers - this seems to come up a lot.
@stressismyname There are many threads and posts on CC regarding the Ivy coach’s strength in providing a letter of support vs a Likely Letter recruit slot. Unfortunately, if a recruit is not being offered a LL recruit slot, his or her application is thrown into the general application pool and will be competing with everyone else who are non LL recruits. So unless one’s academic stats are strong enough to get one admitted, I wouldn’t consider yourself on the similar level as a LL recruited athlete if the coach is only providing a letter, which most likely will not have much weight.
@LaPulga10 Would you mind letting us know how this ended?