My daughter had a coach tell her she would “support her application” and that she had one ED spot left. This gave her the confidence to apply ED (although she did apply to another school that expressed interest in her here in CA).
"Question; D has the final OV mid Sept. Each college is obviously wanting an ED application. We’re thinking the strategy is to ask for a Likely Letter before committing. Last think we want is to for D to decide, apply and then for some reason not get admitted. Thoughts? "
For ED schools you can discuss with the coaches if your kid can apply regular admissions and then change application to ED after receiving the Likely Letter.
Asking for a LL before committing is probably reserved for the athletic superstars.
Most OVs end with athlete meeting with head coach at the end of the visit. It may be that your D will be told then if coach wants a commitment. LL is generally pretty straight forward if athlete has passed academic pre-read from admissions. As a parent if you are interested in FA you should as coach for a FA pre-read before visit. It is a bit tricky and nerve wracking to wait for that LL in the mail but the coach should be able to tell you their % for getting athletes through.
I’m confused about this commitment part. D has been asked by a oach for a commitment as they are keeping a slot fo her. But we’ve replied it’s not possible as they cannot give us a formal commitment, only verbal. The best they can do is a likely letter but that’s not until October. So, need to keep options open as there are no guarantees
No one gets a written confirmation until the NLI (for D1 or D2) or the likely letters for the very few schools who have that. Everyone else is under a verbal agreement until the admissions letter arrives.
One of if not the scariest moments in the recruiting journey is when you have to take the leap of faith and commit to that one school. I went through it as a recruit, and then much later as a parent. It sucks, no doubt. But it is a necessary part of the process.
As far as your confusion, I am afraid I do not understand your post @titliest Are you saying that the coaches are telling your daughter that they will not seek a likely letter for her unless she commits to that school? If so, then I am afraid that is just how the process works. There are very few circumstances where a coach with a limited number of likely letters is going to seek one for a recruit who won’t say if she will attend the school if a likely letter is granted. At the end of the day, it is very likely that your daughter will have to make a committment before the request for a likely letter is put through. At some very basic level it comes down to how much do you trust the coach. We tend to focus on only one side of recruiting here, how to make a recruit desireable to a particular school, but there are two sides. As this process goes along your daughter (and you) should be assessing the coaching staff and the program. How are things run? How honest and straightforward are they being? What are the current team members like? All of these things important now and will be even more important over the next four years.
Or are you saying that the coaches are telling her that it is a game of musical chairs, and that they will continue to recruit until they fill their class with commits, and if that happens before your daughter makes her final decision then she may be out of luck? If that is the case, then you and your daughter will have to assess her athletic desireability to the particular school, the potential number of supported recruits in the class and whatever knowledge you have about current commits and make a decision whether the coach is bluffing because he or she wants to take your daughter off the market or if in fact the coach is being truthful and if your daughter waits too long she might be left without a spot. That is a really high stress strategy though, especially if you let it spin out deep into the fall. I have seen footbal parents lose their minds when trying to play that game, and it is a virtual certainty that your daughter’s sport is going to have far fewer supported spots than football, and you may be in a situation where one or two committments can close the door really, really fast.
One thing that you really need to keep in mind too is that no Ivy school is going to issue a likely letter until the recruit’s application is submitted and complete. There is a provision in the rules which allows the granting of a likely letter (probalistic communication in the Ivy Common Agreement) without a complete application in “extraordinary circumstances” but I have never seen nor heard of such a thing happening, and I have followed this closely for a half dozen years. The biggest difference between Ivy recruiting and pretty much the rest of Division 1 is that the Ivy does not cede admissions slots to the athletic department. Each recruit runs the gauntlet, and sweats out the likely letter committee meeting in the fall.
You can protect your daughter somewhat against this fact by not agreeing to apply SCEA, but instead verbally committing and applying RD. Whether the coach accepts that or not is going to depend I guess on the sport, school and your daughter’s place in the pecking order in this particular cycle. I can say that RD applications and likely letter admissions are much more common then generally perceived here, where the prevailing wisdom is that to get a likely letter a recruit must apply ED/SCEA. Just one example, but in my son’s case, he was told to apply RD and then his application would be “switched” to SCEA once the likely letter was granted. As far as I know, this was the common advice given to his teammates as well. In addition, I personally know a few other recruits (wrestlers, football players and one baseball player) who applied RD and received likely letters in the last few years. So while it may not be the schools’ preferred method, it does happen. Given what you have posted, I might advise your daughter to float that scenario by the coach at her favorite school and see what kind of reaction she gets.
Good luck!
@Ohiodad51 One thing I haven’t heard is how the FA aid package works for recruits. For schools that offer scholarships the 4 years are now guaranteed by most schools but since Ivy doesn’t off athletic scholarships only FA and Grants I’m wondering if it’s different for recruits? Are they locked in on how much they get in aid for all 4 years or does it fluctuate? I’ve heard where they give great packages to freshman to get them in then the prices go up years following. If they don’t lock in the FA for 4 years does this lead to kids having to leave the program for financial reasons?
The Ivies don’t give athletic scholarships at all, so nothing for 1 year, nothing for 4 years. They follow the same rules as all other students. If Harvard requires all students to reapply for financial aid every year, then they all have to do it, even athletes. If the school doesn’t require reapplication for FA after year one, then the athlete should be set for 4 years (just like other students).
There really aren’t that many athletes getting 4 year scholarships. I think the PAC12 and the B1G require all athletes to receive a 4 year scholarships (with whatever percentages the coach wants to award), but the ACC and SEC are only offering them to headcount sports, and I’m not sure about the Big 12. I don’t think any other conferences require them, and I don’t think many (if any) are offering them.
A friend has a promise of 50% for years one and two, and then 100% for years 3-4, (D1 school, not a headcount sport, not in a big conference) but I’m sure it is just a promise, not a contract. There is a lot of trust needed between the families and coaches.
@twoinanddone Not sure beyond the power 5 conferences but I’m positive all 65 of them now guarantee 4 year scholarships for football. Any idea which Ivy schools require to reapply and which doesn’t?
Football is a headcount sport, so yes they are giving the 4 year scholarships. It’s really not that different than what it was before. When they were the 1 year renewable scholarships, the coaches could pull a scholarship for misconduct, for not making grades, for insubordination, or really for any reason he wanted to. The athlete had the right to appeal the loss of a scholarship. Since a football scholarship in the Power 5 is 100%, the coaches can’t reduce them. Now maybe a 3rd year player would continue on scholarship and not play football, but I’ll bet there are very few football players for whom the 4 year scholarship really makes a difference.
If the coach doesn’t want you, he’ll find a way to get rid of you even if you have a 4 year scholarship. Last year when Baylor football blew up, there was suddenly room at Texas for 4-5 more football players. Where do you think those spots came from? Someone got bumped.
You can request a FA pre-read at any point but it’s best to do that before the OV. Ivies do not offer Athletic scholarships…only need based aid but that aid has a very high ceiling and is very generous.
You will need to re-apply every year just like the average, non-athletic student. Unless your family income changes dramatically you can be assured of a very similar package year to year.
@tonymom Which is what I understand also but I did also hear that some Ivy schools will give a very high FA package to get a kid in the school but then turn around and drop significantly the FA afterwards. I have no idea how true that is or not.
^what @tonymom said. We were told that unless our income changed by more than 10% in a given year, our son’s financial aid would remain the same. So far that has proven true, and I have not heard of anyone who has suffered a “bait and switch” where financial aid is good in year one and then decreases. If you stop and think about it, even the “poorest” of the Ivys have multiple billion dollar endowments, and it is hard to imagine the reasoning behind trying to cut financial aid of any class of students in the out years to save what can’t be more than a few hundred grand at the most.
Really, the Ivy financial aid system is akin to the way things ran in P5 conferences prior to the four year scholarship rule, and the way they work in the rest of D1 now. Each year you reapply for financial aid/resign your scholarship papers. In the vast majority of cases this is a formality.
And @twoinandone is correct, even with the four year model in the P5, there are ways of freeing up scholarships. Lots of bottom of the depth chart guys find that nagging injuries all of a sudden mean they are incapable of playing any more and they get “medicalled”, kept on scholarship but not rostered, and therefore not a counter. Another time honored way to free up spots is with the first post springball depth chart. If you are an upperclassman and all of a sudden you find that you have dropped below the freshmen on the depth chart, then that is a not subtle hint that you aren’t in the coaches’ plans and should maybe seek opportunities elsewhere. And of course there is the coach’s decision (usually made right after signing day) whether to offer a fifth year to players who have some eligibility left because of injury or redshirt.
@moscott
That’s not been our experience and I haven’t heard that from anyone else. Additionally most ivies will match each other if they really want an athlete. We had a very good package from one of the big endowment schools and a “lesser” Ivy wanted my son. They quickly matched the FA package so that $$$ would not be an issue in his decision between schools. I asked their FA department if this match was only good for one year or would it continue throughout his years and they assured me it would. I suppose they could have not been truthful but as @Ohiodad51 points out it would eventually work against them. Reputation is everything and people talk within athletic communities…
For an Ivy recruit, if one passes the academic preread that’s done during the summer, for a niche non revenue sport, does anyone know how much detrimental effect will a lackluster application in terms of essay and letters of recommendation have on admission? Such as for Harvard and/or Princeton, will the coach’s influence have a big enough impact to overcome a “boring” application (but with a solid AI score, and top athlete in terms of national ranking)?
@justverycurious
Not sure what you mean by “lackluster”?
Your essay and short answers are what? Not up to par? Your EC are lacking?
If you passed academic pre-read then your academic stats are fine but I wouldn’t submit a subpar essay or a sloppy application. Even if you are a star athlete that would signal to AO that you can’t be bothered with small details.
More info about what you are gettting at is needed.
Ivy schools give need based financial aid. The aid is generally the same each year unless the family’s economic status changes. Ivies don’t give academic or athletic scholarships.
I would say that it could be significant, depending on what makes the essays and recommendations “lackluster”. Recommendations that are basically “good kid, studies hard, doesn’t cause any problems” is probably one thing. Recommendation letters that disclose a lack of studiousness or contain a whiff of academic miconduct, likely something else.
At the end of the day, no one can tell you for sure, but I can relate that the consistent advice given to my son by his recruiting coaches was not to blow off his essays and take the application seriously. I think the admissions departments in all of the Ivys, and maybe most particularly HYP, think of granting likely letters as a boon, and they do not want to see potential students treat the process less than seriously.
@tonymom re: #33–can you explain how that matching worked–were you comparing financial pre-reads prior to making an ED commitment, or did this happen later? Not trying to derail the thread, but that’s very useful info.
@politeperson it was during the process prior to both OV. It’s pretty standard fare. Coaches understand families need this info going into the process and shouldn’t hold back before decision making begins. If they do I’d wonder about their motives/stance.