Hello, thought a new thread could be started on the process of being invited as well as what/what not to do on the visit
Please feel free to include nuggets of wisdom on experiences both good and bad.
Helpful hints on the selection process.
For my boys ,most important thing was being proactive with coaches.Send emails and start a communication process.
Let coaches know you are interested in a recruiting trip
Have a resume saved with awards and extracurriculars,final grades from junior year, senior year class schedule, screen shot of SAT/ACT scores, GPA/class rank, hgh school profile.These items will be asked for by almost all coaches before they can offer you a visit.Email them an official transcript from school directly to coach once they are requested.
Good luck to all of our swimmers.
Thanks fleishmo6, I think this thread will be really helpful. July 1 came and went and no calls for my son, which I guess was to be expected. He is not a top recruit-- looking at lower level D1 and D3. He finally got a couple of calls this week-- the D3 coaches are showing more interest than D1.
I hope the veteran swim parents will chime in as I have learned way more from the parents on this board than from S’s college counselor and his club coach. Last year’s “July 1st-- expectations” thread was an education in itself.
needscaffeine; (love the name BTW, so true as a swim parent):
Here are my thoughts:
- Has your S reached out to coaches of his schools of interest? Has he provided his stats, academics and training? Has he filled out the recruiting questionnaires? Has he done this for 15-20 schools?
- Has your S called the coaches post July 1 to express interest? E-mailed?
- Have you, as a family, determined what you can pay for his education annually, and targeted schools that either have that price range or offer FA that could get you to the target price?
- Has your son asked to come visit unofficially to speak to the coach and tour the school?
It is July 17th. You should have contacts from the majority of coaches that will show interest at this point. If there are schools your S is very interested in, and they are matches both academically and swim times wise, then you need to get contact made asap to assess interest. Your S will have to be aggressive. We call it aggressively polite in our house. Coaches may be slow to react–they have their target lists–and they are also going to be busy attending events like local Sectionals, Juniors, etc. Your S needs to get his story out there–refresh their memory on why he’s great-- and push hard to get attention.
There is a place for everyone to swim. Even top recruits are working hard to get where they want to go.
Ask questions…happy to answer.
Thank you, swim4school, for your insights. I really appreciate it. I didn’t realize that he could/should call coaches–we were waiting for them to call him. He has a few academic pre-reads going on and one official D3 visit offer (which is not really an official visit I guess if it is D3). A D1 coach e-mailed and said he was going to call last week but then didn’t call. Another one called “just to check in” but didn’t offer an official visit. He is probably not high on their list.
I like the term “aggressively polite.” My son is very reserved but is going to have to step up.
needscaffeine;
The only way coaches will understand your S’s interest in their school is for him to reach out and express it. He might have to do that multiple times to break through the noise. Perhaps he’s not their highest ranking recruit, that’s okay. What you want to happen is that when the highest ranking recruit turns that school down, your S is next on their list. That could happen next week, next month or in November–you just don’t want any doubt in a coaches mind about your level of interest in attending their school and swimming for their team.
A D1 coach calling to check in, but no offer of OV is not a bad thing. Typically an OV would be offered after 2-3 conversations. Coaches can only call every 7 days (to the minute) If the coach has called once, there is nothing wrong with your S checking back in with him/her. If the coach does not return the call within 5 days, call again. Call–always better than email if possible. There are way too many emails flying around for the coaching staff to manage right now.
BTW, academic pre-reads (assuming he has good grades and stats) are a great sign for an offer of an OV coming post pre-read.
Your goal should be to have your OVs lined up in about 4 weeks from now. Don’t be concerned if you have a trailing late one as well, that can happen.
Best of luck. Politely aggressive.
That is such great advice. I really do appreciate it. I certainly didn’t realize that for a recruit, calling and basically putting yourself out there is so crucial.
My son is at a meet this weekend and one of the D1 coaches is there and asked him to stop by and say hello (after S is finished swimming and has clearance from his club coach.) As I said, S is kind of a clam but I am going to tell him if he is serious about the school, he better show great interest and enthusiasm when he meets the coach.
You mention your son is “reserved” by nature. Get him prepped about what the coach might ask, and get a short list 2-3 questions ready to ask the coach. Not sure if you are with him or not–but this is probably one of the few times in the whole recruiting process (except when talking about finances) that it really is okay for you to be there. Coaches know parents go to meets, and don’t mind a parent around. That’s not to say the swimmer shouldn’t drive the discussion from your family’s side–but you could be there for morale support. If you aren’t there, get him prepped before he goes. Preparation is key.
Thanks, my husband is there with him. The coach is actually on deck because he has swimmers competing. I think S is intimidated because there are always a lot of swimmers around the coach. Fortunately my husband is a stroke & turn official so he was able to get on deck this morning and tell the coach that S would be coming by at the end of his races. I appreciate all this feedback. I would PM you so this thread is not just about my son but I don’t think I have enough posts. I hope other swim parents/swimmers in the class of 2016 will come forward with questions as you and others are such a great resource.
@needscaffeine – You should PM if you’re worried about privacy/proprietary info being here on a public thread, but if not you should keep the discussion here. This is helpful and valuable for lots of us who are reading the thread.
Once my son’s situation gets clarified a bit more I’ll be posting here.
I’m looking at a couple DIII colleges and one DII. I understand that DIII’s don’t really do OV (if they do, then please correct me), but I’d like to get a visit in with the DII coach. I took a trip to the college this summer and met him in person, and I’ve emailed him before, so I’m on his radar… but I’m not sure how to get an OV in.
Also… is an OV fully paid for, or are there other fees and such?
What does an OV entail?
For a little more info… I’m a female breaststroker. I wouldn’t be his top swimmer, but if I reach my goals by the end of senior year, I would be pretty close-- within a second.
At least some DIII schools do OV, but usually they don’t pay the travel. They provide a place to stay for the athlete (in a dorm, usually on the floor of another athlete), the meals, usually tickets to one athletic event. DII or DI can pay for the travel, provide the meals, provide the tickets to the game, but the athlete can only be on the campus for 48 hours. My daughter went to one DIII and I paid for the travel, the rental car, the hotel. She stayed over one night, ate in the dorm/house, slept on the floor.
She also went to one D2, and it was about 2.5 hours from our home, so I drove, we stayed in a hotel (school paid) because the team was new and there wasn’t anyone to stay with. They ate one or two meals with the coach, went to a soccer game, and that was about it.
My daughter has been talking to coaches for quite a while, who have been recruiting her for distance. Now she’s decided distance isn’t for her in college, which is eliminating a number of schools that were high on her list (and she on theirs). I guess my comment is that the ground can change quickly this time of year. We are trying to go with the flow.
Thanks for this thread. I find everything about this process utterly mystifying. And and every morsel of info is much appreciated – please don’t take it offlist! 
DD loves to swim but is only barely fast enough for DIII schools, definitely not for D1. But - she’s also a very good student and it turns out that all the ivies, really, and most of the better schools are all DI. This poses a real problem for her. She really wants to swim in college, but the teams won’t look at her. Even one of the DIII coaches sent a fairly obnoxious letter saying he’s been newly hired to make the team really excellent and so now they’re looking at near DI-times even to try out. It was really not a very nice letter.
What now?! How does this work? The kid doesn’t need to be on the team itself; what are the opportunities for kids to swim if they’re not Missy Franklin? How does this even work?!
Not all of the good schools are D1 and in fact many D3 schools have high level academics
The schools in the Nescac conference have both top academics and athletics
Schools in the Centennial Conference also are highly rated academically
Look at these schools on collegeswimmig and compare times with your daughters
Go to college swimming.com and go to DIII team rankings. There are a lot of “good” schools with strong academics. See if any of those schools would be of interest to your daughter. It is said there is a spot for every student who wants to swim in college so you should expand your search and do not be discouraged by one response.
Sirila, it sounds like she needs to look at a wider range of schools. Have you explored the smaller lac schools in the book “Colleges that change lives”? Check out threads on cc under that title too. Many are great schools with tons of merit aid and relatively slower D3 swim teams. Trinity College in San Antonio, Rhodes College in Memphis, Pitzer in LA, Hendrix College in Arkansas. NESCAC is fine, but you need to have a big mattress full of cash or qualify for lots of financial aid.
Collegeswimming.com also has a function called “How do I fit” that is really helpful. You create a profile for her and then can compare her times against the top times of the swimmers at any given college. A good fit might be a small LAC that is academically competitive that has a DIII team. There are lots of those out there.
To update: my son (the clam) did approach the D1 coach at the meet he was attending this weekend at the end of the prelims session. Oops! The coach said S had to come back at the end of finals because S qualified for finals and the NCAA rules are that the coach couldn’t talk to him until the end of ALL of his races that day, not just the end of the session. So he had to approach him again at finals (!) We learned something there. Anyway, the coach asked him for his academic info so I guess will do a pre-read, which I think is a good sign. It was a short conversation because the coach had his own swimmers in the water but S did ask a few questions and claimed to sound enthusiastic. That’s the most I could get out of him.
Good luck to everyone on here, I hope it is going well for you. I just thought I would add this. Most D1 schools also have a swim club that travels and competes against other colleges (also D1s - in the instance I observed). They train together and compete often actually. These swimmers (competing in the club of my example) are not on scholarship, nor are they ‘walk-ons’, but they still compete at their level and seem to have a blast.
I am only mentioning this for people who can get into their dream schools, can’t get a scholarship there, but still wish to compete on a no-strings basis. The options to swim at college are quite wide.
Hi researchmum, I remember you from reading that very long “July 1st-- expectations” thread from last year. I hope things worked out for your son. It was so interesting to follow everyone’s journey and I have often wondered where all the swimmers ended up. I hope they will be very happy with their schools; I imagine they are all getting ready to leave for college now. That was a very informative thread for those swimmers (and parents!) going through recruiting now.
So now I have a question about official visits. After quite a bit of silence on the coaching end, two coaches contacted S yesterday. Of course he had just had his wisdom teeth pulled the day before and was tired and grumpy so I can only imagine what he sounded like on the phone. In spite of this, he was offered an official visit from both schools. Does the timing matter? Should he visit the school he is most interested in first?