<p>FAFSA question - One of the D3 schools my daughter is looking at has asked to do a pre-read. As part of the information package, they want a FAFSA filled out. The current FAFSA form is for 2014-2015. If I fill that out , I assume I will need to fill out a the new form for the real thing after January 1, when the 2015-2016 form is available. Will the fact that I already filled out a form with her social security number be a problem? </p>
<p>@VMT - I wish I could help you answer that question. I guess I would call the financial aid office at the school who is looking to do the pre-read. I don’t think it’s a problem because you have to fill out a FAFSA every year anyway (that is directly from their website). </p>
<p>@1HappyDad - how was the visit for your son? What did he think of the school? The team? The coach? Does he think it’s a possibility for him? My son had a fun trip, but he figured out that he doesn’t think that the one he visited was the right school for him. I am so glad he went - it was kind of a practice trip since it wasn’t one we deep down thought he might end up at anyway. The next 3 weekends are important visits for him, so at the very least, he has one under his belt by which to compare the others. He told us a lot from the weekend. There was no drinking (yay!). He loved the seniors he met. The team hadn’t started practicing yet, so he didn’t get to see the coach interact much with the team which was a bit disappointing, but he did get to do a captain’s practice with them. He also said the other male recruits didn’t talk much, so he hung out with 4 female recruits (big surprise there - not). He said he will be on a trip with 2 of them this weekend, and another one in mid-October. All in all a good experience, I think. He is exhausted, though! I will say that the one really good piece of advice that was given to us was that he should do all of his homework on the plane on the way out because he’ll be too tired when he gets home, and that was definitely true. </p>
<p>How are the other visits going?</p>
<p>@lovemyswimmer - Really nice of you to share about your son’s trip. Also nice of you to ask about our son’s trip.</p>
<p>Son liked the school very much, and it is a very real possibility for him, But he still wants to take his other trips to compare. He really liked the classes he took, and had some extra free time so he took the opportunity to sit in on an additional class with one of the other recruits, so he did. He got a good feel for, and he very much liked, the academics. He also liked his host, the team,…and the food!</p>
<p>All the recruits signed papers saying they wouldn’t drink, but there was a party with drinking and some of the recruits drank. He said the girls more than the guys. But who really knows? This is one area that gives son some pause, as he wonders how much drinking is really part of the culture if it was a good behavior weekend. Not sure what to say here other than going into college father and son had/have a little different sense of propriety and what son described sounded pretty tame to me…but hey it was a different era when I was young…</p>
<p>All in all, son had a lot of fun.</p>
<p>Like yours @LMS, son came home very tired. Good advice about the homework. Son’s next trip is in a few weeks. I can’t imagine your son doing 4 weeks in a row – Although our son’s next ones are back to back, and it’s going to be a lot.</p>
<p>I have a junior dd, and would love anyone’s input on when to accept/schedule the OVs, and timing on acceptance overall. It sounds like a number of coaches will shoot higher than they should have for “first tier” recruits, and scramble in late September and October to get their “second tier” recruits in for OVs. Does it make sense to only commit in July/August to a couple of OVs, and then wait to see what happens in Sept/Oct? It seems like your stock as a good recruit will only increase as November approaches, but maybe I have it backwards . . . </p>
<p>hastomen;</p>
<p>There’s a couple of things to do in advance fo deciding when to accept OVs. For sake of this discussion, I’ll assume your D is currently in contact with a wide variety (25 or so) coaches via email that are grouped in three “buckets” of teams–those she can score immediately in their conference championships (safer picks), those she could score in conference championships in one event (moderate picks) and those that if she has a great year this year, could possibly score at their conference championships (reach schools). These could be a split of D1/D2/D3 schools also depending on your D’s swim times.</p>
<p>I’ll also assume that you/your D have accurately assessed her academic potential at each of the targeted schools above, and understand her ability to be successful at each. As the junior year comes to a close, you will know a lot more–you will know her junior year grades (brutal academic year), you will know her SCY times from the season, and you will know how much “back and forth” she has had with each of the coaches of the above 25 schools. Hopefully, you will have spent Spring Break visiting 4-6 of these schools that you are very interested in to meet with coaches unofficially, getting a sense of training style, academic profile, and coaching philosophy.</p>
<p>At that point, your D might still be having conversations with 15 coaches via email, and she is beginning to more fully understand where she fits in the recruiting process at each of these schools. As July 1 comes closer, you should be prepared that some schools will call immediately, and some will wait a few weeks as they work down their list. You should, as a parent, also begin to understand the financial picture at each school–how many scholarships the school has, financial aid policies, stacking aid policies, and merit potential.</p>
<p>You also have to fully understand the process–the recruiting coach’s full responsibility is to recruit the best possible student athlete they can. Period. They might like your D more than another girl, but if that athlete has a 4.00 collegeswimming score and your D has a 6.5; they will recruit the other kid first. There are very few recruiting coaches that do not shoot higher than the current team–they could get lucky and land a whale or two. Your D’s (and therefore your) job is to land at the school with the best academic and athletic fit for her. Sometimes the coach’s job and your job are not quite in sync. Therefore, it becomes an art to accepting OVs.</p>
<p>After conversations take place in July and early August, most coaches are beginning to offer OVs to recruits. By the time Junior Nationals is over, they usually have a pretty full complement of visits agreed to by athletes. Then OVs begin in early September, and things begin to fall in place and fall apart for the coaches. Swimmers decide the target school is not for them, coaches do not offer a swimmer because of conduct on the OV, etc. By late September, there may be 4-5 “second tier” athletes–in areas of weakness for the team after seniors graduate–that get a call and offered an OV.</p>
<p>So, as a recruit and their parent, here’s one way of thinking about this:</p>
<p>1) Agree to a couple of OVs early on for comfort in August. You know these are visits at schools your D likes, and maybe are the lesser or mid tier schools.<br>
2) If you do not receive offers of OV for your D preferred schools–perhaps they are reach schools or high moderate pick schools–make sure the coaches are well aware of her interest. Continue to e-mail, consider visiting unofficially as a parent/student team, do anything to indicate interest. Then have her high school or club coach call the recruiting coach. Please bear in mind–if this is a Top 10 swim school in the US and your D is not a top 50 recruit, don’t waste the coaches time and yours. Make sure these schools are a good match, or all it will do is create heartbreak and bad feelings for your D. Timing is important here. The message from the Student athlete should be “I am very interested in pursuing both my athletic and academic careers at XX University” and the message from the club coach should be focused on work ethic, talent, team player, trajectory, etc. </p>
<p>The discussion here should continue along in September and into early October to capitalize on the opportunity. By the middle of October it is not unusual for a coach to call on a Monday and say “can you be here Friday” for a visit. And your D goes, no matter what her schedule is–at that point, its drop everything and seize the chance. By the time she returns on Sunday, she could love it, or not. But she gets the chance to assess.</p>
<p>If she feels strongly about a school, and does not get an OV, ask about an unofficial. Most D1 schools have one unofficial visit weekend, where if a student is a good athlete, and can get into the school on their own, they can walk on to the team. If your D ends up with that kind of dream school–and can’t get an OV–this is another way to swim at their dream school. However, as parents, its important to understand what a walk on means for the team–do they travel, do they have to pay for apparel or food in the athletic dining facilities, etc, or are they treated the same as any other member of the team. </p>
<p>Please note that this advice is not focused on the Top 50 recruits in the US, most of those will get multiple OV offers from very high tier swim schools, and have to choose. The rest of the 500 top recruits in the US will need to work hard to get into the school they wish to study and swim for in college.</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>Wow, thank you for such a thoughtful and complete post. </p>
<p>Hastomen;</p>
<p>One other point…when you are assessing “fit” for swimming at a specific university, make sure you are using taper times to compare to your D’s taper times. In other words, when assessing if she fits in the Top 5 of an event on collegeswimming, use the top 5 times from the conference championships or NCAAs for the team–do NOT compare her taper times to a meet in October for a college team where the college team has most likely practiced 8000 yards that morning, travelled on a bus for five hours, and then swam a meet against a competitor university in a dungeon pool. One mistake we see routinely is a potential recruit says “I can swim for xx team…my best time is a 23.49 50 free and last week their fastest sprinter swam a 24.20.” If that recruit is comparing their SCY Championship best time to the collegiate swimmer’s time in September, the age group kid could easily be faster. </p>
<p>This should help you target schools more effectively.</p>
<p>I have a question for those going through this now and those experienced. Have you swimmers filled out the applications yet of the schools they visited? When is the right time to start the application? Will it show interest or do the coaches even know if you’ve applied? My son has sent transcripts and test scores but that is it. </p>
<p>The answer is…it depends. If you are applying NESCAC/Ivy, then you’ll need to complete a full application with a lot o of effort put into it. That includes D3 schools as well–those where adcoms have a strong right of refusal on admission to the school. In D1, my D filled out a very basic application with 6-8 lines of information (name, address, high school, etc) no essays, no recs, no extracurriculars, nothing. In the D1 schools with NLIs, the adcoms have already weighed in on admission to the coaches, and the applications are mere formalities for tracing information. However, note that SAT/ACT scores had to be sent in,with an official transcript prior to OVs, so they did have some academic information. </p>
<p>One swimmer from my D’s club team went to a D1 school where he never filled out anything at all. NLI is enough in some cases, I guess. </p>
<p>This is why you will often see on blogs that athletes should focus on academics and their sport in order to get into college. </p>
<p>Absolutely right. I was headed down that path and mentioned it to my D and she set me straight very quickly. </p>
<p>In our case, once D verbally committed, coach wanted application in for ED/EA before putting scholarship money towards her and sending NLI. Obviously the pre-read had already happened with admissions so it was a matter of good faith from D before money offered. Extremely limited scholarship dollars in our case though.</p>
<p>Thanks swimdogmom - that answers my question. </p>
<p>Giving our thread a bump. How is it going everyone? Any visit stories?</p>
<p>We are done here. Two officials. Loved the first visit, and I nearly had to force her to take the second. She fell head over heels for the second school and team. It is a great fit academically and is always in the top 5 nationally in D-3, which is her better fit. Officially committed this weekend, and she is so happy. Best of luck to everyone out there, and thank you all for helping along the way.</p>
<p>Congrats to acemom’s daughter! I am sure it is a great feeling to be done! I’m jealous!</p>
<p>@acemom - Congratulations to your daughter and to you! Your story is an inspiration to those of us still wading through this process.</p>
<p>May I ask if you feel like her admission now is a done deal and mere formality? The reason I ask is our son is still of the mindset that after he finishes his visits, he is going to apply early to one of those schools. Even so, his school guidance counselor is suggesting that he continue to fill out applications up until he is officially accepted. I was wondering about your approach now that your daughter has committed. Will she continue to work on applications? And of course, will we see her announcement on SwimSwam? 
</p>
<p>@1HappyDad - I do feel it is a done deal. She won’t be working on any other apps. The coach has held her position for 10 years and has also recruited from D’s school in prior years. D’s school counselor is confident of the commitment. The coach said she was sending a note to Admissions when she hung up from the phone call. </p>
<p>Several other schools D was looking at have newer coaches, and I would be less confident in that situation. Although we hear of the system failing athletes every so often, I believe it is the exception rather than the rule. D’s stats both athletically and academically should give her a soft landing in case she falls. And she will have the two weeks of winter break to apply RD if she needs to. In the meantime, the sense of completion has completely changed the mood around the house!</p>
<p>Quick tip of the hat:</p>
<p>I’m a parent of a current high school junior, just starting this process (like @hastomen). My son is definitely not D1 material, but he’d love to (and should be able to) swim at a D3 school. </p>
<p>I simply wanted to thank all of you who have shared so much information, wisdom, and the experiences that you’ve been through so far. @swim4school – your post #224 should be required reading for the parent of any kid who plans to swim in college. </p>
<p>Thank you all so much for all the sharing on this thread.</p>
<p>@acemom…congratulations to you and your daughter! </p>
<p>@1HappyDad and @ahsmuoh…what is the latest in your households? Visits still to take? Anyone any closer to a decision?</p>
<p>I am longing for the day when we are done and my S has committed. Hopefully this is coming soon, as visit #4 of 4 (in 4 weeks) begins in less than 36 hours. We will leave for the airport at 4:30 am since it is a cross-country trip. He is keeping mum about his favorite school until he visits the last one, but I have a feeling which one he will settle on. </p>
<p>He has definitely had some interesting trips so far, with some interesting side notes…none of it really means much, but it’s just kind of fun to look at all the schools side-by-side. He has visited two D3 and one D1, with one D3 left to go. </p>
<p>The D1 trip didn’t include a visit with the admissions office, where the D3 schools did, and the one coming up will as well. We are still trying to figure that one out. Is it that at the D1 school the coach gets more say as to who he wants, therefore a visit with admissions isn’t necessary? Is it just a fluke the way it turned out? </p>
<p>The atmosphere is definitely different…the D3 schools were much more team-oriented, including whole team activities and meeting most of the team. At the D1 school, he only met about 1/2 the team. He was taken to parties at both of the D3 schools and alcohol was served. The D1 school, where we expected it, was dry. Maybe that’s why he didn’t meet all of the team members at this school…maybe they were out elsewhere!</p>
<p>He was offered spots at both of the D3 schools on the spot, and the D1 school said they would make him an offer after his last visit; they want him to experience all of his visits first before they make the offer. The first school he visited (September 18-20) is starting to pressure him to make a decision. </p>
<p>It’s just all a very interesting process. I never imagined that I would ever know so much about college sports! Haha!</p>
<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel That’s been the beauty of this forum is the opportunity to pay it forward as your kid progresses through the college swimming process. I know when we were going through recruiting last year, the advice and comments of many of the posters were invaluable understanding the process and what to expect. There were probably others, but a particular shout out to @swimkidsdad and @swim4school on sharing their wisdom and experiences over the years. If you stick around here long enough, it’ll be you giving advice to those new to the swimming recruitment process too. 
</p>