<p>No calls here…though he does have a call set up with Penn tonight. </p>
<p>That’s great to have that call this evening!</p>
<p>…continued good luck to everyone; welcome @Lovemyswimmer. @ahsmuoh, great stuff eh :)</p>
<p>Thanks for all the warm welcomes, everyone! I wish I had found this thread earlier! </p>
<p>Good luck, everyone! I’m sure the calls are going to be spread out over the next few weeks, too–so hang in there!</p>
<p>Well my son did get one call during the dinner hour last night. He was on a date with his girlfriend so he missed the call and had to call back and got voicemail. A team on his “B” list but that’s fine. I think he was just glad to get one call. We will see how the rest of the week goes. </p>
<p>@ahsmuoh: Good for your son–it only takes one school! And…I keep reading that July 1 is a big day, yes, but not the only day to hear from coaches. You just never know what is going on in their lives or minds at the moment, or which kids will choose which schools. It will all sort itself out in time. </p>
<p>My son has been offered 3 official visits so far…no D1, but all very good schools…with promises of more to come (we will see!). I keep reminding him that D1 isn’t the only way to swim. Many D3 schools are excellent academically and have just as much fun and level of commitment that the D1 schools have, without all the pressure. I also remind him that ultimately it’s the school that he needs to focus on because that is what is going to lead to a job, not swimming!</p>
<p>I wish my son would entertain D3. We have several family friends that swim at Kenyon and have had a great experience. And others from our club that ended up at Dennison. Also a great program and great school. My son just wants D1 for several reasons but he wants to be at a bigger school and really thinks he wants to major in business and neither of those schools have undergrad business. @Lovemyswimmer - has your son scheduled the officials? Can you do D3 separate from the D1 5 OV’s? Of course we have been advised by many people that 5 is too many. We will see. </p>
<p>As forewarned in this thread, nobody showed up with breakfast in hand yesterday. @ahsmuoh - Pretty cool your son got a call!</p>
<p>@Lovemyswimmer - I have this feeling that our son’s are going to wind up on a recruit trip together. They appear to be looking at/talking to many of the same schools. As for the D1 vs. D3 question, the final decision ultimately belongs to our son, but I’m secretly hoping that he goes D3. Mostly I hope he finds a close knit group like he currently enjoys on his club team, but as a general statement, I think the D3 lifestyle maybe overall a better balance. </p>
<p>@ahsmuoh I believe the rule is you can take 5 D1 official visits and 5 D3 official visits. God help the kid that attempts that one.</p>
<p>@ahsmuoh - Emory has a great D3 swim program and a top 10 undergraduate business school.</p>
<p>I am not aware of any NCAA limit on D3 official visits. Although D3 swim teams usually provide the same experience as D1 teams once you arrive on campus, D3 swim teams normally don’t pay for transportation. </p>
<p>While OV’s are necessary and in many case enjoyable, they are also time consuming and stressful. My advice would be to plan on five and hope to be done after three.</p>
<p>Best wishes to all for a successful and enjoyable recruiting season!</p>
<p>@hangNthere - Thanks for the Emory idea. I think I will mention that to my son. Have to check out their swim times. Problem is there is no athletic money at D3 and he is an OK student but not academic scholarship level at Emory - probably could get in just not scholarship. </p>
<p>My d chose NESCAC–d3–and absolutely loves it. I thought it might be too relaxed. Ha. I was completely wrong there. What’s nice is that she bounced back from near burnout and is actively swimming, racing, and coaching this summer…thanks to swimming d3. She loves swimming again. D1 would have been a mistake for her. But it so depends on the swimmer! She’s extremely self disciplined. Others might need the year-round support of d1 in order to stay focused. But I can’t say enough good things about the top d3 conferences. There is something there for everyone.</p>
<p>@ahsmuoh: My son has not accepted any OVs yet. He actually turned one down last night because the school doesn’t have engineering (an all-too common theme thus far in a number of schools that have been pursuing him). He wrote one coach to say he isn’t ready to commit yet to visits. He hasn’t heard back from that coach yet, but we are hoping he will be ok with giving my son more time to accept. He also received a call yesterday from another school and had a visit from one more coach at practice yesterday. I think he’s still hoping for a couple other calls in the next few weeks. </p>
<p>@Livesinhobbiton: It’s great that your D is so happy at her school! I have read a lot about NESCAC - all good things!</p>
<p>@1HappyDad: It would be funny if they ended up together on a trip or two! What schools is he looking at? (that’s not a taboo question, is it?) And I agree–I really think D3 would be best for my son. He’s really a geek at heart – he is choosing a very rigorous major that has to be his focus while he’s in school, and he’s looking at very selective schools–I would hate to see him bomb out (or burn out). Like your son, he is really mostly looking for a team that has the same feel and connection that his HS team does. We have a very unique and very tight-knit team, and it’s going to be hard to replicate, but that’s what he’s really looking for in the end.</p>
<p>As for OVs, you can take a total of 5 D1 and D2 visits combined; there is no limit on D3, but as someone said earlier, I have heard many coaches (and parents) say that 5 is too many, but 3 is ideal. They take time away from school and practice, and it can be hard keeping up with everything, including applications. Yikes, what a stressful process for these kids (and us!). It’s so exciting, though…I am just so proud of my son that he has made it to this level of competition and commitment and that he even has the opportunity to experience all of this. </p>
<p>So…hope everyone has a great day! Keep us posted with news!</p>
<p>@lovemyswimmer. Sounds like your son has had nice activity the past two days. My son has only gotten one call but several emails saying they are going to call - but haven’t. One coach even sent an email to me, my husband (at our work emails ?) and my son on June 30th saying he would talk to us “tomorrow” and still hasn’t called. We are cool with the fact that it is only July 3rd but they shouldn’t have sent that email. Experienced people have told him/us to " just let it play out". Which is what we are doing. </p>
<p>@lovemyswimmer - I didn’t catch earlier that your son is interested in engineering. Ours thinks he’s more of a humanities guy (but we shall see). I was basing my assumption on you looking at academically selective schools. Our son is also looking at academically selective schools, and when I saw your son was talking to Penn, ours is too. Our son spoke to the assistant, was invited to send a pre-read package, but as I understand things, was also told it’s going to depend on who else is interested in Penn. Our son has enjoyed his interaction with Penn, and feels they are being open and treating him fairly. Penn finished 3rd in the Ivies, so even if he never receives an invite, it’s pretty cool to even be considered. Personally, I don’t know that Penn is the right place for him (great school and I’m certainly not going to stop him if that somehow pans out), it’s certainly larger than most other schools on his list but Penn actually came onto his radar from the academic side. A particular recruiter really captured his imagination. Let’s compare visit lists when things are a little more clear – As I understand things, after we reach a certain number of posts, we might be able to e-mail each other on the side.</p>
<h2>I assume you are talking to MIT. Those guys are basically all engineers, and they certainly understand the balance required. There are a couple of kids from our area at MIT now, and they seem to be pretty happy with their choice. </h2>
<p>I’m really glad that Kenyon, Dennison, and Emory have received some love in the thread above. All are great D3 swim powers. The trivia on those three is all are coached by protoges of Jim Steen, the coaching legend at Kenyon. From a swimming perspective, those programs really know what they are doing, and swimmers that go there get faster – Not always true at some of the other schools. </p>
<p>Another D3 program that business and engineering types might want to look into are Clarement and Mudds. Claremont is really unique among the schools we’ve visited. They are all about leadership and “how do I take what I’m learning in the classroom and apply it in the real world.” If your biggest concern is getting a job after college, consider Claremont. Their placement is incredible (and the Atheneum (sp?) is unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere else). As a swim program, the coach is great, and the program is on the rise (I think they were 7th or 8th at NCAA’s last year, and last year their 400 free relay was under 3:00 – I think they were about a 3:01 this year, so there is a depth of fast swimmers). I think Clarement may have been the most selective liberal arts college in the country this year (~10% acceptance rate).</p>
<p>The five college consortium is really unique. It’s five colleges, but essentially one campus. Kids can take classes and eat on any of the five campuses (am told it’s always steak and lobster night somewhere and the teams like to seek it out once a week or so). The consortium really might be the best of both worlds, liberal arts and full university because each college has a unique focus. Mudds swims with Claremont (as does Scripps). Mudds is the Computer Science and engineering school. I think I’ve read their graduates are the highest paid in the country (including Stanford, MIT, etc.).</p>
<p>The dilemma for our son was he loved Pomona (also part of the five college consortium), but the swim team is a little less accomplished. But academics first, so we’ll see what happens there.</p>
<p>I kind of envy you all that have kids that are considering D3. Since this is a confidential board… I can share my excitement that my son got a call from his #1 choice today. Pretty exciting. Have to keep emotions in check,</p>
<p>@ahsmuoh: Excellent!</p>
<p>@ahsmuoh: Congratulations! That is fantastic!! I hope the call went well! How did they leave things? He must be over the moon right now!</p>
<p>I, too, love the confidentiality of this board. When you think about it, there are very few people out there who know exactly what we are going through!</p>
<hr>
<p>@1HappyDad: We have looked into CMS and he has been in touch with the coach, though hasn’t received any personal communication from them yet, which says to me that either they aren’t interested or they are really far behind in their recruiting! Haha. I love that all of the schools are intertwined and offer so much to their students. I envision it being a really tight-knit community.</p>
<p>What are your son’s strokes (or is his stroke)? Mine is a sprinter, which helps make him marketable in terms of relays. </p>
<p>What’s hard for us right now is that he really has no idea what kind of school he wants, where he wants to be, what size school…all he knows so far is that he wants engineering and he wants to swim–so it is a pretty wide open field right now. </p>
<p>Funny you should mention Penn specifically as a good call. My son really liked him (he spoke with the sprint coach) – of all the coaches he has spoken to so far, I think he was the easiest to talk to (they were on the phone for over 30 minutes) and he felt that it went the best. We haven’t been able to visit very many schools yet, so his OVs will be very important to him to get a good feel for the school, the campus, the students as well as the swim team. He would love to go to MIT, but I just don’t think his grades are good enough to get in. He is being pretty realistic about the whole thing, focusing on the schools that he can probably (hopefully? maybe?) get into (though there are definitely some reach schools on this list) and can be successful at swimming. His most promising emails/calls so far are Wash U (St. Louis), Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, U of Chicago, Tufts, Case Western, NJIT, and Colorado School of Mines–all great academic schools. Cornell has said he has the times, but would be a walk on because they have others who are faster than him at this point, so they couldn’t support him through admissions. Columbia and NYU have both shown good interest, and he really likes the communications he’s had with the Brown coach so far. Then again, he hasn’t talked on the phone with the last three,just emails. How he’s going to narrow it down, who knows?? But then again, who knows how many of those will actually come through as real possibilities? I am trying to be positive, yet realistic. I am also trying not to give up hope that one of his dream D1 schools will still call. He wants it, so I want it for him, though if any of the above-mentioned offered him a spot on their team and he got in, I think he would be very happy!</p>
<p>@lovemyswimmer. That is a very impressive list. I think you are very right about being a sprinter helping - my son is a mid distance/distance swimmer mostly and also swims fly. We have a family friend that just graduated from MIT. He is going to work for Facebook next week! He was a recruited swimmer. Swam for 2 years and then just couldn’t do it anymore with the academic requirements. But he said that is typical. About 90% of their team is underclass men. </p>
<p>@lovemyswimmer. I forgot to answer your question. The coach told my son he would call him again next week but didn’t set up a specific time. He also got two other calls that were the same thing. I sure wish they would set up a time. My son said that he told the coach of his # 1 choice that they " were on the top of the list". I hope the coach believed him. The school is about 700 miles away from us and it is odd for anyone around here to go there so it may be hard to believe but my sons room is painted in those schools colors! He is holding his head up a little higher this morning but we know this is a long process! One of the calls he got yesterday from a “b” school, he really liked the coach - it was a female and she grew up input home town and was actually coached by his now high school coach. The school is about 500 miles away. Small world. </p>
<p>I have a question - have your swimmers provided grades and test scores to the coaches that they are talking to? I assume that most of the schools on your sons list have asked? Only one school has asked my son. His grades and test scores are plenty high for the schools he is talking to but I think it is interesting they haven’t asked. One of the coaches did comment on his high school( goes to a catholic all boys school) and “knew it was rigorous” so maybe they know? </p>