<p>My D has been told that she will be invited to "Junior Days" at several Ivies. She is a rising junior. What are Junior Days and what does such an invitation at this stage signify, if anything?</p>
<p>I’d venture to say she it’s a very good sign that she is being looked at. If she has the academics as well as recruitability, she will have an exciting 12 months. Congrats.</p>
<p>Sorry, have no info on junior days, my D was in a sport where end of junior year and early summer rankings delayed ‘the dance’ to summer attention. I guess the junior days are for the team sports where the coaches are looking at large quantities of players and introducing them to the program?</p>
<p>I’ve attended a junior day. Yes, it means you are being somewhat seriously considered- along with the 20+ kids who will also be there on the SAME junior day, and many schools have more than one junior day. As I was told, “Many of you will not wind up coming here on a recruiting trip, for several reasons. Even fewer of you will decide to come here for 4 years as a student athlete.”</p>
<p>However, I strongly encourage you to attend if possible. All costs are entirely on you, but it is a good way to meet the coach(es), current student-athletes, tour the campus and area, and generally get a good feel for the school- or not. It may help your daughter either eliminate that school or strengthen her desire to go on a recruiting trip there. At the very least it will be informative and a good way for the parent to be involved to some extent as well.</p>
<p>Junior Days are, from the most general sense, one weekend day where hs juniors are invited to visit a campus and see their sport (or other sports) in action, see the campus on a typical weekend day, etc. Beyond that generality, however, each schools Junior Day differs. Some schools invite few, some invite many; some have elaborate dog and pony shows, some dont.</p>
<p>One JD we did was a cattle call 100 baseball players each with their family. We arrived early in the morn, met as a group with the coaching staff who gave us their speech, invited our questions, and then went on a group tour of the campus with some typical student guides. We were supposed to have an audience with the dean of admissions and some professors (for us, this was the primary purpose of our trip because we could not get a handle on how a science based major and a D1 power baseball program could coexist in a player), but the coordination between the athletic department and the academic side was poor and those talks never happened. We watched the baseball game and left. For us, the lack of coordination made the decision easy (S had received a verbal offer before the visit) and we crossed the school off the list.</p>
<p>I would suggest that if the school is close and the day convenient, the JD is a great opportunity to get your feet wet in a part of the recruiting process. There is some excitement created by looking your S/Ds competition in the eye so to speak.</p>
<p>You can do the exact same thing by visiting the school on your own, taking a tour, setting up a time to meet the coach, etc.</p>
<p>thanks. when a coach says that someone is “very high on the list”, does that mean anything at all–my D is All American rising junior so I know she is good–but i have no idea the buzz words Ivy coaches use</p>