Thank you for all the comments and giving me right guidance. I am new to the process so have some nervousness if we are doing it right.
I will talk to my child and not apply to MIT and go ahead with Caltech.
Yes we are blessed that he made it to Caltech. We as a family very much value and respect the Caltech coach for being involved and really appreciate and would like my child to maintain his ethical integrity.
Here is some background on how things spanned out for him.
My son does not want to do D1 because he know it will be very hard to balance soccer and academics. Due to this his list only has D3. (My older child is doing his PhD at Brown and initially it was in the list because his sibling is there but because it is a D1 school my younger son is hesitant to apply as an athlete to Brown)
West coast CA id camps were not happening much because things were more strict in CA and kids were not vaccinated so had to wait till he gets his vaccines, after vaccination we flew to east coast for some camps.
JHU is a D3 and we tried it , he attended 2 camps with JHU coach(One in Jan 2022 and one in July 2022) - In Jan he fell sick while traveling and after the camp was over he was covid positive, second time he played with an body injury so donât know about his performance, it was raining heavily and we could not watch him play and we dropped and picked him from the field, there were almost 100 players on the camp. We flew to east coast both the times. Both the times luck was not on his side.
We do not have the time and funds to keep flying east coast for camps, school is strict on missing classes, grades are important so given the situation we shifted the focus to west coast D3 schools and his profile clicked with Caltech coach.
I disagree with this. The big pitch from D3 schools is that you are not committed in any way (unless the school has ED). After my daughter signed her D2 NLI, many D3 schools were still trying to âstealâ her and kept telling her âYou know you are allowed to go to a D3 and play right away.â In this case there is no honor among thieves.
To the OPâs question âdo you get anythingâ from D3 schools?â Not really. Some give a letter from the coach so the student has something to sign with the other NLI students at the ceremony (but some just fake sign a piece of paper). At my daughterâs ceremony probably 5-6 were going to D3 schools, one to MIT. A few had those letters from the athletic dept but they were not contracts. An official NLI must contain a âGrant-in-aidâ (scholarship). Can a coach hear that you are still recruiting and âget madâ like @Mwfan1921 says? Sure, but the Caltech coach may not have a lot of others to replace you with - itâs a small school with a limited number of talented players admitted. The coach canât withdraw sonâs acceptance to the school.
You are going to find a huge, huge difference in the contact between a coach at Cal and Caltech. It is literally a different league of play. I would take the MIT coachâs lack of interest as just that, a lack of interest or at the very least an indication that he canât do anything for you with admissions. Could your son still make the team as a walk on? Sure. Is he guaranteed to make the team even if the coach called him every two weeks? No. And definitely not guaranteed any playing time.
Caltech is just different for athletics. It doesnât have the prestige the other schools do for athletics, but certainly makes up for that with academics. The coaches in all sports have to work harder to attract good players and it sounds like the soccer coach really wants your son on his team.
Perhaps some black and white statements will set your mind at rest:
The MIT coach is not interested in your son! That means itâs highly unlikely thereâs a walk on spot.
Even if the coach at Caltech leaves, your son enters with a spot on the team. Some teams do make cuts of upperclass players, but a) your son isnât an upperclassman and b) even if he were to get cut, you wouldnât know it until he starts college â and this is true at every school, of course, so hedging your bets by applying to other schools doesnât help here.
It sounds like your son has found the sweet spot of a great academic school plus the ability to play soccer there. Thatâs fantastic, and something that shouldnât be taken for granted!
I have never heard a coach say this. OP stated their S made a verbal commitment with the CalTech coach (commitment = coach support in admissions for a spot on the soccer team; it doesnât matter what round of admissions that support is for when assessing the validity of said commitment). Sure, some break those verbal commitments because they donât see any issue with that.
We can hypothesize all day what may or may not happen if OPâs S continues looking (which theyâve already said he wasnât going to do).
As always, I defer to those directly involved in any situation. OPâs S should ask the CalTech coach if he can continue recruitingâŠthe answer to that question is the only one that matters. Of course, I would not recommend anyone ask that question.
Well, I have. Directly to me. A call came on my phone, I thought I could shorten the call and said âOh, my daughter already signed an NLIâ and the response was that that didnât matter for a D3 school and she could still play immediately for their school. It happened twice to my phone and several more times to daughterâs phone. One was Kenyon, another in Ohio, and I donât remember the others (maybe Center or Rhodes?). It wasnât a one time thing.
I believe what you say happened to you and never said otherwise. The situation you are describing, with D3 coaches still trying to recruit your D, is not analogous to OPâs situation, whose son verbally committed to this D3 coach in exchange for coach support thru admissions and is now accepted to that school. I expect the CalTech coach believes OPâs S is committed (but only he knows for sure).
And there are a lot of athletes who believe they are committed and the coach drops them, or doesnât play them, or the coach leaves. I think the players have to protect themselves, and the D3 system is not set up to protect the kids. If this student got coach support through ED, then that is a contract and the student is committed to the school through ED. But thatâs the only commitment. If D3 wants some kind of binding commitment, they need to make a system where it is binding. Right now they donât have that system except through ED.
I agree with you that both sides should keep their promises, but that doesnât always happen. I know kids who went to colleges and never played a minute, either because they left the school or quit the team. Who does that help if the student is forced to go to a school and they donât really want to play or even attend the school?
I do think the OPâs son may be happier if he embraces the Caltech acceptance and the spot on the team. Donât worry about what might have been or what else is out there, but be happy with the opportunity offered by Caltech.
I asked the coach what the benefit was to signing the NLI in November was rather than waiting until April and she said that it made it final and there was certain relief in that. And it was true. Everything was so much calmer once she had signed.
Things have changed now because NLI can now (usually) be signed at any time from Nov to April, but at the time D had one week to sign in Nov or to wait till April. Her coach said same offer available in April. We thought about waiting because at that time the FA offers (other than athletics) didnât come through until Feb. It was a risk that D wouldnât get the merit aid she needed to afford that school. If she were being recruited now, I donât think we would have signed until all the FA was in place.
But it was a relief to have the decision made in Nov and not keep looking and applying to schools even though the FA/merit wasnât set.
It seems like what you are asking about is your sons secure position on the team. As in - the Caltech coach has not promised my son a spot on the team or a certain amount of playing time. Generally D3 coaches donât promise that. What they promise is help with admissions, which your son received. You can probably safely assume that your son will make the team regardless of coach turnover. It does happen that coach turnover changes a team but itâs not generally that the recruits donât make the team, itâs more likely to shake out in playing time.
You are chasing something that doesnât exist as far as Iâm aware of. If your son has been admitted and you can afford the school, consider yourself done.
It was a unique situation as the team was new and the school was less than 30% female, so she didnât have a lot of stock to pull from. As it was, she used 4 soccer players (only 2 who stayed with the team after the first year) and she was recruiting right up until school started.
But I like to think my daughter was worth the wait.