<p>Well, let’s hope the essays don’t have to be stellar! Tonight D re-read her primary common app essay (was trying to rework it for a scholarship contest) and hated it! Even though she thought she had edited it very well, she realizes now she could have improved it much more. So with the intent of consoling her, I re-read the essay too, and have to agree! I did like it before when I first read it, but now I realize I should have caught a few minor things that I didn’t catch either. We panicked together for a while into these wee hours of the morning. But then, as is customary on CC in these situations, I directed D to the infamous clam fart thread…</p>
<p>Yay clam fart thread!</p>
<p>Don’t let her be too hard on herself about the essay. D2 is writing essays right now. I keep reminding myself, this is the voice of a 17 year old with limited life experience. They continue to mature and change so quickly, that something they wrote even a few months ago seems naive and rough. It’s OK. With any luck, you’ll be able to stuff those essays in a file soon, to be discovered by their own kids about 20 years from now.</p>
<p>Good point, riverrunner. That’s what I keep telling myself - he’s 17, for crying out loud, and has grown up in a sheltered suburb! Poor kid, he doesn’t have any horrible experiences to recount! And everything he thought about writing is a cliche, according to the “experts.” Can’t write about sports, foreign travel, grandparents, etc., etc. Ugh.</p>
<p>I reread the essay I wrote in college about my grandmother, and was embarrassed to see how much of it was actually about me, me, me! I can’t believe I got an A on it, either. Grade inflation!</p>
<p>IHS76-Man, I love that cheer!</p>
<p>I hated my son’s essay, it was all I could do not to either fix it myself, or make him start over. Oh well. We are all here trying to support them without crossing that invisible line of enabling them…</p>
<p>So to the panel/forum collective unconscious- S was accepted ED this am! And great rejoicing was to be had in the home, as older brother(not athletic, genius boy) was wait-listed last year, and made it in “off the list”.
So not a D-3 disaster in the end…
Thanks all for your support and wisdom.You were a big help, as no one else in my circle of friends has been going thru this, and as in the “snarky comments” post, they are clueless and mean at times…</p>
<p>Congrats to your son! And the whole family! I know your holidays will be that much for relaxed! My son got his ED notification on Tuesday. Even though he had a likely, we still all cheered. Our Christmas tree will have some Cornell gear under it this year!</p>
<p>Yay Oldbates!!! You’ve done a great job with this process. I know two years ago I saved my relationship with my family (and especially the recruit) by coming to CC to wring hands, tear hair, vent and finally celebrate…</p>
<p>I love a happy ending.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your son, Oldbatesie, and thanks for letting us know.</p>
<p>Great news! Congratulations! It’s so exciting when things work out well for a hardworking student like your S. Now you can relax and enjoy the holidays.</p>
<p>Thanks again, and all the best to all of you and your progeny! Right about saving the relationships, river, my son told me, reviewed the e mail, and said “And now we are done talking about it!”</p>
<p>What great news!! Congrats to OBD’s and Kate’s sons! OBD, your son’s closing line is priceless :)</p>
<p>congrats !!!
what a great feeling! u must be so proud of him!
and i too love his last words on the subject. my D said (between the screams) “i get to go college”!
that’s when it hit me she was only 16, not a 52 yr old dad trying to be accepted:)</p>
<p>What wonderful news - and I love your son’s final quote!! The best year-end present ever!</p>
<p>And congratulations too to KateinFL - !</p>
<p>How I hope to be experiencing the parental thrill of joyful achievement this time next year!! Again, bravo!!</p>
<p>Congratulations. Let the snarkly comments move into overt jealously phase! :D</p>
<p>Congratulations to all!</p>
<p>Oooh monstor, you are so right. There’s nothing like it, is there? That’s where the life’s lesson of all the hard work ACTUALLY pays off gets learned, instead of "it’s not what you know, but who you know…"Of course, both are important lessons and neither true all the time…</p>
<p>What wonderful news!!! Congrats!!!</p>
<p>This was our first time through the athletic recruit process and I was really surprised at (i) how little info there is out there and (ii) how accurate and valuable CC was. Its now our turn to contribute!
D plays lacrosse and is a very good student at a large public, very good MA high school. Takes all honors/AP in English/history, gets As and some Bs. Took SATs and ACTs, did better on ACTs, so decided to submit just those (composite 33, reading:35, English:35, math:32, science:28). Joined a very good club team and participated in college showcases all summer after junior year THIS was very key in the process. This gave her lots of exposure to college coaches that she would not have gotten just playing for the HS. </p>
<p>She got kind of a late start. Started emailing all the coaches at schools she was interested in April, May about upcoming showcases/tournaments. This was a selection of D3s: NESCACs, Liberty Leagues, some of the PA schools and Claremonts. Many coaches responded, but not all. She always followed up after the tournaments with emails about whether they saw her, etc. Always responded to people who emailed or called her, whether she was interested or not. Multiple emails throughout the summer months, many hours of staying in touch. She visited five schools, always letting the coach know she was coming and asking for a meeting. They always met with her and this was a great oppt to learn the specifics of the school. Ended up doing three overnights in the fall arranged by the coaches great way to meet the team and feel the vibe of the school.</p>
<p>At these meetings, Ds experience is that the coach will tell you how much pull they have, if you ask them. E.g. one coach said that she had very little influence, would love to see her come, could write a supporting letter but had no slot or real pull. Others had much more influence and would say so. It was sometimes a little uncomfortable, but D always politely asked and was told what the deal was. Some school have an early read, others have a clear “slot” for a handful of athletes, others provide support and tell you what they think will happen but that there are no guarantees. One of the coaches actually said she was sorry she couldnt provide more certainty, but her school just wont. One coach told her that she was not in her first list of recruits, but that if she got in she could try to walk on. At some schools the requirements are reduced significantly for supported athletes, at others much less so seems that coaches will tell you this too most of the time if you ask.<br>
D ended up falling in love with one place (great academics and lacrosse program), fortunately this school has a definitive early read process. She got positive early read feedback from coach, was told that if she applied ED shed get in. She got the formal acceptance today.<br>
Theres a lot of trust in this process. In D3 there are no LL. But our experience was totally positive, the coaches were honest, forthcoming and in the end it all went down as expected. If there were more sources like CC, we (or maybe just I) would have been even more comfortable that all was going normally. D thought that all was cool all the way through but shes naïve, right?! Someone should write a book about how this works even the specialty college guides are totally devoid of any info on recruiting. Maybe its good, like a best kept secret that those who know about can benefit from, but it is nerve wracking. In our case, it was an awesome experience, and as Ive learned not all are. </p>
<p>Good luck everyone! Knowledge is good, and hopefully we provided some insight for the next folks.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for contributing, scarabic. I agree completely that there’s not much information out there, and what makes it tougher is that the process varies so much by sport, gender, division, conference, and individual school. As more of us post our experiences, the better this site will become. </p>
<p>Pacheight just helped me get some valuable perspective on how the recruiting works at a particular school. It was helpful, even though there are some important differences between how things worked for his child and her sport versus my D and her sport despite it being the same university.</p>
<p>scarabic, Thank you for sharing.</p>