I would guess soccer is more difficult.
Absolutely. And the variety of opinions for what constitutes “good soccer” adds more murky to the process.
I had one in soccer and one in rowing. Give me height and erg time over pretentious soccer evals any time.
Thank you for that! I’m trying to keep telling myself that! I don’t share my stress about it to her! When you say things were moving at a slow pace and then came a point where they moved incredibly quickly- when was that point, if you don’t mind me asking? Once you got the positive pre-read result? Are you saying it moved slow until mid-July and you didn’t get the preread result until then? Did you hear anything from the coach in the meantime? Thanks!
Follow-up question. Do you think then that negative pre-reads are not common? If a coach submits 10-20 pre-reads (I agree they probably have a good sense just looking at recruit’s materials who will pass) typically do most end up with a positive pre-read? D was going to ask coach in next call if she has a sense of if she’ll pass pre-read (coach has most of her things already), but I’m thinking the question is redundant- coach wouldn’t be submitting her if she didn’t.
Hello…it is stressful, but again it sounds as if your daughter is doing all the rights things in the process right now.
COVID obviously made things different in terms of the timeline last year, but in June there were phone calls, texts and emails from various coaches after they had reviewed his film etc. Then a bunch of on campus visits in later in the month; some coaches seemed interested and others gave off the vibe that he was not at the top of their lists. We were asked to bring unofficial copies of his transcripts on visits and his grades and course load were very strong so that part was covered, but then there was not a ton of communication for most of August.
The offers for support in admissions with an ED application didn’t come for him until the end of the summer, but he had a strong first choice school which liked him as a student and as an athlete and once the acceptance letter was in had, he felt like he could fully exhale.
Best of luck to your daughter (and you of course) as this can be a very anxiety filled process to navigate!
In my D22’s experience, the level of coach support factored into the pre read, as did whether or not you will be applying for financial aid. Heading into the pre read, you might want to know what level of support your daughter is receiving. The coach has to balance slots, so if he/she thinks your daughter doesn’t need much support, the coach might submit pre read with a modest level of support to enable him/her to get another recruit who might need more.
I do think most student athletes pass the pre-reads at the NESCAC schoools. I expect the coach has already said/strongly inferred that your D would pass the pre-read, no?
As for the rest of how things play out, there really is no set timing or path. All the experiences on this page are indeed helpful, but your D’s situation may not play out similar to any. People are heading into vacation season…coaches, admissions officers, recruits, which can add weeks to the process. Personally I would give the coach the entire month of July before following up on the pre-read. Some coaches will communicate positive pre-read results to all, while others will just start with the offer making process as soon as the admissions green light comes. Good luck.
This is one of the questions your D should ultimately ask if the coach makes a verbal offer. If you don’t hear full support and we are talking one of the NESCACs with less than 20% acceptance rate, you have to think very hard about taking that offer or not. Many coaches (at highly rejective schools) will not dither around with less than full support for their first choice athlete no matter how strong their academics.
Our experience was that the flurry of activity occurred late summer/early fall. Different sports but the dynamics of musical chairs is applicable to all sports, especially if you are not a “number 1”.
Also as @Mwfan1921 points out in #145, make sure you get absolute clarity if your D is getting a full slot support. There are many cases, including long threads on this site, of kids who received positive pre-reads but only “soft” support, applied ED and got rejected.
Very helpful, thanks! Yes, both coaches have told her grades/transcript and senior courses for next year “look good”. Choice #1 said she can submit her TO if need be, since her ACT score of 31 is below the school score of 34. Choice #2 basicallyl said the same. These are both highly selective, less than 20% acceptance rate NESCACs. She speaks to coach #1 on phone again next week. Debating whether she should outright ask that if she receives a positive preread, do they anticipate offering her a fully supported slot in exchange for ED. Not sure if she should wait to ask that until she hopefully receives offer. I think finiding out when she should expect to hear back on pre-read is key, so that we’re not stressing if she doesn’t hear right away.
Yes, that is my thought as well. D speaks to coach of #1 choice again next week (highly selective NESCAC) and I think she should ask that if she passes pre-read, do they anticipate offering her a fully supported slot, or where is she on list of supported slots. Not sure of wording, but something along those lines. I’m curious when you said that financial aid factored into pre-read. Are you saying if the recruit needs financial aid, the pre-read could be less likely to go through? D’s #1 choice is “need blind” and she will need financial aid, but we have not brought that up and weren’t planning on it unless she receives an offer (we have done net price calculator, though).
I am surprised the coaches haven’t asked if your D is applying for financial aid yet. I would expect that question to happen soon, so just have your D ready with the NPC results. IME admissions staff know the FA status of many/(most?) athletic recruits (because coaches ask), even at the need-blind NESCAC schools.
I encourage her to also ask for a financial aid pre-read if she receives a verbal offer but not all schools will do an FA pre-read.
For one of the NESCACs that D22 submitted a pre read for, the portal asked if she would apply for fin aid. For this school, the coach clearly did not give her full support— our mistake in not asking. She got what I would describe as a yellow light read. Grades, rigor, test scores at or above the school’s median. The read said her chances could improve if she increased test score or applied without fin aid. I did not feel good about that response, so we moved on. That school is not need blind.
As many have written, everyone’s recruiting journey is unique. What happens with one recruit may or may not happen with another.
With that said, I wouldn’t ask if the coach will make an offer if she passes the preread. To me, that’s too pushy. YMMV though. There can be no certainty until the actual offer is made, so you aren’t gaining certainty by asking. Your daughter’s place in the coach’s mind is already set, unless things that are out of your control happen. (But, those things do happen – a higher recruit falls into a coach’s lap, or on the flip side, a recruit ahead of you commits to another school. That’s why you can’t have certainty until the coach makes the actual offer.)
The Middlebury men’s soccer coach said he has 50 prereads, and he submits 25 or so on July 1. I don’t know how many offers he makes to net the 6-8 recruits he gets, but I imagine it is less than 25.
Your daughter sounds like a really strong recruit. I am pretty sure things will work out really well for her! This is a super stressful time. I found the anxiety ramps up over the recruiting journey, and reaches a crescendo in July/August – until, all of a sudden, the journey’s over, and at long last, you finally have certainty!! Hang in there. Not much longer!
I don’t think it’s too pushy to frame it in the context clarifying the timeline – when the coach will submit the pre-read, when the coach expects the pre-read results to come back from admissions, when the coach expects to extend offers, whether there would be any official visits setup after offers, and by when decisions on offers need to be made. You can omit directly asking if you will be given an offer I guess, but you can try to infer whether that is the path you are on, especially if the coach is saying you are one of my top recruits.
I feel like every kid getting a preread, though, is in play to get an offer. (A coach isn’t submitting a preread on a kid s/he knows s/he definitely won’t give an offer to). So anyone getting a preread knows they are in play. Now it’s musical chairs time, and even the coach doesn’t know, today, what exactly will be happening on, say, July 10.
As a result, the coach, today, probably doesn’t know who s/he’s making an exploding offer to, who will be offered official visits etc, because a d1 player could fall into their lap, bumping the kid the coach had been planning to offer etc.
Yes, the coach is definitely not interested in wasting their time (nor the prospect’s time), especially at this point in the process. Having said that, the coach definitely has a ranking/order to their pool of players (plus per position for a team sport). And while that may change over time, our experience has been coaches will answer direct questions when asked about where one is on that list. Coaches aren’t necessarily going to tell you that specifically without asking, as they manage their musical chairs and want to keep all options open. Obviously coaches want to woo their top prospects, while keeping others in play.
In any case, it’s just a matter of patience now until pre-reads are completed.
Is it most people’s experience that coaches (NESCACs specifically) ask the recruit if they plan on applying for financial aid BEFORE the pre-read or that the school asks it as PART of pre-read so that potentially the answer could impact pre-read results? Also, have folks seen a difference in this at need blind vs need aware schools? No right or wrong answer here, looking for others’ experience.
We only had one school ask about financial aid. It was a question in the pre read portal, so I believe that was from the school.
Similar to the rest of the process, there is a range of practices and behaviors regarding athletic recruiting and the impact of FA.
In our experience, most coaches, maybe all (two different sports in several different conferences/NCAA levels) asked before pre-reads whether we would be applying for FA. When we said no, most coaches said something like ‘that’s good’. We didn’t probe further on what they meant by that. The vast majority of these schools were need blind, but some meet full need, some don’t.
Understood in terms of moving parts, musical chairs, etc. but I would think most coaches know who they “plan” on making offers to in terms of their top couple of “impact” recruits…I’m guessing maybe after that they have kids ranked, with some fluidity.
Also, I agree that there is definitely the possibility of a D1 recruit “falling into their lap” but I think the possibility/worry of that is somewhat relative to where your athlete is on certain school/coaches’s list. If it’s a top 10-15 NESCAC, many of the athletes are D1 caliber to begin with, and maybe D1 fell through, or they perhaps made the decision to pursue NESCACs specifically. In other words, in some cases, the D1 athletes suddenly coming into play may not be that different than curernt top recruits of some schools, if that makes sense. In some cases.
Agree, I completely understand the dynamics of d1 caliber players at top d3 programs. (Ahem) But there is always a better player that can fall into a coach’s lap.
It is highly unlikely that a coach’s #1 recruit would fail to get an offer, even if a better player enters the picture. (Unless it’s position specific, e.g. GK).
But until the offer is made, there’s uncertainty.