NESCAC Recruit - anyone with similar experience?

Athletic Recruits
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@MiddleburyDad2 – Thanks for the clarification. No offense taken.
FWIW, for no good reason Middlebury never made it onto my son’s radar. My son is a swimmer, and we’re told that the Middlebury swim complex is to-die-for. At least he’ll get to see it as a visiting swimmer.

I think that another significant factor in all this is the length of the coach’s tenure at his/her respective institution. The Amherst swim coach has been there for a long time, so he had a wealth of experience with admissions on which to draw. Also, with all the databases available (and with swimming having such objective performance markers, i.e., times). my son was able to see that this coach’s swimmers continue to improve over the course of their college careers – not a given, and something that was important to my son.

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@AsleepAtTheWheel
I agree, as the coach gets some years under his/her belt and admissions sees a positive pattern of success with those recruits they seem to have more pull in the process. When a team is getting double digit recruits accepted in a year, with an overall school acceptance rate of 16-17 percent , you can feel pretty positive about the process.
Yes. Midds pool, is definitely the nicest in the conference. Their entire main athletic building is ridiculous.

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Ultimately, one of the things that gave us confidence was the near 20 year history the coach had at the school. Admissions separately had told my S that the coach knows what he is doing and that he would only be encouraging if confidence was high.

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Love Midd of course…Such a class operation, all around. And both my DS who are now alums have jobs!

And I will just throw out there that the Carnegie-Mellon coach told us she had absolutely no influence on admissions, and the MIT coach said" I find out about 4 hours before the recruit does". So it really does vary by institution, and you have to ask the question.

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This is my very first post. I have been obsessively lurking for the past year, particularly in the Athletic Recruits threads, and can’t tell you how much help it has been. But, I wanted to share our experience because it was not quite what I had expected.

DD is a rising senior and been in contact with multiple academically selective/NESCAC coaches. Until about 1 week ago, when I first came across this thread, we were in a holding pattern. She had made her unofficial 1-day visits and met with coaches. All had been very positive and seemed interested in her. They all requested her transcripts, test scores, school profile etc for pre-reads for admissions. She was told that in the meantime, she should start planning overnight visits in the fall. We were careful not to get too excited as it was still early in the process. Some coaches mentioned “lists” and “support” with admissions, but we did not press for the terms “tips” or “slots” as it seemed premature. I assumed these discussions would occur after overnight visits in the fall.

A little background…DD has a dream academic school (a top NESCAC). It has been since she first visited it as a “nonathlete” last year. It was truly one of those “lightening struck” moments. At the time of her first visit, she was not what I would have considered a “top tier” recruit. She reached out to the coach of that school and has been keeping him posted on her progress over the past year. She provided the information for a pre-read, has spoken with him on the phone on several occasions, and he has called her high school coach. She finally had the opportunity to meet him in person at a recent skills clinic. After the clinic, he told her that admissions loved her transcript, he had the green light to support her, he wanted her and was offering her a spot and that, while he couldn’t offer a Likely Letter like the ivies, she could feel “very very good” about this. He said that he realized it was early in the process and that she could think about it, but to please let him know as soon as she could because if she was not interested, he would offer the support to someone else.

So… heeding the advice on CC about being particular about language, I pressed. I asked him what he meant by “support” and to explain how his recruiting worked. Does he have tips and slots? He was very open. He said that he can’t comment on how other NESCAC schools operate, but at this school admissions assigns athletes to academic bands. Then, given the band assignment, he decides how he wants to allocate his support; some need more, some need less. But he said that once he makes his allocation and submits his list of 5 recruits (this may have been an “for example” number), all the recruits on that list have the same chance of being admitted. (This sounds akin to a “slot” to me, but who knows? He did not use that word.) When, again as I learned to do on CC, I asked, “so what percentage of recruits with my daughter’s band and level of support are accepted EDI” he replied, “All. You can feel VERY VERY good about this.”

I was perplexed. No overnight visit??? I had thought this was standard as a decision point for the coach and the team. So… I asked. “What about an overnight visit?”“Doesn’t the chemistry of the current team members factor in?” This all seemed to happen very very fast. He said that he did not feel OVs were always necessary and could interfere with his athlete’s scholastics in the fall. He said of course if DD wanted to do one, he would be happy to arrange it. But since he had already spoken with DD’s high school coach about her character and attitude, he felt good. He also mentioned that one of the current team members who was staffing the clinic had independently approached him and said, “I really like DD.”

Coach’s last words to DD were “You can feel really good about this. Start loading up on <insert school color” gear."

So, there you go. No mention of slots or tips. No overnight visit. And yet, maybe naively, we are feeling very good about this.

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I have said it before, and I know some disagree, but I would not get caught up in the CC slots and tips debate. When my son was being recruited, I never heard those terms once. The best public information available on NESCAC recruiting involves slotting recruits into 3 bands, just like the coach told you. In my opinion, you are asking the right questions, and seem to be getting the right answers. While you may wish to reach out to parents from your club/school who went through recruiting with that coach to make sure there is no indication that the coach is generally dishonest, I would personally feel pretty comfortable where your daughter is now. Or at least as comfortable as you can be until the official letter arrived.

As far as OVs, my son committed well before his OV, as did most of the kids I know personally or from correspondence on this board. So I would not find anything “hinky” in getting an offer prior to an OV offer.

Best of luck.

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@Ohiodad51 Thanks for the well wishes. I have found your posts on “slots and tips” very comforting… And it is reassuring that your son (and others) have committed before OVs (I really was under the impression that OVs were a common, if not essential, part of the process). As for reaching out to other parents, we are sort of flying solo on this one. No one from our HS or Club with NESCAC recruiting experience that I know of. That’s largely why I have relied so heavily on CC.

I actually really like this coach and do trust him. I know that with NESCAC recruiting, there is no real way to feel completely comfortable until the acceptance letter is in hand. But, I think is this as comfortable as we are going to get. I think the thing that makes me a little nervous is that, to OP’s point, it seems really early. A lot can happen between now and December.

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@PerpetualWorrier it seems like many of us are in the same boat. This is my second time through the recruiting process, but first time in the NESCAC. It looks like all of us in this thread have asked all the right questions and have received as much of a guarantee of admittance as is possible at this point. I predict that all of us will be very happy in December!

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PWorrier,

Regarding OVs: sometimes coaches use OVs to check out how a recruit interacts with the team, but they also use OVs as a marketing tool. Often it is combined with a coach meeting discussing admission prospects. If all of this has taken place (i.e. the kid is sold on the school and the coach meeting has occurred), then technically there is no need for the OV.

Regarding tips and slots, slots do exist regardless of what they are called. The Bowdoin article on recruiting (written by a student but nonetheless well researched) states “each NESCAC institution may use a certain number of spots each year on athletic recruits with somewhat lower academic pedigrees.” That is a slot. It is usually reserved for an impact player, because the coach probably would not go down to a “C Band” unless the player is really good. But not always. One NESCAC coach explained to me that the slot could be used for the no. 2 player who was close to the no. 1 player if no. 1 had better grades and scores. Another NESCAC coach expressly told me that a player at a certain position “had a slot.” Yet another referred to 2 slots, suggesting that they were taken by recruited pitchers. Some NESCAC coaches I spoke to never mentioned slots. However, I do want to underscore that tips are also recruited athletes and they carry significant weight with the adcom. A tip with a 3.7 gpa and 32 ACT is far more likely to be admitted than a non-recruit with the same stats. Experienced coaches or athletic departments with an admissions liaison know how to present the recruits.

I think it is helpful to understand the system, but I do agree that the more useful inquiry is: 1) do you have a list of recruits; 2) how long is that list; and 3) where does my kid fall on that list. My belief is that some coaches have a lengthy list (for example a list of 20 recruits for softball, which hardly needs 15 on a team). In my view, a list that long in a sport that doesn’t need those numbers (compare football) would tell you that the coach doesn’t have that much influence in admissions (e.g., MIT). When you ask where you are on the list, you get a sense of how much the coach will push for you. If you are no. 9 on a list of 10, it is possible to be bumped when a more desired recruit doesn’t get into the school of his choice or simply not to be admitted.

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The info here was so helpful with regards to my boys. I would still recommend your daughter go on the OV. How the team interacts with each other and what they do, how close they are with each other all can make a big difference in a decision. With my boys, they wanted to go to a school where both the boys/girls team were very close with each other.
That was easy to pick up on OVs. Some schools they are totally seperate and do not mingle much.
Sounds like you guys are in a good place with coach support.
Good luck

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@PerpetualWorrier, if you haven’t seen it yet, here is the first of three articles published by the Bowdoin Orient on recruiting
http://bowdoinorient.com/article/9151

I think it is definitely worth the read, with the proviso that the article is now a couple years old. Note that according to the article, A band recruits would not be eligible for a “slot” as I understand that term to be discussed here. Such a student would apparently be eligible for a “tip”. I have always had trouble wrapping my head around the idea that the NESCAC schools would provide a more concrete form of support to a lesser academic student, while leaving a stronger student of equal or even greater athletic ability somewhat subject to the whims of the admissions office.

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@Ohiodad51 "I have always had trouble wrapping my head around the idea that the NESCAC schools would provide a more concrete form of support to a lesser academic student, while leaving a stronger student of equal or even greater athletic ability somewhat subject to the whims of the admissions office. " I don’t think the stronger academic recruit is given less support because he has higher test scores. The way it was explained to me by more than one NESCAC coach is that the coach has a number of athletes he can support for admission and he uses whatever level of support he needs to get them through admissions.

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Ohio, Shuttleb is correct. As noted in the example told to me by one NESCAC coach, The slots do not need to be used for the no. 1 and no. 2 recruits. They can be used for whichever recruit the coach chooses. If two 3.8 gpa, 33 ACT athletes are the no. 1 and no. 2 recruits, and no. 3 recruit has a 3.4, 30 ACT, the no. 3 recruit gets the slot. Each gets coach support through admissions. One – the slot – likely would not be admitted without the slot. The other two might well be admitted without any coach support, but have excellent odds with coach support. One coach intimated words to the effect that a slot could be used for high academic recruit, but why would you want to.

I know this may appear confusing when compared with the Ivies, but actually it is more structured than some of the non-NESCAC D3s where coach support is hit or miss.

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I am not disputing any of what was written in the last two posts. What I am trying to say is that the seemingly universal CC advice that a “slot” is solid admissions support, but a “tip” is only iffy, and that parents should consequently be nervous if the coach does not say their child will be given a “slot” is inconsistent not only with what I personally heard from several NESCAC coaches, but also seems to be at odds with the general academic mission of the NESCAC schools, assuming that the Orient article lays out the NESCAC system correctly.

To this point, in the example above from @gointhruaphase, what is the import of knowing whether recruit 1, 2 or 3 gets the “slot”? Is it that the kid with the “slot” is more likely to be admitted then the kids who are relegated to “tips”? If so, it seems really strange to me that schools in the NESCAC would voluntarily admit a lesser athlete with lesser stats, or that coaches would not seek to ensure the best admissions results for their best athletes. If on the other hand, the coach’s decision on who gets the “slot” and who gets “tips” has no relative impact on the three recruit’s individual admissions chances, and really only refers to what band the particular recruit slots into, then it seems to me to be an unnecessary complication to the recruiting dance at the parent level. Which is why I think it is a mistake to get hung up on that language rather than focusing on the substance, which is how many recruits with similar stats and the same level of support has the coach got through admissions?

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@gointhruaphase I am certainly did not mean to claim that the slot/tip system does not exist. Admittedly, if I had heard the words “I am using one of my slots, as opposed to just a tip, on your daughter” I would have felt a certain amount of relief. This coach simply did not use those words. But I’m really not that worried about it. IMHO, what is more important that what particular words are used is the overall message that is conveyed.

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@fleishmo6 Yes, that had occurred to me. But, DD is very comfortable with her decision. She loved the current teammates that she met. As I said, this is her dream school in every respect, so it is unlikely that an OV would be a deal breaker.

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@Ohiodad51 LOL. Yes… I read that one. Multiple times. Did I say I had been obsessively lurking? :slight_smile:
Regarding the “lesser support for better academic students,” I agree with @shuttlebus and @gointhruaphase. This is not exactly true. Better students do not need as much support, but if the coach wants them, they will get “enough”.

This is how the coach explained it to me. Each of his recruits is assigned to an academic band based on the admissions pre-read (he did not say how many bands). The band determines how much support he must allocate for the recruit to get admitted. He then decides how he wants to divide his support among recruits. Once he decides, they go on “his list” (a short list) and there you go… the students on his list are “protected” through admissions “unless they fail a class or get arrested.” He flat out said that once they are on this list, it doesn’t matter what band they are in, or what level of support they are getting… they are “the same” to admissions. The important this is making this list. This is the list he says he has had 100% track record in recruits being accepted and that DD should feel “very very good about.”

How do I reconcile this with the Bowdoin article? Here’s the way I see it. (Not claiming to be an expert… just a fun mental exercise…) Rather than a set number of recruits he can support, each coach/team has a set amount of recruiting power (let’s call them “points”). Suppose a coach has “10 points” of support to use to protect recruits. He would need to use 1 point for top students, 3 points for mid students, 5 points for bottom students. (And there is a limit to how “low” the “bottom student” can be). He can choose 2 bottom students OR a 1 bottom, 1 middle, and 2 top students OR 10 top students. He decides how to split up the points to get the best athletes he can. It does not make sense, nor would it be necessary to use up 5 points for a top student. This model is consistent with both what the coach shared with me and the “bands” and “athletic factors” mentioned in the Bowdoin article. (The Bowdoin article mentions specific numbers of recruits allowable in each Band, but the idea is similar). I think of the “NAFs” (in the Bowdoin article as basically Tippy Top academic recruits (imagine 0.25 points in my model). Top students are basically “freebies” for the coach because he does not need to use up as much of his athletic factor capital. But it does not mean they are inadequately protected. For those who need to hear the “slot” and “tip” words… think of a “slot” as 5 points and “tip” as 0.25-3 points of support. It doesn’t matter, as long as you make that all important short list of protected students.

Separate from this is a “longer coach’s list” or “partial support” or “nudge” or whatever the coach calls it for those recruits to not make the above “short list” of “protected” athletes. These are the kids who are in with the other non athlete applicants and the coach has indicated that they could contribute to the team if admitted. Those applicants are much more at the mercy of the admissions committee. (I know…ultimately EVERYONE is at the mercy of the admissions committee).

So… is this what I think? Yes. It’s definitely what I hope b/c then my DD would be in great shape! :slight_smile:

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@Ohiodad51
“what is the import of knowing whether recruit 1, 2 or 3 gets the “slot”? Is it that the kid with the “slot” is more likely to be admitted then the kids who are relegated to “tips”?”

Exactly! I don’t think “slot” or “tip” is important as long as you make the coach’s “short list.” In fact, in my “if-PerpetualWorrier-had-her-way” model above, equal-caliber-athletes who have superior athletic credentials would have an edge because they would “cost” the coach less to recruit.

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PW,

It sounds like you have a good sense of this and have nothing to worry about. You seem to have asked all the right questions. I just think it is wise not to take anything for granted in this process, at NESCACs or elsewhere. Most people report positive experiences with coach support, and those who don’t find a perfectly acceptable (or even preferable) home elsewhere. However, time and again there are stories about things not working out. It does happen, and you don’t need to look far in these posts to find them. Personally, I preferred to refrain from buying the sweatshirt or advertising a commitment until the acceptance letter was in hand. Back up plans are not a bad idea.

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@gointhruaphase
I hear you. Really I do appreciate your words of warning. I know this is not a sure thing. But, the way I see it, in the world of DIII recruiting, at this point, this is probably as sure as we are going to get.
I am trying to be cautiously optimistic (success varies depending on my mood and level of paranoia).
We did buy a sweatshirt.