no roster spot without ED

^^This. Especially for position sports. Coaches who dump recruits in favor of walk-ons quickly (and deservedly ) get bad reputations. You are really gambling on there being an unfilled roster spot for someone just like you if you go RD in many sports and many schools. Not to say it doesn’t ever happen, but…

It is always possible that if the financial package is inadequate that they will try to address it, but if you want to compare offers (rather than accept a doable, but perhaps not optimal offer), ED is not your friend. What I don’t know is how quickly you need to decline the ED offer if it’s inadequate. Can someone help with that info?

I’m pretty sure my kid’s ED offer had a time limit for acceptance, it was fairly short, though I cannot recall exactly, I’m guessing it was something like 1-2 weeks.

Just to throw this out there, but if a recruit is worried about not being able to make the team unless the coach guarantees a roster spot, then maybe the school is not a great athletic match to begin with.

Also, while admittedly my experience is with sports different than lacrosse (which seems to drive virtually all of the really early recruiting talk on this board) it has not been my experience in any sport with which I am familiar (football, baseball, wrestling) that recruiting is limited to the ED round. In fact, my experience over a number of years is that D3 schools tend to engage in quite a lot of recruiting after the appropriate signing days, because they are building their teams out of kids who were in the running at higher division schools and therefore not originally willing to commit to a lower division program.

@Midwestmomofboys that makes sense. I guess we were fortunate in that the schools my daughter was getting recruited to for lax had rolling admissions so we did the FAFSA and got to compare quickly. The schools also published their merit scholarship information and the net calculators helped too. This time last year she was committed and accepted to her school.

@Ohiodad51 , what you’re saying makes sense in principle, but what I have seen happen is that a coach promises an ED kid a roster spot, the kid goes there (with the admissions bump but without $ in the case of D3), and the coach can’t bump him in favor of a better walk-on. The coach might bump an upperclassman, but in sports that don’t have huge rosters and/or the walk-on plays the same position as a freshman recruit, the coach is ethically stuck.

I have seen this in soccer and crew in particular. In some cases, the coach asked the RD kid to play club or join the practice squad for a year with a soft promise of a roster spot sophomore year. I suspect that at schools with Uber competitive programs, the best players always win out (just listen to the jibber jabber about who Stanford 's QB is going to be this weekend ), but at least at the D3 level, most coaches are not going to jettison a recruit, even for a better player. So a player who is beyond capable may not have the option of walking on.

The D3 coaches aren’t limiting themselves to those who didn’t find a place in the D1/D2 early rounds. My daughter was pretty actively recruited by D3 schools after she’d signed her NLI. Our friend who was the best player in the state in lacrosse didn’t commit to his school until February of senior year (after decommitting to another school). Do I think the coaches still recruiting him were willing to bump another recruit, a recruit who had committed a year or more earlier and signed an NLI in Nov? Yes, I do. The other recruits will still be on the team, will still play, but this guy will start as a freshman and those others will move over to make room.

If the coach holds try outs for non-recruited athletes and doesn’t have a limit on the roster size, I don’t think there are many who won’t bump a recruit down the bench a little. In most sports there is room for another player in the rotation. A goalie or pitcher may not get as many playing minutes or starts, but a swimmer can usually swim another event or a hockey player can be on another line. Not ideal, but not tossed off the team. There really are very few players who are guaranteed a starting spot on a roster. Like Ohiodad said, is it the team for you if the coach won’t even consider you as a walk-on but would ‘guarantee’ you a starting spot if you ED but not if you don’t?

Agree with @twoinanddone on timing and willingness to bump a recruited athlete if a walk-on is stronger. While it’s not something that happens in the top-D1 programs given NLI’s, it definitely can happen in a top-D3 program; I know of at least one instance where a NESCAC coach of a headcount sport said it happened recently.

Agree. Most rosters are flexible. A freshman recruit won’t be removed from the team but he’ll have a spot on the bench. And could very well be axed the following year.

First and foremost, congratulations to your child.

Secondly, an ED application is not binding in any form until you reach an acceptable and agreeable cost of attendance. If the student athlete has this school as their top choice, feel free to apply ED and you absolutely 100% can withdraw if you do not accept the FA package.

You can also withdraw an ED application if there is a change in family structure or any demonstratable hardship.

Again, if this is their top school of choice, then don’t be afraid to commit.

OP: how selective is the D3 school? If it is incredibly selective, it is standard for coach to bring in athletes within one or two standard deviation of the standard student ED. If they wait until RD, and the athlete doesn’t have the same stats as the incoming class, the coach has much less pull and the athletes stats stick out.

The class has overall stats that admissions need to uphold. Any of the top UAA/LAC will push ED and even if the kid is a superstar with stats is a roll of the dice in RD these days.

The other point not being brought up here is in position sports. The coach needs someone who can make a top 10 time in the back-stroke. He can offer “support” to 4 swimmers. 3 back-strokers are interested in school X . One is willing to apply ED. The coach supports that swimmer, and 3 other swimmers who do different events. When RD rolls around, the coach has no support left, plus why waste it on the 2 back-strokers who weren’t interested enough in school X to commit? If the other swimmers get in themselves and swim faster than the ED swimmer, they will have a spot on the team. But they have to get in themselves.
Coaches need to balance the team. NESCAC schools have agreed among themselves how many athletes can be “protected” in admissions. Anyone applying RD is obviously applying to more than one school, and a coach can’t afford to get 3 back-strokers and no one who can swim the 500!

He can’t hold the spot, but I bet that coach will have the best swimmer swim the backstroke and the others will either swim other distances or become a breaststroker.

The athlete who doesn’t want to commit early takes his chances, but so does the one who does commit early and may get beat out by a walk-on (swim on?). Life is just pretty unfair when you are 17.

^this. There is a lot of truth to the statement that the minute you commit, your coach starts trying to recruit your replacement.

Timed sports in D3 are all about the fastest athletes once the season stats, so yes ED recruits may have to try to work they way back into the mix if a RD takes their spot. I have also seen it happen in preseason try-outs for position sports in D3.

In the sport my daughter plays, it’s very simple. If you verbally commit, you apply ED. I’m not sure a kid has ever said to the coach that they are going to commit and apply RD (even if it’s for a legitimate academic reason, such as to get the grades up). All the kids apply ED and if their grades don’t cut it, they don’t get a LL (Ivies) or they get told by the adcom to withdraw their applications and apply somewhere else. That’s kind to the kid because it gives the kid more time to figure out what to do, and it allows the coach to use that slot on another kid. They just don’t apply RD.

Now, kids that don’t have full support (a slot) may apply RD and walk on.

@turnandrake, that has been my experience combined with the stories of a number of kids who applied RD to D3 schools and were turned away.

But there are people for whom RD has worked out. So, I think we have to go back to the beginning. The recruit likes a school, likes a program and likes a coach. The coach is recruiting the kid and the kid listens. The kid listens to the coach about all of the things the school and team have to offer. You ask the coach about financial aid, you ask the coach about whether your kid will be admitted, you ask the coach about science majors, you ask the coach about tryouts and cuts. We always say the most important thing to do is to listen to the coach’s answers. Why, after listening to everything the coach says, would you disregard what the coach says about applying early? You may want to ask the coach why he or she wants you to apply early. He or she may say no pull after the ED rounds or that by then the coach will have used the five cases of support. Don’t commit to a school because the school “will have you.” But, if you like the school and program and you really want to attend, listen to what the coach says.

Now, if the coach says it is fine to apply RD, and that is in your interest, then apply RD.

Hey gointhru, I totally agree with you. If the coach says RD is fine and a safe play for you, then by all means apply RD. My experience is that I have never heard of that in my daughter’s sport. It’s you verbally commit (anytime between 8th grade and senior year!) and you apply ED.

Here’s what I don’t get about this process. I read a report about D3 admissions (will try and find it and post it) that gave specific allotment numbers for athletes. Specifically said Amherst reserves 75 spots out of a class of 450 and Williams reserves 71 out of a class of 550 for recruited athletes. But since varsity athletes make up 25-30% of students at these schools, that means that a significant number aren’t official recruits. Some must be walk-ons or kids on the coach radar that get in RD on their own. Anyone have any more specific knowledge on this?

Yes, NESCAC schools have plenty of kids who “walk on” whether they are on the coach’s radar during the recruiting phase or not (recruiting phase for NESCACs is generally junior year). One thing I would amend to your statement is that some of those kids get in ED too. Another factor is that in D3, you get way more kids who play two sports than in D1. Most of those kids get recruited to play one sport and are fully supported through the application process, and then “walk on” for another sport that is out of season for their “main” sport. That affects the numbers too.

I’m aware of a 2018 who turned down opportunities at two NESCACs to play her main sport. She would’ve been fully supported (in fact, been their top recruit). She would’ve played her main sport and “walked on” for another sport at those NESCACs. Instead, she’s trying for D1s where she’s been offered “roster spots.” If she doesn’t get into the D1 to which she applied ED, she’ll probably apply to the two NESCACs RD understanding that she’ll have no support from the coaches. If she gets into either NESCAC, she’ll have the option to “walk on” there. So she wouldn’t take up one of the reserved athletic sports, but she’d be on the team.

I have known kids that were encouraged to apply (sometimes ED) and told that they would be able to play but who did not need the tip from the coach. These were kids who were very strong applicants on their own. Because D3 does not have to offer money, a coach has no incentive to “tip” an applicant who will probably be admitted anyway.

I also know that there are sports that solicit walk ons. And I also know of teams that hold “tryouts” but take no walk ons.

Some kids are talking to coaches throughout the process, others only after they’very been admitted. The advice above about meeting and listening to coaches is excellent. They can tell you what the process is for their team and what your expectations should be.