<p>So I understand that the colleges may or may not offer to pay for any number of things in an OV. My daughter has four scheduled and there's been no real mention of who pays for her travel.</p>
<p>Her first visit, this coming weekend, is close by. I did take the day off from work (happy to oblige ;-) ) to drive her, she has to be there by 9am. It's within a couple of hours, so it won't be a big deal. </p>
<p>Then there are two schools that are in the middle of nowhere, around four hours away each. Neither of these schools have given her much info yet, so I don't know how to work those two. I'd be happy to put her on a bus or train if possible and then go out to pick her up, so we don't have to make the trip twice or spend two days in a hotel alone in the middle of nowhere, but we still get to see the campuses as well.</p>
<p>Finally, there's one in a major city that she can clearly be flown to or travel by train. This one is over a month away, but again arrangements have not been discussed. </p>
<p>Is it too soon, is she not that important to them, or is this just a sport with limited financing? What have been others' experiences? Are we supposed to ask? She handles all her own communications, as she should, but sometimes she doesn't cross all her t's...</p>
<p>Not sure–and your scholar-athlete will need to send an email to each school to ask how they do it…</p>
<p>as for our student–</p>
<p>one school is paying the whole thing–airfare etc and they make the arrangements</p>
<p>one school–we fly kiddo in-- they take care of the rest- kiddo asked about a coupld of sates–they gave kiddo alot of options. we will see</p>
<p>two other schools–we aren’t sure yet–kiddo just sent some emails out for clairification.</p>
<p>another school–may offer and OV and will likely pay it all…</p>
<p>So it depends on division, school, budget etc. I know of students who have been given bus tickets, others flights, and still others have been aksed to split the flight cost
I dont think its a matter of priority-however I could be wrong. I just am seeing a variety for our kiddo.</p>
<p>For all 5 OVs, the schools are paying for everything. They arrange the travel schedule, pay in advance for all trains and buses, or flights. For taxis, they are asking her to give them her receipts so they can reimburse her. They have all made it very clear that the entire time my daughter is with them, she is 100% their guest - they are covering all food, drink, etc., and this does include restaurants off campus.
All of these schools have pretty decent budgets though, I imagine - 4 ivies and 1 D1 powerhouse.<br>
Hope this helps!<br>
Have your student ask - awkward I know, but you need to know the expectations, etc.</p>
<p>ps - the school can pay for the student’s expenses (if they choose to) … they can not in general, by NCAA rules, pay for parent’s expenses if they come along.</p>
<p>Never even crossed my mind to go with my daughter on an OV - and I certainly wasn’t invited by either my daughter or the school either! Can’t imagine that they would pay for parents, with any Division.</p>
<p>Not correct that schools cannot pay some expenses for parents who accompany student-athletes on official visits. I know several parents who accompanied their child on official visits. The schools paid for their hotel, meals and game tickets, but not their transportation. One family I know took mom, dad, younger sister and grandparents! They had never visited this school or state prior to the OV, so the parents wanted to see it for themselves. Grandparents went because grandfather is an attorney and wanted to "protect’ the interests of his grandson. Another family accompanied their student-athlete on an OV to Yale. While kid did his thing, they met with financial aid people and spent the rest of the time exploring the area. </p>
<p>Official Visit
Any visit to a college campus by you and your parents paid for by the college. The college may pay the following expenses:
• Your transportation to and from the college;
• Room and meals (three per day) while you are visiting the college; and
• Reasonable entertainment expenses, including three complimentary admissions to a home athletics contest.</p>
<p>That said, I will not accompany my daughter on her officials!</p>
<p>I think parents should go on officials WHEN POSSIBLE. We’re talking life decisions and real money here. Plus the kid only hears what they want to hear in most cases.
I dropped my child off, stayed somewhere nearby, and met with the coach in conjunction with each visit. it was very valuable for us, because as some of you know, we had some coaches with not exactly honest recruiting, and a BIG let-down at crunch time.
I didn’t hang out the entire time. Your child may be more sophisticated than mine, but asking things like “How many of your recruits will actually be accepted?” and “Can you give me some kind of statistic” was a mom question.</p>
<p>Hmm, those are good questions. I’ll pass them along to her. I wasn’t implying my expenses should be covered, I wouldn’t ask for that. I’m just driving her because it’s truly the easiest way with these schools. And we do want to have a peek at the campus, but we won’t impose on her visit time.</p>
<p>So, for those who know in advance what is paid for, when did you find out? She just got an email with the first itinerary but has yet to share this info with me. She’s being a bit controlling with all of the correspondence, which I find unfortunate, as she really is a bit unclear on reality in some cases !!</p>
<p>wild: D went on 3 OV’s, on the two out of town the coaches finished the call by saying “we will send you your airline tickets soon, do you have a preference on which airport you want to fly out of?”</p>
<p>If it’s a D1 school with a competitive team it would be better if they were offering to pay without you asking…better from a how much do they want your athlete stand point.</p>
<p>parents should not go on officials accept to maybe drop off and shake a hand or two if the coaches or teammates are right where you’re dropping off.</p>
<p>if I was the coach and the parent hovered around OV weekend, the athlete would have to be very good for me to keep him or her. Parent hovering says two things 1) this parent could be a bother and 2) the kid can’t think for themselves.</p>
<p>Just to clarify: I plan on driving her, then <em>leaving</em> campus! I’m not planning on hanging around for the whole weekend! Maybe a quick drive through just to see what it looks like, after all it will be a four hour trip … which is less time than it would take to get her there through any airports, since these schools aren’t near any convenient ones, and are not far enough away to make the small airports time or cost effective … plus, in my car, she can catch up on school work she’s missing. </p>
<p>But after the drop, I’m out of there. Just to be clear about that!!</p>
<p>I forgot that a friend of mine accompanied her DD (secretly) to the OVs.
The mom flew to a couple of the places–and stayed in a hotel nearby…that parent was worried about her DD flying alone etc… :rolleyes:</p>
<p>OldbatsieDoc: I hear you about how helpful it is to have a parent around for the asking of some questions, or actually be the one to ask questions (How many slots will you give? Timetable of recruits, etc.). Those are all questions that we covered on our UNofficial visits - we have visited the school and spoken with the coaches in of 4 out of the 5 OV schools my daughter is visiting. I definitely agree that parents need to be around for some of the conversations - but our approach to these OVs is that this is between the athlete and the school/coach/team at this point. This is not to say that my daughter and I don’t have very, very long conversations about every detail of the dialogues she has without me, etc.!</p>
<p>I’m taking the same approach as you. In a couple of cases, daughter will be doing ov at places she has not previously visited, so I will definitely want to meet the coach and tour campus (even if that is on my own).</p>
<p>On our Ds visits, we met with the coach at drop-off and again at pick up. D was on her own in between (lunch, dinner, overnight). </p>
<p>Later in the process, one visit was very clearly for all committed recruits, just before the no-contact period and signing dates. All of the girls and parents were invited. We were provided with game tickets as a group and also had a group dinner, then the recruits were hosted for the night. </p>
<p>I think we had an email that detailed what would be paid, and I remember clearly that for our dinner (at a restaurant) we were told that our dinner would be covered but wine/drinks were ours separately. (On Dad picked up the tab for the parents’ drinks).</p>
<p>Luckily, D did not have any real stories about drinking on the visits. On each visit, she participated in a team dinner. There was a sense that some split off from the main group afterwards, but it was not awkward.</p>
<p>Mom, was this visit AFTER the official visit or was it in lieu of one where the kids went on their own?</p>
<p>Your last statement is comforting! It’s not the actual drinking that would be awkward, just the pressure on her specifically if she didn’t want to and they didn’t respect that. Time to have faith in her ability to figure it out !</p>
<p>The event with the family dinner was clearly referred to as the offical visit. These girls though had probably all (except one) committed prior to their senior year – before they were eligible for official visits, right? So, the school probably saved some money on OVs – on this team at least. </p>
<p>Most of these girls seemed to have other unofficial visits/camps/clinics at this school prior to the “OV”. I’d be curious to know if any of them really had OVs anyplace else – because they were “done” so early in the process. They probably had unofficial visits at several schools junior year.</p>
<p>From what I know the next year group (current HS seniors) has committed as well.</p>