<p>My daughter (hs jr) has received several recruitment letters from the athletic depts. of some very expensive private colleges including a couple of ivy's. My question has to do with how normal this is and how serious these coaches are. We have only recieved literature so far, no personal phone calls as of yet. She does want to compete in college but no local(by local I mean within a 4 state region, we're in North Dakota afterall) public university coaches have sent her anything.</p>
<p>This is a topic that I have interest in as well. Our older son just completed the college application process (HOORAY!) but was never particularly interested in sports so that whole end of the application process never came into the picture for him. However, our younger son (a 9th grader) is very devoted to his sports generally, and one in particular, so I imagine that it will be more relevant to his application process when that day arrives.</p>
<p>My impression has been that high school coaches have (or should have) a fair amount to do with the college recruitment process. College coaches will contact them, and vice versa. However, I know there are strict rules in place (NCAA, etc.) for how much direct contact a college can have with an athlete.</p>
<p>I will follow this thread to hear all the good advice and words of wisdom that the CC parents have for you.</p>
<p>There are a lot of threads on these boards about athletic recruitment.</p>
<p>Essentially, coaches send out a lot of mail to potential recruits (think hundreds of letters, a few actual spots). NCAA rules dictate when the coaches can make phone calls. In Men's Lax (for example) the coaches cannot make phone calls until 7/1 after the junior year. </p>
<p>You should know that the Ivies have no athletic scholarships. Need-based only, but my impression is that there may be some preference in the package structure for athletes.</p>
<p>Probably the best method of getting recruited is for your daughter to figure out what schools would be best for her in terms of both academics and athletics and contact those coaches directly. I believe she is allowed to make phone calls, the coach just cannot call her backuntil after 7/1. You're also allowed to visit campus and meet with the coach. The coach cannot visit you, yet. All these rules should be able to found on the ncaa website.</p>
<p>For example, my son received letters from more than 75 schools, both D1 and D3 with a smattering of D2. His sport is lacrosse. He wanted a D1, top 20 lacrosse team at a college with a good business program. After July 1, he had phone calls from maybe 25-30 programs. Speaking with the coaches, he narrowed his focus to maybe 10 programs. The coaches certainly narrowed their focus as well. Some programs that had been pursuing him just dropped out. He did several unofficial visits, including camps, to see the campus and meet the coach face-to-face. When it all shook out -- and it's quite a dance to get the match right -- he probably had a choice of 3-5 schools. He committed to his first choice in August before his final year of high school, applied ED and was all set in December.</p>
<p>By the way, you might want to change the name of this thread to include a reference to ahtletics. When I clicked on it, I was thinking it might be a thread about those private college counselors that people are hiring these days.</p>
<p>a few suggestions ... </p>
<p>1) check out <a href="http://www.ncaa.org%5B/url%5D">www.ncaa.org</a> which has all the rules about recruiting ... they differ by sport ... and by division (DI, DII, DIII)</p>
<p>2) there are limits to when coaches can proactively contact a recruit but a coach can always respond to a communication the student initiates ... so call, email, or contact them through team web pages. A lot of schools do not have big recruiting budgets, expecially in DII and DIII, so do not equate a lack of a proactive first contact to be a lack of interest (especially if the school is not local) ... judge how they respond to your contact to them.</p>
<p>3) search for the other strings on recruiting</p>
<p>4) think about what kind of athletic experience your child wants. Be on the best team possible even if they almost never play (be a scrub on a team that goes to the final 4) ... eventually play a lot ... play a lot from freshman year ... be a role player ... be a main cog on the team ... etc.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>My D was contacted by coaches quite a bit during and after jr year. Most of the inquiries were in the form of letters to her, but phone calls to her coach. She had no intention of playing in college, but it was interesting nonetheless. This was not big time schools recruiting her, but some would have been worth looking into, HAD she wanted to continue to play. During the summer on travel team circuits there are a lot of 'recruiters' or scouts that are like brokers sort of for certain groups of colleges, i.e. nescac, Big Ten. Her travel coach got many more inquiries during the summer before jr year than she or her HS coach got. So there's the ncaa rules, which they should be following as far as contact, but there's a gray area with these scouts it seems. D knew early on she didn't want to play on any level in college. Her sport was really taking it's toll on her physically. She understood the level of committment and the difficulty keeping up w/studies when you are a college athlete. It's definitely not for every kid - totally different college experience than just going as a regular student, not a student-athlete.</p>