<p>I am relatively new to this process and looking for advice. </p>
<p>D is an Xcountry runner. Visited small liberal arts schools in NE over the summer , met w/ coaches who asked her to come back for fall overnight visits, which she did earlier this month. She loved 1 of the 3 schools and wants to apply ED. Communicated this to coach but interested to know if / how they will let us know if she is one of his "tips". Will they let us know prior to applying? She will probably need this help in order get accepted and competiton is fierce and her grades / tests are strong but not amazing.</p>
<p>What's her communication with this particular coach been like so far? Some will be very open about whether they plan to use a tip on you; some less so.</p>
<p>If you feel like mentioning the name of the school, there are probably people lurking around with personal experience of the coach in question, who might be able to offer some perspective.</p>
<p>I think it differs from school to school. If you don't want to name the school in question, you may try to search the specific school forum, or PM a poster from that forum who seems "in the know"...</p>
<p>Yes, it does differ from school to school, but my experience is that coaches that REALLY want an athlete let him/her know before the ED deadline. At one school D was advised unabashedly that she was the coache's #1 pick and another coach advised that D was on the "push/tip" list. A third coach telephoned as ED deadline approached. I don't know whether other 3-4coaches just weren't as interested, or whether they just don't "reach out" quite so aggressively. Also, the calls came from the 3 most competitive schools on her list (all top 20 LACs), whch suggeted to me that D might need a tip a those schools and not at the others.</p>
<p>Finally, I agree with nngmm - - I wouldn't post the schools name publicly. But OP, you can PM me to see if the 3 that contacted my D are on your D's list. (D's sport was track/field - - not X-country.)</p>
<p>Having had two go through the recruiting process my advice would be to just be open and honest with the coach and ask if she is one of his/her top picks and if he/she planned on helping push through the application. Every coach we dealt with was pretty open with our girls and we knew exactly where they stood. D2 verballed last spring and just got her acceptance for her college yesterday. Took seven days from the time of her app being submitted to the official email/acceptance packet being received at our home and that's counting a weekend in between! Amazing how quickly this process can move! Good Luck!</p>
<p>Can you get an early read from admissions at this school? The coach can help with that. That way if the answer is no, you will know that now, and she could apply EA/ED somewhere else.</p>
<p>PM me if you like. I'm a mom of an XC athlete, and we visited a number of DIII and Ivies during recruiting. My D is a freshman this year, so my info is still pretty current :)</p>
<p>Maybe a dumb question, but how are your student athletes first expressing interest in the schools? I would guess it is by filling out the prospective athlete form on a schools website, but is there another or better way?</p>
<p>Karen - That's how my daughter expressed interest (the web form). She wrote to eight schools (I think), heard back from two coaches, got invited on a recruiting visit to one school, and that's where she is now, having a wonderful time :-).</p>
<p>Karen, my son filled out the online prospective athlete forms at the schools he was most interested in. I think maybe a total of 10 - 12 schools. (A couple coaches responded by email, but not many.) After we made plans which schools he was interested enough in to warrant the travel costs to visit, he emailed the coaches at those schools to arrange a meeting with them the day we would be on campus. Shortly after that he was invited by all/most (can't remember exactly) of the coaches he met with to a recruiting weekend. Unfortunately the schools were so far from home that it wasn't financially feasible for him to go to any of them. (This was D3, so no paid trips.)</p>
<p>Anyway, based on which schools he liked most "environmentally" (the feel of the place), academically, and the ones where he felt the team would at the same time challenge him, but that he could also contribute to, the personalities and training style of the coaches, and my concern with finances... he came up with a very short list. It wasn't too hard to narrow it down to one, and he applied ED there.</p>
<p>The early read is a good idea, should not be a problem if the coach is interested. The trick here is to find out what the coach is like (true to his/her word). When we went through this last year, coaches who committed wanted ED, so that works as it protects them in a sense. But the issue ends up being how do you know they gave you a bump. Try to check around and find out about the coach. CC is a good place as someone suggested, odd are they know people who know people.</p>
<p>Also regarding "early reads" - is it appropriate to ask for this only if the college is the student's first choice? Is it appropriate to ask for early reads at more than one college (at basically the same time)? If the student will not have completed official visits until mid-Oct. (and may not have a favorite until then), can/should they still take advantage of early read offers?</p>
<p>I'm not sure what an early read is in general, since we only have experience at one DIII school. Here's how that went. When the coach called my daughter in late summer before her senior year, he asked her to fax him her transcript and test scores. He took it to the admission office and they made encouraging noises, so he invited her for one of his recruiting weekends. The coach told her then that the admission office only gives three kinds of feedback - strongly encourage this student to apply, strongly encourage this student not to apply, or a kind of neutral middle reaction. It sounds like some schools offer more certainty in the process; our experience was that it stayed pretty vague throughout. Still, I'm sure it helped her application that she had visited.</p>
<p>My son was recruited strongly by several NE DIIIs for cc/track. Feel free to PM me and if your daughter's school is one of them, I can share our experience. It seemed to me that the coaches at the schools we visited were willing to give my son a good idea of his admission chances if he were to apply ED (which they encouraged) and were also willing to use a tip (which was not a guarantee in the case of several of these schools) if he would commit. He ultimately chose DI for his ED school.</p>
<p>Not trying to hijack this but I have a question - Where does all this early reading, etc, leave one if the coach wants ED and you need heavy financial aid? Are we talking about only full pay or nearly full pay students here? I could see D falling in love with a school, but there is zero chance that at the several of the LACs she's looking at we could pay the first year without a good package, especially depending on what they decide to do about her non-contact real dad, who pays the minimum child support which ends in June and hasn't seen or talked to her in years. He won't even fill out the forms, making ED exceptionally risky for D.</p>
<p>One DIII coach at a very highly regarded LAC described it this way:<br>
Student/athletes are given a grade on their academic profile:
A's are top 5% of class, over 2000ish SAT's, great teacher/GC recs
B's are the next tier; maybe top 20 %, decent SAT's, etc.
C's are the next group: not sure about quants</p>
<p>This coach said he could get a tip for as many A athletes as he wished, could get a couple of tips for B athletes, and ONE tip for a C athlete, who would be considered a developmental admit in that they would contribute greatly to the team, but would clearly need help to survive the coursework at the school.</p>
<p>This is obviously anecdotal and probably can't be applied generally to LAC's, but it did help me understand the thought process this coach was having. If the kid is an A academic, and someone the LAC would love to admit even without the athletic piece, the coach is going to be able to help them a heck of a lot more easily than a B or C. If your kid is a B academic, the coach may only have a couple of tips he can use, so it would be very important to know where that kid stands on the coach's recruiting wish list.</p>
<p>It's always OK to ask where you are on the list. And the list will change as athletes commit to schools. It is a very nice courtesy for student/athletes to let all the coaches they've been talking to know their choices, once the've received a likely letter or have been admitted to their top choice. This opens things up for kids further down the lists, and leaves a better last impression on a coach who may have spent hours on the phone with and hosting your child at their school. </p>
<p>Last year my daughter was in touch with current athletes at all of the schools on her list (facebook:)). They frequently asked if she had made up her mind, where she was looking, etc. I'm sure these kids report back to the coach, and rightly so, as soon as someone is out of the pool so that he can pursue kids who are still uncommitted. Imbedded advice: if your child is being recruited, remind them not to spill their guts about the process on facebook.</p>
<p>Father05, I think you should just talk about it with the coach, with the FA office, and see what they tell you. It doesn't mean ED is out of the question, as long as you get some clarification of your situation beforehand. It's is tricky, but some colleges will be willing to work with you, at least as far as providing information goes. It's probably going to be a lot easier to have those conversations with them if you're in the ED cycle were everyone has a bit more time to spend on your situation. Plus in ED they would be getting something in exchange, which is your d's committment to attend. Depending on how responsive admissions is to the college's athletic programs, that could count for something.</p>
<p>But you need to talk to people and get the lay of the land on this. It might work out better than you think if your d has a clear first choice and it's a school with the ability to support her financial need. You never know if you don't ask.</p>
<p>^^hi father05,
Can you ask for an early finaid estimate from the school? I've never thought about this before, but it seems like if you can give them a FAFSA form, they could give you a rough number, probably a high estimate, since it seems like extra scholarships are sometimes "found" as the deadlines near.</p>
<p>crosspost with 'rent. We're thinking the same thing.</p>
<p>Riverrunner, the way you describe the different tiers of athletes sounds very much like the way it worked for us at a top LAC. I mean, I don't know because I'm on the outside, but it lines up with our experience. My S was an "A" tier student, but probably not super high on the coach's list. Which isn't to say the coach wasn't thrilled when S decided to apply ED, because he seemed very happy about it. I figure, it didn't cost the coach anything to support his application since he had the grades, scores, rigorous courses, etc, that matched the profile of other admitted students. In a way, he was a freebie for the coach, and one who could definitely contribute to the team. I think what the coach did for him was to tag his application so it got pulled out of the pile of other qualified applicants, where there just isn't room to admit all of them. In that way it's not different from any other EC a student might have that gives them something extra to bring to the school besides their academic talent. It might be sports, or it might be music, art, research experiences, community activism, or anything else.</p>