<p>For the parents of prospective student-athletes, what are the biggest challenges you face with the recruiting process?</p>
<p>Five years ago now for us, but it was understanding the accelerated timeline, reading between the lines on coach-speak, and figuring out exactly which league and team were the best fit.</p>
<p>Are you asking what my biggest challenges were as a parent of a prospective student-athlete? If so, for me it was my new job title, assistant to prospective student-athlete. Some will get on their high horse and tell you they or their student did it all themselves and to those I say, job well done. But for my daughter, a three sport athlete, captain of both high school teams, top 1% of her class and president of Key Club junior year, there were not enough hours in the day for her to handle all the details of the recruiting process. She was also in a new sport, from a new club with no track record for recruiting and a coach with very little experience. The odds were truly stacked against her. So I became her assistant, sorting mail, researching schools, particularly those not already on the radar, composing standard emails, proof reading emails, learning all I could about the recruiting process in her sport, which was completely new to us and quite different from her other sports. It was a whirlwind experience, my daughter signed her NLI just 9 months after starting her sport, so the learning curve was steep and the recruiting period was condensed. It was a lot of work, a lot of stress and a constant roller coaster of emotions, but we survived intact. My daughter is happy with her choice, loves her school and has developed great friends on her team.</p>
<p>So for us, it was a great experience with a wonderful outcome. My daughter grew in ways I never imagined as she navigated her relationships with different coaches, taking OV’s and figuring out what she really wanted for her college experience. There were challenges along the way and she had her share of disappointments. The stress level fall of senior year was off the Richter Scale, for all of us! And I quite happily quit my job as assistant to prospective student-athlete when she signed her NLI, only to be called to service again as scholarship coordinator for recruited athlete. And now, three years down the line, I am just mom to my student-athlete, happily ensconced in her chosen school 1,500 miles from home!</p>
<p>Finding the right fit and sitting back and letting D decide for herself what the right fit was. She had about 50 coaches contacting her on a regular basis, some were easy to knock off the list, others not so much. She finally narrowed it down to 9 schools. In the end had it down to 4. She would have been just fine at any of those 4 schools, I thought she would have been more fine at one of those schools, she chose a different school. </p>
<p>I would strongly suggest that your child get applications done and in ASAP in September. Get your visits done as soon as possible. If they aren’t official visits, do them spring of Jr year or over the summer. Paperwork gets lost, admissions offices are busy, it just takes time to process all of that. DD had several coaches that wanted a commitment for the November signing day and even with doing all of the above, we were scrambling last minute to get things done.</p>
<p>Get the ACT/SAT tests done by the end of junior year too. Save a fall test if you need one but that is just one less thing to do in a busy, busy senior year.</p>
<p>The recruiting process has been going pretty smooth for my D. I would have to say the biggest challenge my H and I have been facing is letting D make her own decisions regarding what schools she turns down. We give her our input, however, it is ultimately her decision. For instance, she very recently told a very good D1 school that she wasn’t interested (in a very gracious way). That was a hard pill for me to swallow. It would have been her fifth OV. She has capped her list at four schools. Personally, I would take all five OVs, but she has to make that decision for herself.</p>
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<p>Ourselves. Perspective was the biggest challenge. It is very difficult to have perspective, unless you’ve been though this before. It was like learning to speak a foreign language in a few short months. Today, I speak fluent “coach”. Sites like CC and others were absolutely necessary to learn how the process works and what others were doing to solve their situations.</p>
<p>I think if there is one thing we would do differently, it would be that we would make more mistakes…in other words we didn’t hear the words “no” enough. </p>
<p>When we first started out, we were too cautious and didn’t want to make mistakes or say something “wrong” to a coach. My son loves where he is, but I think we could have saved ourselves some gray hairs and anxiety if we (parents) had been more assertive in the beginning…possibly started earlier and targeted schools differently. By the middle of junior year, we figured it out. Once we figured out our boundaries, my son made all the important decisions and communication with the coaches and programs.</p>
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<p>I’m wondering how athletes in spring sports (that have practice or competitions six days a week) do this.</p>
<p>(Summer wouldn’t seem to work very well usually if part of the visit is to sit in on a class and to meet current team members.)</p>
<p>This relates to a couple of related questions I’m going to ask soon in a separate thread.</p>
<p>^In our case we took the UV tour during spring break of jr. year. Since a fair number of families travel over break, hs coach made practices optional that week and no competitions were missed.</p>
<p>As a parent of a highly recruited athlete and some things learned from our student-athlete and the process…</p>
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<li>Let your child choose their dream school…it may not be the same as your dream for them. Let yours go. They often know their comfort level and themselves better than we do. If they pick it, they own it.</li>
<li>Be realistic about your child’s “talents” and understand that once you leave high school, there are thousands of athletes just like you, and even better than you, even if you were the “star” athlete in your high school. Be humble and ready to work harder than you ever did to gain playing time and keep playing time, even if you are recruited as a starter or impact player.</li>
<li>Grades matter just as much if not more than your athletic ability. Have the highest gpa and test scores that you can.</li>
<li>If you are truly a recruitable athlete, sometimes a year at a good prep school can do wonders for a prospective Division 1 athlete, to learn valuable time management skills, and even help with admissions. Athletes are recruited by the top prep schools in much the same coveted manner as in high school (even stronger because they want solid programs).</li>
<li>Generally, the first scholarship offer is NOT the final offer, and there are many hidden gems of merit, leadership, character, endowment awards that can be unveiled if the coach really wants to sign your student-athlete.</li>
<li>Understand that playing a sport and continuing in college as a good student is NOTHING LIKE HIGH SCHOOL. It is really two demanding, full-time jobs that the STUDENT must decide if they are willing and able to perform.</li>
<li>Love the school you choose, in the event that you choose not to play your sport, or the coach chooses to cut you (yes this does happen), or you have a season or career ending injury.</li>
<li>Ask the coach up front what his policy is on season or career ending injuries and ascertain that you can afford the school in the absence of any athletic funds.</li>
<li>Embrace the process as a privilege to be recruited, to continue to play the sport you love, and to hopefully secure some scholarship funds to help with college costs.</li>
<li>Visit informally, formally and overnight with the team, if possible. This is a good way to “feel the fit” of the school.</li>
<li>Many talented athletes are not automatically recruited - it is often a necessary effort on the student’s part to contact coaches, visit schools, etc. and make the coaches aware of their potential to impact the college team. Don’t assume that if the coaches are not knocking your door down that you may not be just as talented - sometimes it is just exposure at showcases, opportunity and a lot of luck.</li>
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<p>ENJOY YOUR COLLEGE years, the academics, athletics and social opportunities - most players will never play their sport professionally after college, no matter how successful, talented or highly recruited - enjoy the experiences- they fleet by.</p>
<p>Athletes in a spring sport do it the sme way athletes in fall sports do official visits, they schedule around major competitions as best they can. My daughter was in season in two fall sports and trying to schedule OV’s was a nightmare. The colleges were traveling or competing some weekends, she had competitions for her club sport as well as the state series for her high school sport. She had to limit her OV’s to 3 due to time constraints and she ended up flying for OV’s directly from competitions. Her last OV she had to fly out of a small regional airport with limited flights and no hope for rescheduling a missed flight for 24 hours. Due to a delay for equipment issues at her swim meet, she literally swam the 100 fly final, jumped out of the pool and ran to the car to make it to the airport before they closed the gate. I has called ahead and they were waiting for her but they had to close the gate 20 minutes before departure, and she just made it. She barely had time to get dressed in the car on the way to the airport! That was the last weekend before early signing so missing that flight would have been a real headache, but it all worked out and she happily attends said school. Point is, you so what you have to do!</p>
<p>Re parents and recruiting of your student</p>
<p>The compressed time schedule is something to watch–
our student had test scores etc all in and done by end of Jr yr…
had been in communication with coaches since mid Jr yr
etc</p>
<p>The financial picture was our part…and that beyond the things other said like the foreign language of “coach speak” was the biggest part.
We had a rough idea about our tax return #s and had to complete fin aid apps for the school in Sept/Oct of Sr yr for the school which gave us an initial gander at #s.</p>
<p>Have 2 kids who are recruited scholarship student athletes and went about it two very different ways.
First kid- son, as in fishymoms case I was very hands on, helping with a lot of the stuff that needed to get done, spending time doing the research and making sure he saw a lot of schools. We started early soph year. By Nov. junior year he had offers and committed that month. Now on a full ride at a D1 school (equivalency sport) and yes I know it is rare but it is true… FREE college. However he worked his you know what off since a young age and was an all american as a freshman so that helped… </p>
<p>Daughter- had a hs school coach who wanted to “handle her recruiting” BIGGEST mistake I made. I trusted him and although she ended up with a scholarship and is playing her sport I totally feel like it was a huge mistake to be so hands off with her. I am not sure she is at the school that is the best fit for her and that is disappointing. I feel like if I had not listened to her coach and put my foot down she would have had better/more options. </p>
<p>It’s not horrible but should have trusted myself to help her as much as I could have my son, although very different sports. </p>
<p>Hardest thing for me was letting go of the process for daughter and it was a mistake IMO…</p>
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<p>varska, enjoy reading your site, you’ve been great on this board, have been willing to post great advice and I don’t want to seem like I’m whining or complaining … I’m just offering a tidbit of relevant information . . .</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many HS (and college) rowing teams (such as ours) use the entire Spring Break to travel off-site for a week of intense training. So, that won’t work.</p>
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<p>But the student who attends a prep school after HS does lose one year of college eligibility, correct?</p>
<p>Not saying that is good or bad, just confirming.</p>
<p>Great stuff here, guys, by the way. Much appreciated!</p>
<p>To Godfather:
Some schools offer Junior Day before the spring season starts.Then brief visits over the summer to talk to the coaches and official visits as early as possible.</p>
<p>In general, biggest challenge was to get involved with negotiating the finances (and surprisingly, there was some wiggle room, even at the very top schools.)</p>
<p>My biggest mistake was not listening to our D earlier on. She said she wants a small school. I completely did not think it was relevant. We wasted time doing OVs at 3 big schools, 1 medium school and 1 small school. She chose the small school, go figure !-)
The 2nd one was not knowing (1st kid in family doing sports in college), how to match her abilities both academically and athletically. We wasted a lot of time researching colleges that are good match academically, but were beyond her athletically.</p>
<p>Sorry, I misread the thread. So to translate from my biggest mistakes to my biggest challenge as parent of a recruited athlete was:
- The amount of time required to research the colleges that are good fit athletically/academically/financially/personally with my D. There are websites that can match D’s academic data and spit out a list of colleges that are matches and have a swim program. But I have to individually go into each school website to find out academically, do they have all the prereq. needed for her career path and then the athletic website to find out the stats of the swimmers on the roster to see where D fits, the conference they compete in and how competitive it is.
- Financially, it is easier to get an idea on academic scholarship based on school’s info. It’s harder for athletic scholarship. We have to go in with the assumption that we might not get any. We can’t really find any data about the ranges of athletic scholarship given at any school. We have 2 similar schools in size, academic ranking and we know the academic amount. But the coaches are more elusive in their answers. One said with a school of this size, athletic scholarship is not plenty. The other one said, she will get some, but he prefers to tell her on the OV. Like other said, reading the coaches’ talk is the hardest as you don’t want to assume anything and even though they said she is their top choice, it still would not mean much in term of getting any scholarship as they are limited to as how much they can give.
In the end, it works out, but the anxiety was tremendous. I hope for our 2nd D, I would know the rope a little better and focus on the right schools earlier.</p>
<p>“Unfortunately, many HS (and college) rowing teams (such as ours) use the entire Spring Break to travel off-site for a week of intense training. So, that won’t work.”</p>
<p>GolfFather, my daughter was recruited for rowing. Believe me, it is just as difficult to schedule visits during the fall with all the head races for HS and college teams. We did unofficial visits during spring break. My daughter met with 8 coaches over a 12 day period and toured several other schools, none of the college were on break the week our high school was. My daughter did miss practice, but it was a small price to pay for the opportunity to meet face to face with the coaches and help her formulate more clearly what she wanted in her college experience. This made it more feasible to limit her OV’s in the fall to 3.</p>
<p>GolfFather–our D is in a spring sport and a fall activity that takes up more time than her sport :D. We made it work. We visited several schools in late August when they were underway but we hadn’t started classes yet, Labor Day weekend for one round of visits. We visited when we had a long weekend and we could make it work. You just do what you have to do.</p>
<p>As for summer visits, we did those more for fit. The kids had no interest in sitting in on classes and quite honestly, I don’t see the point. There were plenty of kids on campus over the summer that you got a feel for the student body, etc.</p>
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<p>That’s a good point and I have listened but you know what also happens …</p>
<p>By chance, the first three schools my D visited happen to be very large public universities. Before and after the visits my D said she wants to only go to a large school. But most (if not all of) Div III schools happen to be smaller LACs.</p>
<p>Well, so, I convinced her to visit some Div. III colleges. At the second one, she said to me “I really like it. I can picture myself here.” And, so far, a different Div. III is her current top choice.</p>
<p>These are teenagers. Ya never know.</p>