<p>Thanks for clarifying, key. I just think much of the confusion about likely letters comes when athletes/parents hear what they want to hear, and don’t fully understand how things work. There is a range of interactions and relationships between high schools, coaches and college admissions officers, that goes from never having sent an athlete to an Ivy, to doing it every year. I strongly caution athletes figuring this out without a savvy high school coach and guidance counselor. You can do it, but ask a lot of questions, and don’t assume anything.</p>
<p>Well, our coaches don’t know anything.And our guidance counselors are clueless incompetents.They just send generic e-mails with smiley faces. If students don’t have an imaginative or experienced parent, it’s SUNY or the local community college. The only reason my son was recruited to the LACs in the NE and Midwest was because he filled out the recruiting forms, and luckily, he has skills in his sport that are valuable to quite a few colleges. His stats are in our state data base, so the savvy coaches had him all looked up at first contact.
The question here is these 2 competitive school has told him if he commits ED, he’s in. He meets the mean for grades, SATs, and has great courses and EC. Are they likely telling the truth? I think Williams would be a stretch otherwise, because he is just another non ethnically interesting middle class 3rd generation boy from the NE, and if he "wastes"his ED on that school, he’s lost the “coach sponsorship” at Midd, where I think he is more likely to get in with his “package” without an athletic hook. He has some safeties where his athletic talents aren’t even necessary to get in, but really wants one of these 2 schools.
I know I’m pouring my heart out here, but what have others experienced in the past?</p>
<p>Oldbatesie - our S didn’t have experience with Williams or Midd, but did go on visits to other NESCAC schools. In his case, the coach took all his application materials to admissions and got a thorough read from them. Once the coach got those results and told S he would be accepted if he applied ED, we trusted him. However, S ended up going another direction, so we never tested the situation out. </p>
<p>Has your S’s application material been read by admissions? Although certainly not a guarantee, it made us feel a little more confident. Maybe your S can explain his worries to the coach, e.g. "Williams is my top choice (if that’s true), but I’m nervous that if anything falls through re: admissions, that I will be stuck. Would it be possible for me to speak to the Admissions officer to get some informal assurance of the likelihood of admission? " Perhaps talking to Admissions as well as to the coach would make you feel more confident?</p>
<p>OldbatesieDoc, your high school sounds like ours. I laughed so hard this week when I received an e-mail flyer from D’s coach about an NCAA Clearinghouse workshop for seniors to be held in mid-November. How did they think she managed to go on all those official visits if she hadn’t yet figured out how to obtain a Clearinghouse number? We had looked for an announcement of a school meeting regarding athletic recruiting both last year and the year before, but none was offered. Consequently, we did everything completely by ourselves and likely made mistakes along the way. At other schools, apparently coaches do a lot of legwork for their athletes. For example, they contact college coaches for them, supply game videos, etc. That never happened here either, though that’s quite alright. Their imagination would have been limited to the nearby state schools anyway, and D had her sights set on the Ivies and top tier universities. D would have had paltry options had it not been for her own initiative, and I feel bad for D’s friends who were recruitable but aren’t going to be playing next year. This is another case of the haves vs. the have nots.</p>
<p>I’m not sure, GFG. I think it might be a case of the doers vs. the waiters. If a kid has the talent, taking the initiative can make it happen - maybe not at the D-I scholarship school, but probably somewhere else.</p>
<p>^^^ FauxNom has a good point. We’ve been surprised at the positive response DS has gotten from some big schools. I think they’re just impressed that he’s even trying! Whereas I read a newspaper article about another (more talented) athlete in our state who even last month was THINKING about several schools, but had obviously not contacted any of them! He won’t get too far unless he gets really lucky.</p>
<p>What I find is sad is the kids with great potential but no vision or good advise who end up at Community College with the stoners…I know that some people with drive and some luck can get ahead no matter what, but why wouldn’t you take that full ride to an LAC or an IVY? Our coaches are thrilled if SUNY Fredonia shows up…
BTW, the Williams coach just asked for another copy of his transcript-4.0 IB unweighted grades. We don’t have weighted grades or class rank…wouldn’t want those underachievers to FEEL bad…</p>
<p>The school profile and your son’s rigorous curriculum will differentiate him from the underachievers. No reason to worry that he might be slighted somehow.</p>
<p>Some schools refuse to weight AP/IB classes to avoid a huge increase in the number of students taking the class just for the extra point.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is any weighting at most of the preps and I often wondered why.</p>
<p>Fauxmom, in some cases you’re right about the kids just not being doers. But I think there’s also a lack of understanding of how the recruiting process works for the non-cash sports. Most kids thinks that if they’re good enough, coaches will be interested and contact them. When they don’t get contacted, they assume, wrongly, that they’re not good enough to play in college. I mentioned this story before, but I’ll mention it again because it’s instructive. The father of the best female high school distance runner in last year’s senior class commented that they were very surprised at how few phone calls she received. He made it sound like a handful of calls came in on July 1 and not many more afterward. Everyone thought their phone would be ringing off the hook and it wasn’t like that at all, he said. In D’s case, even certain coaches just assumed she would have gotten called by this school or that and were shocked to hear she hadn’t been. This is not a process that is crystal clear. It can vary so much by sport, gender, school, and league.</p>
<p>D benefitted from having someone in her family to encourage her and prove to her that she was good enough to be recruited by the top schools. Without that encourgement, she was afraid of looking like a fool telling Stanford and other competitive schools she wanted to run for them. She assumed that if they hadn’t called her, they weren’t interested. Not true at all.</p>
<p>Yes, persistence pays off! S had e-mailed Rice several times and not gotten a response. I told him to give them a call, because it couldn’t hurt. When he did, he was surprised at how interested the coach was, and that he knew S’s stats immediately (probably had it in a computer file, but it was still impressive). Maybe that’s a filter these schools use - does the student REALLY want to compete for us?</p>
<p>In support of this self-recruiting/promoting notion: we live across the country from the school my child eventually was recruited to play for. We made a driving tour of the schools she was interested in during her junior year spring break. I’m sure this communicated to many coaches that she was serious about switching coasts for college, and knew what she was signing on for. Coaches have limited hours in the day (like the rest of us!) and will spend their recruiting time and money on kids who fit the athletic and academic profile they are looking for AND demonstrate true enthusiasm for and knowledge of the school and the team.</p>
<p>Right, it clearly won’t just happen…I also want to thank everyone who has helped calm this concerned parent’s frayed nerves…We have lots of good options, and we’re very fortunate.
I want to let all those “prospie” parents know that if your child likes their sport and is above average, D3 is waiting for you. But they need to hear from you. My son has gotten a great inside look at the 7 colleges he contacted-overnight visits, more individual attention, and a better feel for the colleges-than his genius non-athletic older brother ever got. He can really make an informed choice. So my thought would be even if you aren’t sure if you are “recruitable” give it a try. It can only help.</p>
<p>This is all great information–as a parent of a DS Jr…student athlete–</p>
<p>We are just beginning this journey. We visited some schools back in March- and will do more this March, he has his NCAA # and is also using a recruiting website profile. He sent an inital letter of interest/resume with photo to coaches …( a sort of “I know we can’t speak until after July 1 but wanted you to know of my interest in X school and the team”…)</p>
<p>He got a couple of emails from coaches right away…</p>
<p>From looking at some of your other posts, fogfog, and having been visiting some of the same colleges, I seriously suggest you consider St Olaf. It is a great, underrated school with MERIT aid. I literally dragged my son there, because he hated the name, and it is now in his top 5 with Williams, Middlebury, Carleton and Macalaster. He is planning a science/premed major and is being recruited for sports.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip Old…Doc.</p>
<p>When you get down to it–and cross reference a students academic interest and sport…the list gets MUCH smaller. Add to that the culture or ethos he’d like to be part of…it gets even smaller.</p>
<p>Thankful a friend sent me a thread on this site…hadn’t heard of it before 2 days ago LOL</p>
<p>I did a visit report-I can private post you or we can move to St Olaf on the colleges thread if you have questions. I am not an alum, obviously.</p>
<p>My son’s list remains very large (40+); he is completely undecided as to a possible academic interest.</p>
<p>Our DS wants
engineering (or applied physical sciences if the school doesn’t have engineering…)
His sport - decent facilities since he will be there 6 days a week
Not interested in far west so East Coast
Not interested in our big state U s
Not too small a town where the kids make thier own fun getting hammered every weekend because there isn’t enough to do</p>
<p>we have about 40 on the list but when we strictly apply te above, we’re quickly down to about 20, and a couple other things…down again…
so PSATs arrived in what, Dec?</p>
<p>we’ll see what is within his range.</p>
<p>While PSATS will give an indication of predicted SATS, some SAT takers stay at the same level, a few decline. Remember to have him take his Subject Tests at the end of junior year. Five SATs (I’s and II’s) in the mid 700s is a comfortable range for MIT & Ivies.</p>