Hi all!
S2 pre read at a strong academic NESCAC came back that he needs higher test scores or coach cannot support him. Coach told him the number one recruit this year and he’s very upset with this information. Son’s SATs are 1400 right now - admissions says he needs 1450 to 1500 to be admitted. His HS Naviance shows two students admitted to same school with 1250 scores (likely not the same sport). We are so very confused. What gives? Rigorous private prep and S has good GPA with highest rigor.
To clarify - the coach told us several times that S is his number one recruit this year - S plays a critical position in his sport. The coach says he’s extremely disappointed.
Curious - is this the new SAT?
Yes.
That’s got to be frustrating. The new SAT scores are higher. So a 700 per section on the new roughly correlates to 660 on the old. I imagine some schools are changing their SAT thresholds in light of this. Any chance to retake or submit ACTs?
Even adjusting for the new SAT, other admits from his HS still had significantly lower scores. My guess is that this sport receives little to no support from admissions. The team is terrible right now and this is a new coach who wants to rebuild with more talented athletes. S has other schools interested, so he’ll focus on those.
Nescac schools are in a constant state of flux on admission standards – most looking to make their applicants more competitive. The positive takeaway is that no one from the school was misleading as to admission chances and it is early enough that you can correct the issue or regroup. While it may leave you scratching your head relative to others previously admitted, the information provided to you was valuable and can help your son strengthen college options even if he chooses to leave the school at issue in the dust.
As usual, Varska provides good advice. Try the ACT. It can’t hurt and a number of kids – often boys – do much better on the ACT than on the SAT. Since the questions are straight-forward, the enemy of the ACT taker is time. You have to be a pretty quick test taker. Things are quite different than they were 15 years ago. The ACT is more widely taken than the SAT and many East Coast colleges prefer the ACT.
The obvious alternative is consider reaching out to the test optional schools: Wesleyan, Bates, Bowdoin, Conn College, and Trinity.
Unless your son is set on the NESCAC that wants him to retake the test - and it doesn’t sound like he is - I think he should move on and look at other schools. His test scores are excellent, and if he is a top recruit for the program, I assume his skills will be in demand at other great schools. Not to mention that you suspect this school doesn’t back his particular sport. Does he really want to be a part of that? Seems to me he should enjoy his senior year rather than spending the time with excessive test taking. His credentials already appear to be more than solid. Good luck!
Thanks for all of the advice. Since he has other options, S will definitely move on from this school. He is not switching to the ACT - he seems to be an SAT kid, IMO and I think it’s a waste of time to start prepping now for another format. He will take the SAT again in October. I agree that it’s good to know now that his sport is not supported by the school, a problem that would probably show in other areas later on.
Do other NESCAC schools seem to support some sports over others?
What I had read elsewhere is most of the NESCAC school shave a complex point system that divides students into several tiers based on their academic and test scores. The stronger the student, the less points the coaches have to use in the overall quota to assure an admission. It’s possible, then, that the coach really needs your S to be in the top tier because it would, for example, take twice as many points from the whole limited pool, to lock him if he doesn’t pass a certain threshold. So, theoretically, he could lock your son with his current test scores but doesn’t have the points which may be spread out across multiple teams or mess with the overall # of recruits he wants, etc. They keep this all pretty opaque, so all you hear is he needs to raise his test scores… All this is total speculation so take it with a healthy grain of salt…
I’m not familiar with the NESCAC process specifically, but I think most schools prioritize some sports more than others, with football and basketball generally being toward the top of the list - obviously in D1 conferences with big TV contracts, but by no means only in those places - plus some priorities that are school specific (such as ice hockey in several of the Ivies).
So it depends quite a bit on which NESCAC school and probably less so which sport. The A, B, and C bands into which each NESCAC school can dip for the slot-type recruit varies from school to school. Sure, some sports will demand more recruits (like football) since there are more folks on a roster. I have seen posts on other sites indicating that cross country at many colleges has less pull than other sports. Non-league sports – like sailing or rugby – may have no support with admissions. But, I have not heard of a NESCAC school “deep-sixing” a soccer team so that they may have a successful LAX team.
Citivas, the message about test scores seems to have come from admissions. Since the coach was a bit frustrated, I don’t think this was an effort to allow him to get other recruits with combined lower scores.
Oh, you can tell who is the AD’s favorite and who the red-headed step child is! Better facilities, bigger offices for the coaches, better lifting times in the weight rooms. Do you really think the women’s lax team is going to bump the men’s basketball team in the weight room (if the guys even have to share)? Yeah, D has lifting at 5:30 am.
I don’t know how it affects recruiting or support at a D3 school. At D2 and D1 Title IX will take care of equaling scholarships for men’s teams and women’s, but the school doesn’t have to fully fund all the teams or make sure that the budgets are the same. Golf may get more than tennis for recruiting and travel, football may get new uniforms while soccer doesn’t. I didn’t want my daughter to go to a school with no men’s team for her sport as then the entire expense for the nets, goals, balls, painting fields would all be on the women’s team. In two years, lax is adding a shot clock and we’re fortunate that the men’s team already has them so they don’t have to come out of the coach’s budget.
When my son was looking at the NESCAC last year he was told that as an athletic recruit, on old SAT, they wanted a 700 average per section to have no red flags with admissions.
Definitely worth taking again regardless of where he ultimately decides to go since higher score possible academic money.