I know there are new rules but I spoke to a prep school coach yesterday who said that an ivy school had already been to the prep twice to look at a current freshman player. (My daughter is a very similar player and will be a freshman next year which is why this caught my attention.)
Can anyone speak to the realistic timeline for recruiting given the new rules? Also, is this the new method of getting around the rules? College comes sees player but doesn’t speak to them. Simply tells coach they plan to have a spot for player??
You should become familiar with NCAA rules for your D’s sport. In most sports coaches can not contact recruits until Sept 1 of junior year. However, generally kids can call a coach at any time. The rub is that the coach has to pick up the phone, so calls are setup by an intermediary like a high school or club coach (often at college coach’s request). Many kids are still verbally committing prior to junior year, again there are differences by sport so look into that, especially if your D’s sport is softball.
@Publisher I was surprised. It was basketball. She is old for her grade.
I am familiar with the rules that’s why I was surprised she had been looked at twice as a freshman. I suppose they can come to watch her and not speak to her? That’s also why I asked about a realistic timeline. Knowing the rules doesn’t mean knowing how it’s actually working out going forward with those new rules.
Correct, coaches can’t approach until NCAA specified date for each sport. Players can call coaches anytime, as noted in my post above. This is one of the primary ways that kids are verbally committing before official contact dates (typically junior year).
Yes, important to know both written NCAA rules (and those of specific conferences, as appropriate), and how things are really working…meaning loopholes, etc. While there are those (players, coaches) who blatantly violate rules, I have generally found most do not. However, everyone does work the rules to their advantage, and find creative (but generally legal) work arounds.
@Publisher@dogsmama1997 girls soccer historically has had the top half of D1 recruits including Ivy league committ as freshmen and maybe 90% by end of sophomore year. They are given an ACT score to hit; word of mouth is a 30 on ACT can get into any ivy if the coach wants her. Probably lower score if URM. Pre-last year, the college coach could talk to club (or high school ) coach at any time and convey when are good times for the kids to call the coaches. As far as I understand the new rules affect campus visits only - but not 100% sure. The few kids (that almost all come from wealthy families in soccer) that can’t hit 30ACT quietly decommit from Ivy and end up at UNC :))
can also ask your coach to contact the college coach at any time.
This isn’t really new but since the coaches can’t talk to recruits in some sports, it may be the only way they are getting early looks. In some sports, the summer camps and tournaments are full of college coaches with binders full of resumes for each player at the event and even a special roped off viewing area for coaches only.
…‘soccer historically has had the top half of D1 recruits including Ivy league committ as freshmen and maybe 90% by end of sophomore year. …
I am not familiar with soccer and how many slots Ivy Soccer Coaches get, but I have had kids get recruited and play sports at Ivys. How do the Ivy’s offer someone as a Freshmen a spot when their high school academics are not all known?Hard to imagine that commitment would mean all that much at the Top Ivys’ as a Freshmen players/student.
I have seen very good players in other sports post before their Sr. Yr. that they have an offer from Harvard and plan to attend and then they do not go so I assume they were a little premature or did not have a firm offer.
Also, I could see Freshmen and Sophomore commits being more common for girls than guys as a lot can change for boys from Freshmen Year to Jr/Sr. year.
I think coaches may have more pull than we suspect or have heard of on CC for truly game changing recruits. I think most people on CC, while their kids may be great athletes, probably don’t have game changers - just statistically speaking it’s unlikely. I was just told of another recruit, also a freshman or sophomore who has offers from Harvard, etc. She is 6’3" plus and a great player. Academics surely poor, needs full financial aid. That means the coach must have amazing pull to get her into Harvard.
Although, who knows how it will play out in the end.
In general, coaches at some colleges (and in some cases only some coaches at certain colleges) have more pull than others.
You always have to take stories like this with a grain of salt. There is no freshman (or sophomore or junior) that has an offer from Harvard. It may be semantics, but the wording is more like “If you maintain your present grades, score X on SAT/ACT, it is very likely you will have a home here.” Even that wording cannot be said until admissions does a preread of the academic stats. For Harvard (and all Ivy League colleges), offers come only from the admissions office, and they will only make an offer on that day in December of the senior year that every other SCEA/ED applicant hears.
Don’t get me started on those that say that they heard of a kid that got a full athletic scholarship to Yale.
@recruitparent I am speaking specifically of girls soccer. My stats are close - a huge percentage of the top D1 girls are committed by end of 9th grade almost all the rest by end of 10th grade. There are recruiting web sites e.g. topdrawersoccer.com that track this and anyone can click and look. I know specifically of a girl committed to Princeton viewable on the web who is now at UNC. Everyone assumes the kids are given numbers from the coaches to “hit” in the future knowing they are committing to the process IF they hit the number. If your kids go to a camp OR talk to coaches on the phone they can tell you the scores you need - direct word from an Ivy coach on the phone was if D got a 30 that was fine IF they want the kid for the team. At a Columbia camp multiple girls said a “30ACT” would get you in everywhere in Ivy as white kid. Girls Ivy soccer is very, very strong - 2 years ago Princeton beat arguably the best soccer conference ACC - beat UNC and NC state in the tournament, NC State and Wake Forest in regular season. Harvard and Princeton get girls on the national team every year. I’d assume URM girls or girls on national team can go below a 30. Princeton has a current sophomore committed right now on the web. Due to the insane costs of US travel soccer, wealthy parents can almost always hit substantially lowered scores with test prep etc. Ivy girls soccer players are top 0.001% percentile soccer players but only top 10% students. (in general, I’m sure there’s some top 1% students on the team too, so don’t roast me). Just so parents understand Ivy league wants top 20 D1 level soccer players not top 1%tile students.
The amount of pull from Ivy coaches is fairly well known and documented internally. She will need to meet the AI requirements. If she ends up not meeting the AI, I believe she will not get a LL and the so called offer does not mean anything.
For the true game changers and Top Recruits, they can be on the low end of the AI but there are only so many slots for the low end. If she has good academics and is a top recruit, she will be well sought after with a lot of options. Assuming she is and remains an A Student and top recruit, she should be all set, however a lot can change between Freshmen Yr. and Sr. Yr when she would actually apply to a “Harvard”.
@skieurope interesting comments about Harvard - that’s what I thought too so I really pressed the mom and she said the girl has offers on the table. I think you are correct, it’s semantics and often people skim over the “if you get x on the sat.” I suppose I should take it with a huge grain of salt as the mom telling me is the same one who told me her daughter didn’t need to apply and could take the last ssat to get into prep school because the coaches wanted her so much. I think there is an understanding gap.
@recruitparent@dogsmama1997 Ivy league girls soccer gets slots. They are over a 4 year average but average to ~7 slots a year. They can take 7 girls that hit 30 on the ACT each class no problem. Lower scores if national team or URM. NESCAC top schools are different they get a couple “athletic factor” slots of kids at lower end of admitted test scores and then ladder up the test score range with students in the top 25% of admitted students not really counting against their class.
anon145…if the player had an “offer” from Princeton why are they at UNC, though UNC is a good top school. I have read and seen players posting that they have an offer from a “Harvard” but come Sr. Yr. they are at a school in which the academics and sometimes even the sport were not as a good as “Harvard” or where they had an offer so was it really an offer?
anon145: I understand how slots work. The # of slots varies by sport with football having the most slots.The recruits have to meet the AI to get a LL for the coaches support, with acceptance only from the Admissions office after they apply.
I had a child that was a top recruit at many top D1 schools including the Ivys and went to a top Ivy. Often what parents say they “heard or know” is different from what we were told by D1 coaches during the recruitment process, so take it with a grain of salt.
skieurope is spot on. I agree with them that there is no freshman (or sophomore or junior) that has an offer, or at least a true offer from Harvard.
And like skieurope, don’t get me started on the kid that got a full athletic ride to Yale (I was actually told this morning at the gym about a kid that had a full sports ride to Harvard).
Girls soccer and girls lacrosse were the early commit sports. The rules changed for lacrosse 2 years ago and now no offers can’t be made until Sept 1 of junior year.
Girls did announce Ivy commitments (“I’m going to Brown!”), but the coaches were very careful to say they were ‘committing to the process’ which included ED and pre-reads and that anything could happen during ‘the process.’ They were all free, of course, to change their minds and go to UNC or Duke or Maryland and many did. At some non-Ivy schools, the 10th grader got some idea of the scholarship they’d receive (1/4 of a full scholarship, or maybe 1/2 if they were extremely gifted) but often the ‘commitments’ came with no idea of money, so no one had a way to know if the school was even affordable. (As @anon145 said, often those committing early are wealthy so money doesn’t matter). An eighth grader committed to Syracuse, but I don’t think she actually ended up there.
The changes to the lacrosse recruiting schedule have had very little effect on the final roster. The girls from the best teams on Long Island or from Baltimore prep schools are still ending up on the top college teams, the teams their sisters and cousins and grandmothers played on. Girls who are great athletes but not from the top prep schools end up with big scholarships at ‘up and coming’ teams like Florida and ND.
The students that Harvard makes verbal offers to freshman year need to clear a low hurdle to get formally accepted. I don’t know anyone (and I know several) who were accepted after sitting on a verbal for soccer for years. It’s not a myth. And I promise you their scores weren’t stellar.
@recruitparent the girl who ended up at UNC presumably didn’t hit the test score she needed, but as you can guess the parents don’t tell topdrawersoccer that. (I saw her committed as a sophomore to Princeton; and yes the website uses the word “commitments”) Usually the kid shows committed to the Ivy school for years on the web page and then ends up somewhere else in D1 without fanfare. You can look at topdrawersoccer right now, Princeton has a 2021 commit. click under “commitments”. you can argue commit to the process but as long as they hit the relatively low score they are in. It is generally ~30ACT for girls soccer. A few years ago a WSOC commit to stanford also suddenly ended up at UNC in Spring of senior year. The kids/parents don’t advertise failure to hit a test score but it does happen.
That seems to support what I was saying. It may be semantics but in my opinion it is not really committed especially if it is a top Ivy. It would appear that it is only a verbal commitment primarily from the player/parent side, not the school side. I don’t really understand why the NCAA has such a discrepancy between sports with coach contact and commitments. If all sports were on the same coach contact & commit timeline it would stop a lot of this “early commitment” fever that families get caught up in, particularly with soccer.
Note: Also, I am pretty sure soccer recruits at Ivy Leagues have to meet the AI like other sports so it is not just hitting an ACT or SAT test score. The grades/GPA factor into the AI and the recruitment slots.
