<p>Just had a recruitment presentation at my school, and they said to start thinking about recruitment, so I'm going to start here.</p>
<p>academic Stats:
-Freshman at prestigious boarding school
-taking College AP Chemistry, AP calc BC, AP world, honors spanish year 7, honors literature seminar.
-have straight A's
*have not taken SAT, PSAT, nor ACT yet, but plan to do so in the next year.</p>
<p>See if you can get a hold of a practice ACT and SAT test and take the test to see where your numbers fall. It will give you a good ballpark anyway. I would also suggest that since you are taking those classes as a freshman that you consider signing up for the ACT/SAT by the end of this school year (May and/or June), assuming you have had geometry and at least Algebra II along with your calculus. Reason being, that is what the math is on those tests and it’s easy to forget how to do some of the problems, especially the geometry that you had how many years ago? Then you can decide how you want to approach recruiting vs straight admissions.</p>
<p>Are you considering dropping swimming so you have time for another EC? If you enjoy swimming, then I don’t recommend that route. You have a long way to go before your times help you get recruited to a D1 school, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still help. Probably all coaches from D3 schools would love you on the team. There is no guarantee going that route, but it can definitely help you get accepted. Good luck and do what you enjoy!</p>
<p>also forgot to mention my ECs lol.
-Water Polo: 3 years, selected for Olympic Development program and Gold standard champions at Junior Olympics of the USA, varsity level at high school.
-Debate: 4 years
-Chorus: 7 years, select choir of X state
-Cello: 8 years
-Violin:6 years
-Clarinet: 6 years
-Community service: 3 years, teach disabled kids how to swim</p>
<p>I say keep swimming, those times look pretty good for a freshman. I don’t think Stanford or Texas A & M is in the cards but you are just .54s away from a AAA 17 - 18 SCY time for the fly. A 51 or 52 will get you attention from the lower D1 schools. A 48 would be more like it for an Ivy hook, or for Penn State. Delaware wants either one AAAA time or several AAA times (see USA swim web site for same) Your free is looking good too… a smaller team will want you to be able to shine in relays this is where the points are.</p>
<p>Since you go to Phillips and are taking stuff like AP calc as a freshman (wow) I’m going to guess you’re looking at Ivies, NESCAC, Stanford, MIT, schools like that. I agree to practice a bit before the PSAT and don’t stress yourself out too much. I know also that Princeton has water polo, you might want to think about that.</p>
<p>Don’t underestimate the value the ability to compete on a sports team can have for a NESCAC school in terms of being ACCEPTED. Keep on swimmin’, just keep swimmin’…</p>
<p>Do the other stuff, too, but the sport can be the difference between the fat and the skinny letter. Water polo is a club at many excellent NESCAC schools, and that can help you get in as well.</p>
<p>Everyone, thank you for your input! I’ve talked with my coach and we’ve planned on going to two college swim camps over the summer to look at the school. My coach has some connections with the coaches as well so we will be able to have an individual conference with the coaches. Also, I’ve just purchased a SAT and PSAT prep book (princeton Review), and will be studying for the PSAT for whatever date I choose to take it (maybe in summer/fall). If this counts for ANYTHING (probably doesn’t), my ssat projection score said that on the SAT, I would score in the range of 2100-2400…
And just for preference info, I’m not looking for a school with a great swim program, but more of an academic institution where swimming will help me with admissions. I love to swim, but could care less about if the team competes well or not throughout the season. I also have no preference as to DI, DII, DIII, or NESCAC schools.</p>
<p>My Daughter was recruited for swimming at a DII and DIII level. Scholarships offered from her DII school but keep in mind that DIII schools, the coach can have influence on your admissions too even if you can’t receive scholarship. So if you really want to swim…you can do it at almost any level in college. </p>
<p>There is a recruiting website I would recommend the all of the swimmers from our USA swim team use…if you PM me, I will send the link to you. It is free or you can also pay for advanced features…but free is still good benefit. You can post early on and you will have coaches watch your progress. It will really give you a good jump for your Junior/Senior year.</p>
<p>I’d take a look at the times of current Ivy swimmers and project how you think you’ll stack up by junior year. If your times are in range and your grades and test scores are good you should have a realistic shot at being recruited.</p>
<p>An academically qualified athlete with coach’s support will find admissions to be fairly easy.</p>