UCSB is very fast and out of range for this swimmer with her current times. Santa Cruz is possibly in the ballpark.
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And Tufts specifically told her they wouldn’t take her as a walk-on.
Wesleyan might. And they could very well be one of the programs that made an offer as they are currently one of the slowest programs in NESCAC.
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just saying my daughter (not an athlete) changed her mind all over the place last year! so i get it. Now that swimming at top colleges is probably out, the elite college set trumps swimming for a lower ranked college. again, my teen was back and forth all the time about her choices.
had a high school swimmer (and soccer player, tuba player, dance team member, jazz band member and cross country runner.) Swimming was by far the hardest most grueling sport of them all. i get wanting to take a break if its not a means for a top school.
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I think we agree here.
Obviously the schools you cropped are not only swim reaches but practical impossibilities (although, Cornell and Tufts aren’t exceptionally fast).
To their credit, prior to the “passion for swim” talk, OP has always stated his kid would entertain not swimming in place of prestige – although it would be viewed as a failure of sorts.
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There incoming class is not bad and they’ve been able to pick up some good swimmers so far for 24.
Looking at the list my guess is that she hit a conundrum.
It’s clear she didn’t like SLACs. That’s fair - kids either love them or hate them. Unfortunately those were the schools she was recruitable at (please do not tell me there is a school team for everyone blah blah blah… They never said they wanted to go to “any” school).
Honestly, this final list makes much more sense. I couldn’t wrap my head around their like of McGill and also wanting to go Bowdoin.
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I don’t understand what that means. At this point in time, is it still possible to have other recruiting opportunities that haven’t yet revealed themselves?
Do Ivy League and NESCAC swim programs typically have spots available 1 month before the ED application deadline?
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Most are currently doing OVs and haven’t necessarily made offers, but they have narrowed down to their short list. There is a lot of overlap so someone could technically end up with a whole, but unlikely.
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I don’t know anything about swimming, but it seems really late to me. If the recruit doesn’t get an offer that is considered acceptable, there isn’t a lot time to switch gears and apply as a regular applicant.
I know my kid would have had trouble focusing on plan B while the balls were still up in the air.
I think most of it happens in the summer. NESCACs got delayed with 8/1 pre-read restrictions.
There are a couple of things that I believe factor in with swim recruiting (which was a summer before senior year sport until 2019). One is that swimmers (boys in particular) can develop a lot during this time. The other is that swimmers train to drop time at very specific times of the year. Once SC is over (March), a high level swimmer probably won’t drop time until end of July. Sometimes coaches want to wait and see what a swimmer they are following can do.
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Schools like Bowdoin, Amherst, and Middlebury and others are having OV’s in September to early October. So my guess is those schools won’t have a finalized roster until pretty close to ED time. However, super tippy top kids in the class of 2025 are making visits at the same time to UVA, Florida, Texas and Stanford.
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Some OVs scheduled even a little later into October.
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D24 followed up with the coach who told her admission turned her down, and he confirmed that he would love to have her on the team and give her a tip if her year end grades passed the requirements set by admissions. We’re quite surprised that an IB expected score of 44/45 doesn’t pass their pre-read, but that only become relevant in case she hasn’t gotten accepted to where she wants by RD deadline and passes that’s schools admission requirements. We’re all in agreement that the odds of that playing out are extremely low, so she will focus on the rest of her journey.
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When do you get year end grades? Wouldn’t that be after application deadlines?
Wouldn’t you have to apply before you would get RD decisions? I didn’t think any of the schools your daughter was considering had rolling admissions or late application deadlines…
Wasn’t this already decided some time ago?
Also: word of caution – I would take not passing a preread as a signal that you are overshooting academically.
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she would get her calendar year end grades before the RD deadline, but we agree that scenario is wishful thinking at best, it’s unlikely a coach would have recruiting spots left that he could support in the RD round, and AOs will have better things to do than verify if a swimmer’s updated grades pass pre-read by Christmas or senior year. This was an update, we’re all in agreement that excluding any dramatic accident, that ship has sailed.
So, to clarify, the coach was talking about first semester grades. Year-end grades typically mean after the school year has concluded (May or June) which is where some confusion may lie.
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correct, first semester. D24 is moving on to focus on her applications.
Does this mean that she is forgoing the offers to swim that she has?
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I went through this with my S23 last year and it was so stressful with many ups and downs. I felt like we were on an “emotional yoyo” all year. Our son had aimed too high - he didn’t like his option for the Fall of 2023. So he ended up taking a gap year and passed the pre-read for a top NESCAC for the Fall of 2024. I share this story because I hope that your daughter is not feeling deflated. Swimming is SO HARD & lonely at times unlike any other sport. Best of luck with her applications. With her strong profile, she will get into a great academic school and you never know - she could end up walking on.
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