Okay, REA.
I think the OP was always very clear that the D wanted a top academic school, and HOPED to swim and use swimming as a hook for admission. I think the OP was very receptive to this group pointing out some flaws in his original plan (EDing to several schools, getting likely letters before pre-reads, just info on the timing of recruiting) and took our group knowledge into consideration. He also accepted early that his daughter wasn’t going to swim at Stanford or Cal or many other big D1 schools.
I don’t think he had a lack of transparency. I’ve enjoyed following along. My daughter had a kind of reverse recruiting experience, with some top academic D3s recruiting her but she had no interest in that type of school and went for a D2 tech school so she could play all the time. She made a different choice than OP’s daughter as playing her sport was as important as the academics (and for me financial considerations were there too), but I think both are legit ways to pick a college.
5 Likes
My point is that Stanford is not the school they are targeting here since applying ED was specifically mentioned. Of course, this is just another instance of the OP being intentionally vague, but I digress.
For the record, I’m guessing Brown? Which is an equally difficult admit.
4 Likes
I agree with @shawk, why not go for the big time. I think the OP & D understand it is a long shot but if it is at the top of their list, why not? You never know, and the OP is an alumni of Stamford.
That would be my advice vs. a lower tier school, even with swimming.
3 Likes
I agree with you, but it seems others are bothered and perhaps feel the OP wasn’t being honest. I don’t feel this way, and I interpret their family’s plan to be exactly as they meant it to be. The wealth of knowledge in the group is vast, and I do wish OP’s daughter the best possible outcome.
4 Likes
I agree though in my experience (possibly region and sport specific) the downward progression has a pretty solid academic floor after which the sport goes goodbye if they were leveraging athletics for recruitment/admissions rather than going “sport first” in their process.
I’ve seen multiple kids in my D’s sport choose NESCAC/UAA over Patriot League if Ivy was their target and didn’t work out because of the better balance between academics and reasonably similar athletics. In her immediate circle I know of a kid who chose UAA over Ivy and another who chose Ivy over Big10 but I haven’t seen many truly high academic athletes go very far down the academic ladder in pursuit of recruitment. I believe that this is what happened here with the caveat that in the case of the OPs daughter the ‘true floor’ was quite a bit below some of their options.
In this case I think the OPs daughter had a couple of options which didn’t carry enough ‘prestige’ in their view but in reality are outstanding schools. Top SLACs just aren’t well known outside of the US and in many circles within the US (given the state of admissions to ‘elite’ schools today I am also sure that many of those who do know of their quality are perfectly fine keeping it that way). I suspect that the OPs daughter will end up at McGill and I hope she has a great experience to go with the great education that she will receive.
6 Likes
Agree with this progression. It is also dependent on the importance of sport relative to academics. A sport first kid will cast a wider net, especially if making an immediate impact/starting as a freshmen is important. Even high academic kids may drop the recruit route with offers in hand if they feel that their application will be highly competitive without coach support, especially if they secured a great backup (like OP) already.
2 Likes
Not sure why you find this personally offensive. Op knows far more than we do about his daughter’s overall resume and where students from his child’s high school wind up. He believes she is highly likely to be admitted to Canadian universities that she would be happy to attend as a fallback. Her best chance of attending this dream school is likely via an ED application, so why not as long as there are regular decision schools she is likely to be admitted and happy to attend.
4 Likes
I would say I see far too many families in our area get sucked into the athletic recruit at all costs and have their kids wind up at a school a level or several levels lower, in terms of academic rigor than they could have gone without sports. Of course, if the student winds up at a d1 or d2 school, finances could be a factor. These are mostly sports for which there is no lucrative after college path. In any case, that isn’t the path op’s student chose. I will say that slacs aren’t for everyone and that might be what his dd discovered after visiting.
6 Likes
My daughter could have gone to those (CC considers) higher WITH sports and with being the highest recruit, but she didn’t like those schools for the academics, the team, the location --so why go (Smith, Kenyon, Rhodes). There is a way to balance athletics and sport (and finances) to find a good fit x3. We suggested some other schools to OP and he wasn’t interested in a tech school or a school in the south (maybe Duke would be an exception) even if swimming was likely. That’s okay.
OP divided the categories differently, and academics is first by a long shot (including ranking and prestige) and then swimming is trailing; finances not a concern.
1 Like
Why is it a Hail Mary for her any more than anyone else? She is a good student. Just because she considered the athletic path it doesn’t been that she has to take it, particularly if that path didn’t lead where she hoped. Its fine to want to take their shot (like almost every single kid who applies to those schools)
7 Likes
Also. Why has everyone decided she won’t get in? Every kid who comes here is advised to “sure, apply or you will never know, just make sure you have safeties you like and can afford.” She has those things. Why is the advice different in this case?
8 Likes
I also seem to remember that OP’s daughter was injured right before/during her time swimming in the US over the summer. That could have led to her not seeing the recruiting efforts pay off the ways she might have hoped (if she was hoping for much better swims while over here to show to schools).
Ultimately, every student has to figure out what is most important to them and that often changes and rarely matches other student/family. My fingers are crossed that OP’s daughter gets the acceptances she is looking for - as I hope for every student during admissions season.
1 Like
Same here. Both of my kids played high level travel ball and top HS programs in a big sport obsessed state. Tragedy was it seemed a lot of parents 1) had no clue until fairly late that the sports were equivalency sports (so no big athletic scholarship), 2) were unrealistic as to where the sport could take the kid post college and let their kids’ academics slide in HS, 3) reliving their HS sports careers through their kids. Many kids settled for juco’s or other schools that were poor academic fits and/or were unprepared for college and never graduated.
1 Like
There is no harm in trying if she has ruled out all other ED alternatives. We are speculating of course but if I recall correctly somewhere in this roughly 2300 post thread the OP mentioned that there were multiple kids from her school ranked higher, with better stats etc. applying to her dream school from her current high school. The OP themselves didn’t feel like his D had a real shot.
The OPs daughter has indicated that McGill is fine so she has the ‘safety’ but given that the safety is orthogonal in characteristics to her entire list and that this thread has had many twists, turns, and contradictions a level of skepticism is not surprising. One thing that I am sure of is that all of us wish the OPs daughter a wonderful college experience.
1 Like
I see all of this every season. However, I see far less of it among the academic high achievers and more of it from the academically solid but not exceptional. The academic high achievers generally have a floor and if they are not recruitable above the floor then academics takes precedence. I believe that was the path taken by the OPs daughter and that is the right choice for them.
4 Likes
D24 is still very much thinking about securing a path to college swimming, either as recruit/walk-on/club. She’s 99% confident in securing admission to Toronto/McGill.
Whilst her list of US colleges only contains reach schools, her assessment of her chances from a purely probabilistic standpoint is simple and straight forward
P[getting accepted]= P[acceptance by at least 1 Canadian university]+P[acceptance by at least 1 US university] = 99% + 60%
P[swimming]=P[recruit/walk-on] + P[club swimming]= 10% + 99%
She’s confortable with those “Chance Me” stats. whether she gets to choose will depend on AOs assessments
In reality, it’s never simple and straightforward like that.
I’m assuming that’s the estimated ED1 admissions chances + the estimated chances of making the swim club team of a particular school.
Based on the schools mentioned earlier as possibilities, I doubt an unhooked/non-athletic recruit international applicant likely going TO has that high of a probability of admission in the ED1 round.
4 Likes
In that respect, your D is not different than a thousand other students who post Chance Me threads on this website. My only objection is the whole Dance of the Seven Veils aspect of the thread which started out as a recruited athlete slightly behind the learning curve asking for help. It only slowly became evident over the space of about a thousand posts that the stakes were never as high as they first appeared. I too, wish nothing but the best possible outcome for you and your DD.
4 Likes
I’m sorry, you lost me. What does this mean exactly?
4 Likes