If you are trying to help future applicants, you still have your time line wrong. A NLI cannot be signed, or even received, in the summer.
The earliest the NLI can be signed is the second week of November. The earliest it can be issued is about 2 days before it can be signed (daughter received hers by federal express the day before) They have an expiration on them (maybe a week?). Some sports often don’t have many signings in November. Used to be only a one week window and if the athlete didn’t sign had to wait until April (football and basketball were different); now there is basically continuous signing of NLI but I don’t know all the rules since my daughter signed under the old rules.
You can’t control the timing of pre-reads. The Ivies do them July 1, but not all schools do. You have to be on their schedule and all you can do is be ready to summit all the documents the coach requests when the coach asks for them. May be June 30, may be Sept 1. There was a parent freaking out here on CC last year because they hadn’t heard about a pre-read by July 2. Well, it was a holiday weekend, not all admissions offices are fully staffed at that time of the year, so people just had to be patient.
(I see you edited your post number 205 from summer to fall, but you originally said NLI/LL by summer).
The language and terms can get confusing, that’s for sure.
The way I view it is that the coaches have a limited number of likely letter eligible slots. They determine how they use those slots, which athletes they’ll support with the slots, etc.
The coach can and does say that if they use one of these slots to support a recruit during the admission process, that will come with a likely letter if and when the admissions office acts on the application.
So yes, admissions is deciding if they will admit the recruit and they are the ones who send a likely letter after Oct 1. In some cases they might not get to it; in other cases they might ask the recruit if they want it sent. But it’s not a mystery to the coach which of their x# of slot-supported recruits will be eligible for likely letters if admitted. Every recruit who receives the formal, limited support a coach can provide would be eligible for a LL.
I think @superdomestique is referring in some of the references to “LL” to what I’m calling LL eligible slots and relevant commitments in summer, not the actual letter sent by admissions? I agree with @Mwfan1921 that it’s worth clarifying though, as it can be pretty confusing for newbies.
All that’s to say that yes, I’d be concerned if the coach suggested support but that a LL wouldn’t be part of the picture. Sure, the coach isn’t making the admissions decision or typing up the LL but I don’t think recruits are usually confused about that once they get that far.
@NiVo Probably the most helpful thing for you to focus on at this point is what sort of response your daughter is getting from her target list, and whether that suggests that she has or hasn’t targeted appropriately.
For example, if the Ivy league isn’t a good athletic fit, then all this talk of Ivy likely letter nuances is sort of a waste of your mental energy.
In addition, many of these process questions should be addressed during conversations with coaches. There will be differences in how coaches approach this but usually they’ll give a sense of recruiting timeline and process, when they make decisions, etc. If they don’t, your daughter should ask and take notes.
So, has your daughter received actual personal replies from coaches and have those led to discussions? If yes, at what sorts of schools/conferences? Are there schools from conferences she has targeted and received no responses at all from any in the conference?
so far some responses are more specific, but the majority seem pretty generic, so the plastering is progressively leading to more focus in both discussions and target schools, though she still intends to apply as a non recruit to some of the schools that aren’t responding, because she likes the strong academic fit.
it probably sounds obvious, particularly for foreign athletes, but the better conversations are often triggered by an introduction from her current coach, a referral from another coach, or from one of her former teammate swimming on the team. Certainly in the initial introduction stage.
In response to your question, she’s received answers from some Ivy/UAA/NESCAC, waiting to hear from Centennial / SCIAC … some answers seem quite generic, but her view is to keep emailing until she gets a clear “no interest” response
Its fine to try to keep schools in play through continued emails, but don’t count on these programs. The times you posted for your daughter are probably not exciting the Ivy League coaches much. Unless she shows them something entirely different (not just incremental improvements, but drops to entirely new levels) at this spring’s championship meets its unreasonable to expect the overall tone of communication change. There might still be some slots in play, but its late in the process for women’s Ivy League swimming. I dont know about the other conferences, but I am sure there us still recruiting going on at many programs.
At this point, your daughter should be ensuring that she is communicating with a number of programs where she is a solid, as opposed to marginal, recruit. Communication should be specific at this point. She should have a good idea what the coaches are looking for in the recruits they support–both athletics and academics. This should come directly from the coaches. She should also be aware of these coaches timelines. When visits, pre-reads, and offers (admission support or roster spot) come, and how long athletes have to accept an offer, if it comes. If coaches aren’t discussing these things with your daughter, they probably aren’t really interested.
Near the end of the recruiting process, there comes a point where she will have to narrow her interest down to just a handful of schools (3 to maybe 5?). For DI athletes, official visits force this issue, but the funnel will happen regardless of the level. One of these can be a reach, but there needs to be 3 or so birds-in-hand in the top finalists. Its heartbreaking to hear the stories of student athletes who used up their visits and wound up with no offers.
of course in swimming, times remain the main driver of coaches excitement and proactive responses.
indeed, including more schools helps, but I respect D seeking a school with strong academics. Ideally, she’ll find a school with strong academics and competitive swimming.
For most foreign applicants, school visits do not happen before summer when most teams will have completed most of their recruiting.
D24 has a good idea of at least 1-2 school where her academics will get her in because it is the only parameter they look at, and she will be able to walk on to a very competitive swim team. That indeed impacts her target list.
All swimming aside, it is just as important to be realistic about the likelihood of admissions as a regular applicant. I don’t say this because I don’t think your daughter is a strong applicant, but because these days that is simply not enough and anyone who has gone through the admissions cycle in the last couple of years will tell you it is 100% unpredictable.
If applying as a non-recruit is a possibility, I’d recomendo you read Selinho’s “who gets in why?.” I found it very eye opening.
ETA: can you share which schools you are thinking of? I have heard the Canadian schools focus mostly on stats, but I don’t know any US schools that do that.
I would also be interested in knowing the schools.
There are schools in the US that admit based solely on stats (not holistic), these include Iowa, Iowa State, and Cal States. Bigger picture many forget that most US colleges accept most applicants, so there’s that too.
Not sure what this means? If the family is donating $30M to a highly rejective school, I agree it would be 95% predictable. If not, the predictability is much lower/less certain than 95% predictability.
that’s exactly what it means. I know of 10+ families having opted for a version of that choice, and the results are very reliable, particularly for legacies. Otherwise, the probability of getting 4 siblings into Harvard would have a statistical chance of 1 in 800,000…
my comment states a simple fact: there are many very reliable routes to reach elite academic schools.
Sport recruiting works for exceptional athletes (John McEnroe, Tiger Woods, Katy Ledecky, or Eileen Gu), Grades-only works for others (mostly outside the US), Donations works for the few, and many other kids decide to take on the challenge of applying to US universities where it is much more opaque and requires an element of chance.
D24 believe Toronto/McGill are predictable and have strong and dedicated swim teams, and serve as reliable alternatives if she can’t get recruited by a US D3/Ivy school with strong academics
D24 actually cares immensely about swimming, and one can’t buy a spot on a team, so she’s persevering in her attempts to attract the attention of coaches in order to pursue the sport she loves. Respect.
My bad! Yes, I knew that My brain was stuck in the bubble discussed here.
@NiVo great that she likes those schools. I am curious - do you know if there is a strong preference for Canadian students or is it solely stats based? Where I come from its not even stat’s, it’s a single test. Still, I recommend the book. It’s an easy, yet fascinating read. It really changed my understanding of the process and made me realize how little is under our control.
But what’s the point of discussing $30 million donations as it applies to no one on this thread or on CC, with the possible exception of the OP (since they brought it up as a possibility). (And no, “many” people don’t go this route).
OP, to bring this back to swimming – if you are contemplating such a donation, just let the development office know that a walk on spot on the swim team would make all the difference, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that your daughter is on the team her freshman year.
@TonyGrace: Canadian schools, just like UCs, UK, or Swiss universities provide favorable tuition to local residents, and favor admission of local graduates, but the admission requirements for foreigners remain clear and consistently based on grades.
@cinnamon1212: a $30m legacy donation to Stanford will go a long way towards admission, but has zero chance of securing a walk-on spot onto the swim squad.
incidentally, there is a family in this thread which has made a donation of this nature (the name of whom I certainly will not disclose, besides the fact that it’s certainly not me), so you should refrain from making discriminatory statements, because donations can be both thoughtful and generous.
Coming back to swimming, it remains a competitive process that’s full of unknowns and surprises, and I hope most of you will navigate it successfully.
Large donations can absolutely be thoughtful and altruistic, but you raised the topic in the context of making a donation in order to get a kid admitted.
You may be correct about Stanford, I don’t know, but just be strategic about it. Georgetown, for example, which has a (relatively) small endowment, might jump at the chance. A walk on spot is no skin off anyone’s teeth – in other words, no real harm is done (legally, or even with credibility).
My brain was stuck in the bubble discussed here.