By urban D24 meant avoiding a very compressed city campuses like NYU.
For the schools engaged in dialogue, its very apparent that D24 would complement a gap where all or the majority of their top 3 swimmers in particular events are Junior/Seniors, and she would be top 3 in their 2024 roster, and the coach already knows what events are enhanced by the freshman class of 2023.
Since it is March of your daughter’s junior year I would chance you as likely to receive a pre read request at the two schools your daughter is in contact with and that is it. Often times no response, is the response amd it is unlikely that you would go from no response to offers of pre read with the 8 schools you may cold call. Additionally remember a pre read is not the same as coach support, so you may get an offer for a pre read but still told you are applying with soft support. This late in the recruiting game who wants you and who is truly interested in you becomes much clearer - so if you are still unclear about where your daughter falls in a coaches list, she is likely not on the list at all. Coaches actions (or lack of action) tell you a lot more then just comparing times.
chancing is a cc fad; time, coaches, and admissions are reality…
D24 is comfortable with a swim/study spot at a great university, if lucky she’ll get to choose from others, if not she’ll most likely get admitted to schools with and without walk-on, not the end of the world
It’s not that it’s a CC fad, people are chancing your daughter because you asked them to, twice, upthread.
Seriously!
This has been an exhausting exercise.
sharing is caring
exactly! she has asked here and in other threads to chance her daughter. everyone has tried to be polite and helpful but this thread is nearly as exhausting as the actual recruiting process
I’m not going to chance - all I’ll say is schools are EXTREMELY variable on their recruiting when using your kid’s times vs the current roster. My son received extreme interest from teams he wasn’t an obvious impact swimmer from - but coach knew where they needed to develop and liked his progression. Other teams where he was an obvious immediate impact swimmer on multiple relays he received crickets. I’ll never know their process or if they’re just not great at the recruiting game (they were frankly teams very weak in their conference).
Numbers matter, but there is so, so much more than that, it’s a complicated, confusing, exhausting process. I’m very happy to never have to go through it again.
As an international applicant, it is possible the OP does not enjoy english as a primary language which may be why his posts seem so strange.
However based on his posts and the lack of interest his swimmer seems to be experiencing at this late date, if I were to chance his opportunities, it will probably not be in the US. The Canadian school he mentioned sounds the most promising.
I think one thing that really changes for the OP and his daughter is that US swimmers have a coaching advantage. College coaches know each other, know the club swimmers in their regions, know current swimmers who know the hs swimmers. Those club coaches have years of experience getting their swimmers noticed, have the experience to have them swim a certain relay at a certain meet to get noticed, may even have an in with the high school counselors on which courses to take to improve academic appeal. We have a lot of coaches in our area who have trained swimmers for the Olympics, or appear to be a ‘feeder program’ for a certain college. They know if a boy should take a PG year or if a girl has a spec more chance of physically growing.
It’s hard when you are competing against that.
Do your best. If we all say you have no chance at an Ivy, would it really change your approach? I don’t think so, and I don’t think it should. You’ve done a lot of research, now you just have to let it play out. You know she/you don’t want to consider certain schools that you feel aren’t academic fits for her, and that’s fine. You’ve said she’d rather go to a top academic school even if she might not be able to swim on the varsity team. That’s fine too. Make two lists, academic fits and athletic fits and apply to the schools that are on both lists.
your observation is very true, even though D24 trained with current/past College and/or Olympic swimmers, and with coaches who coached these swimmers, the coaches are much less integrated into the US system, and being on the ground in the US is a substantial advantage.
As observed, it won’t change what she wants to do, and she’s giving herself a late chance to see if one of the teams/coaches are very interested. There are still a few, but she’ll certainly have a much clearer idea after the D3 championships this weekend.
Her lists have been established early on, with some minor modifications. If she’s not recruited, several D1/Ivy schools will show up on her application map.
good news, coming back from D3 championships, coaches seem particularly attentive to their emails, and several suggested zoom calls. Interestingly, one of the reach outs was from a coach at a program D24 had classified as “too fast to be recruited”. This very much validates @superdomestique’s comment “the college athletic recruiting process is arcane and cannot be distilled to a single formula”.
D24’s search goes on, she accepts she’s late, yet remains hopeful she still has a small chance to find a spot.
If your daughter’s coach is well known (coached Olympians, other college swimmers), you should have him/her call the college coaches directly to support your case.
For my older son (different sport), he could not get an email responce from the college coach at his first choice school (the one who we learned did not read emails due to language limitations). When we mentioned this to our club coach, he called the college coach directly and laid the groundwork for a meeting at our sports end-of-season (July) national championship. While our son was relatively unheralded at the time, his results at this championship were noteworthly (two podium finishes) and his first meeting with this college coach was in July before senior year. This meeting led to recruitment with all the trimmings (LL/EA/etc).
It is worth noting our club coach regularly had Olympic and National champions (from multiple countries) in his orbit. The feedback he gave the college coach was not only was our son able to compete at a D1 level, more importantly he was enjoyable to have around in a sport where Prima Donas were in ample supply. As college coaches have to live with their recruits for four years, team chemistry/camraderie can be as important as results.
@superdomestique thanks for the color & suggestion. D24’s coach did recently take it upon himself to write to several coaches. in particular, he could describe both positive attitude/drive, and be very specific about momentum/future development potential which swim times cannot reflect.
HS coach received very quick response to his emails, which also additional color and clarity on what some recruiting coaches are seeking.
coach conversations are very instructive guidance not only about the process of recruiting and their respective interest, but also the type of coach and educator he/she is, which helps D24 develop strong preferences for coaches who generate positive vibes, are clear and encouraging.
D24 is wondering how many coaches will go beyond asking grades and move on to pre-reads. Do any coaches run “unofficial” pre-reads by communicating orally with their AOs before July? If so, how early do they start doing that, or is it already done for many swimmers?
I think the unofficial pre-read is done by the coach when they ask about grades, test scores, etc. Some went as far as asking for planned classes for Sr year. They have a pretty good idea on who will pass muster with admissions and I doubt they waste their time on anyone who they know won’t.
several coaches confirmed “looks like she would be fully eligible with her grades”, the closest to satisfying the pre-reads for most schools. Upcoming SAT results should confirm that.
at this juncture, the question becomes how many candidates per program receive an actual pre-read, and how many spots/tips are given subsequently amongst those who passed the pre-read. Of course, these numbers are specific to each program, and only the coaches can reach respect their situation.
Is 2-4 slot + 1-3 tips / program about the right zip code?
Very dependent by program. Some assumed you were aware of the academic rigor at the school and just asked about grades, test scores and courses in passing during phone calls/zoom calls. Other asked directly for gpa, test scores and courses via early emails. Best course of action is to get on the phone with the coaches and ask them directly what is next in the recruiting process for me at your school. If a school is a top choice you can communicate that as well. We found the vast majority of coaches very honest and forth coming about the process and where my daughter fell on their depth chart
Fair enough. Our experience was the latter - most coaches requested a transcript at the end of the first phone call.
initial emails responses often pointed directly to filling a declaration of interest webform, which includes GPA/SAT/ACT/High School Name etc, so one assumes their software raises a red flag when the academic requirements aren’t met. For D24, it’s more a question of whether she actually gets the pre read from the coach, rather than whether she passes it.