I thought a pre-read was to ensure that an athlete generally fits the academic requirements of an institution, and that it is generally fairly generous so that an athlete scoring within the lower 25% percentile of the general pool of accepted students would pass the pre-read. So looking at the Harvard admits, a 3.90 GPA (unweighted/infiltered) and a 1460 SAT would pass the pre-read for an athlete they want to recruit?
Of course, one can understand that if the coach has two recruits that are exactly the same, the institution would opt for the one with higher grades/SAT just to further polish it’s own stats
Also understand that the requirements would be different for a tip, because the athlete basically couldn’t be an ED recruit, but the coach is essentially telling the AO he wouldn’t mind having this athlete in the team without using his allocated quota for recruits.
I am confused with terminology: are the following definitions correct:
Full support ED recruit: athlete who passed the pre-read, has the full support of the coach for a slot (with LL where issued), and is essentially guaranteed admission
tip support ED recruit: athlete who doesn’t have full support and therefore needs to pass a pre-read with higher grades/SAT, and whom the coach would like to have on the team without using his “recruit slot” quota
therefore, the level of certainty of being recruited is much higher for the Full Support ED recruit (100% certainty), than for the Tip Support ED recruit.
in that case:
What is the typical probability of Admission (rough range) for a Tip Support ED Recruit?
Who would accept to commit to apply as a Tip Support ED Recruit, rather than seeking a Full Support ED Recruit offer from another coach/school?
This has been addressed up thread if I remember correctly. If not, plenty of conversations about this on the forum.
My take is - a tip is a FULL SUPPORT athlete for whom no compromise was made in terms of admissions standard. Due to coach support, admissions picks that applicant over another one equally qualified (there is an abundance of great candidates after all).
I have absolutely no idea how everything gets sorted out. I don’t think anyone does. For all we know the coach submits athletes A-F and admissions says you can have A,C,D,F and the coach goes with that. There is probably some negotiating and compromising between the parties. (So there is no confusion… I am speculating)
MIT is clear: they submit a list of “like to haves” (I bet this list is ranked) and admissions makes the choice.
Not all NESCACs use the same terminology, including tips. I don’t know that the Ivies use that term at all. At some of the NESCACs, tips are full support.
Consistency in terminology is lacking not only within NESCAC but across other D3 conferences and Ivies in D1. It is imperative that the student ask the coach questions so they understand what the coach is offering. The important delineation IMO is full support, soft support, or no support. It doesn’t matter if full support is called a slot or a tip or athletic factor or coded athlete or whatever. What matters is that the offer is for full coach support. The student can also ask historically what proportion of recruits with the same level of support have been accepted.
ETA:
I would NEVER call full support 100% certainty. The wait until decision notification day for athletes is a long one, at least at schools without LLs, like the NESCACs and most D3s.
@Nivo you have identified schools your D is willing to attend, are in contact with the coaches, I imagine your daughter is working hard at school and in the pool… that is pretty much all you can do.
From here on all you can do is let the process run its course, see where it goes. Then you can cross the other bridges when you get there. No two bridges will be exactly the same, and there is nothing we can say that will change that.
You can only do the things in your control, beyond that you have to just see where and how this journey develops.
A coach might submit 10 candidates for pre-reads. The AO can approve them all, that they are all qualified. Doesn’t mean the coach is going to get 10 slots or tips. The coach might have to decide at that point who is getting the full supports, the tips, etc. Just because one applicant has higher stats than another doesn’t mean that is who the coach picks to receive support.
This post shows your lack of understanding of the purpose of a preread and how it works. First Ivies and other D1s work a bit differently with prereads and have a great range for applicants but if one applicant is in the bottom 25% then it is possible there would be an expectation that others are higher. A top athlete in the lower 25% may get coach support but a strong athlete in the upper 25% may not because it is much more important to the coach to get the top athlete through despite the weaker pre read results.
For all schools, once a coach submits the pre read to admissions it is out of the coaches hands. AO return results and indicate which students are strong candidates for admissions with coach support, which are questionable or need adjustments (take a different senior course, apply TO, improve test score by certain number, ect) and students that even with support the AO can’t get through.
An athlete in the bottom 25% may only be admissible with strong coach support but may not be a strong enough athlete for the coach to burn a slot on so they may would then not pass the pre-read, another student may be a strong applicant but not a strong enough athlete to get full support so they will get a tip, or not offered support but encourage to apply with guarantee of a roster spot. A coach may only be able to get one bottom 25% applicant through so the rest of their spots must be filled with academically higher/strong applicants.
To be honest I don’t think your students stats are significantly strong enough coupled with the likelihood of not being a top recruit, to make passing a preread at all the schools you list a lock, especially if not a top recruit - but should be a strong candidate at very strong schools
“Safest “ bet is the school when student is in top 25% academically and top 1-2 of their recruiting class- often these students get through pre reads and (if available) can qualify for significant financial support. If you fall out of the top 25% or top 1-2 then your likelihood of admissions drops.
thanks for clarifying, this means besides swimming faster, D24 needs to retake her SAT to score 1500+. Another parent has confirmed that Ivy coaches target 1500+ SAT, so one can reasonably expect a similar target for LACs
I know it varies by sport, but I know in men’s soccer, for a top recruit, Stanford’s SAT cut off was 1250, and I’ve been told a 1300 is good enough for Ivies.
Are lower ranked for swimming but selective academic schools like Vassar and Colby in the mix?
I remember the quote I saw on CC that said something to the effect -for Ivies, you must be great athlete and good student but for NESCACS and other elite D3 schools, you must be good athlete and great student!
The coach request for SAT 1500 @Ivies was communicated by a 2024 D1 recruit who talked to all of them.
D24 is talking to D3 LAC coaches, and also isn’t as highly recruited, so the pre-reads are still a far ahead topic.
The difference in SAT targets could also be due to the difference between the SAT required for a fully coach supported ED slot (lower SAT accepted), and a fully coach supported ED tip (requires 1500+ SAT). again taking a guess.
I don’t think it’s helpful to guess. Just have your D ask the coaches about test scores (if she even has to, as it’s often one of the first bits of info coaches give)… they will tell her the deal on test scores, and pre-reads with AOs will tell whether to apply TO or with score. Again I would also take out the slot vs tip vernacular, as you are unlikely to ever know those details.
@nivo if it was a 2024 recruit it was before TO was a thing and academic index was less fuzzy.
It was not uncommon for an ok athlete to be told they needed a higher SAT score to make up for the athlete the coach really wanted but was not as strong academically. Ivy teams have to maintain a specified average AI.
It does vary a bit depending on the specific school, such as HYP or Williams vs a littler lower end academic Ivy or NESCAC, and the specific sport factors in as well, though I would agree with this statement.
What tonygrace said in post 582(!)about the Ivies having much more leeway in stats than NESCACs and some other elite D3s is exactly that. There are athletic recruits in the Ivies who had 3.0 GPAs with no rigor and no test scores in HS…that would never fly at Williams or Bowdoin for example.
Go do the math of what an Academic Index score of 176 is comprised of, focusing on the GPA piece…176 is/was the min required by the Ivies…although to my knowledge there are so many TO applicants right now they aren’t calculating AI across the board because they can’t (test scores are 2/3 of the AI calc).
What D2 LAC schools is your daughter considering? I don’t remember you mentioning any d2 schools. D2 options would likely require significantly less academically then the schools previously mentioned. We also found the d2 schools pre read process much less formal then d3 schools
!!