It is a two step process, but as @GKmom23 said, you have the order reversed.
First the athlete must get coach support and after that they must get admitted.
If someone doesn’t get coach support but applies anyway their application is simply tossed into the general applicant pool and considered on its merits. The admissions office could absolutely decide to admit the student – just like regular applicants – without coach support. Or not, just like regular applicants.
But here’s where it gets confusing for us non-athlete families: Does lack of “support” equal rejection from the team or merely the lack of a hook with the adcom? It certainly sounds like it is more a case of the latter.
This is too broad a brush. I don’t think any of us are qualified to speak about this at every school on OP’s list, for every coach…and really swimming is the only sport that matters for OP. There are more walk-ons who never spoke to the coach in some of these sports than people think. There are also walk-ons in some sports, especially crew, cross country, and T&F, who never participated in the sport before college…including at some of the schools on OP’s list.
Lack of the “hook”. Their application is viewed through the same process as any applicant.
My daughter was told by an Ivy coach that although all his support slots were filled he would love to have her in the team if she is admitted. She would then apply as any traditional student and, if admitted, be welcomed into the team like any other athlete - supported or not.
We got this response at a few schools - daughter was not offered prereads at these schools and didn’t not get financial information prior to applying and most came into her radar very late (winter/spring) junior year and coach support was already promised to other potential student athletes. This was a different conversation then when a coach told her she was no longer in consideration as a recruit.
She did not go this route in her process but has teammates who have and it has worked out for them.
Agreed that maybe it is more like 90% at these highly rejective schools. Certainly crew is an outlier, and while I agree for OP only swimming matters, many parents are reading this thread with interest in other sports and the OP comment that the lack of coaches support is rejection from the school is flawed, as is the notion that lack of coach supported application equals lack of an offer of a spot on a team.
Similarly, it is unwise for an athlete to expect to be given an opportunity to show up and tryout with previous conversation with a coach. The vast majority of varsity athletes are recruited at some level at the vast majority of schools and in the vast majority of sports regardless of scholarship level, walk on status, likely letter offers, or supported admissions processes.
I don’t agree with that number. I don’t think it’s helpful at all to throw out a random guess, which is what that 90% number is, unless you have visibility to recruiting and fielding teams at more schools and in more sports than I think is actually the case.
Agree these statements were not accurate. I will add that it should be clear up front if the coach would consider putting a non-supported athlete on the team.
Some schools require all coaches to have open tryouts every year. Last I knew, Harvard was one of these schools. Of course that doesn’t mean any of the students who attend these make the team.
Umm, no.
TBH, if a parent new to the process is combing through the nearly 800 posts looking for inspiration, they would be well-deserved starting their own discussion.
The OP is new to this process and does not know how much they do not know. That’s why more experienced users are patiently correcting the numerous errors that the OP states as though they are fact.
In the same vein, more experienced users should avoid taking the bait by asking “Yeah, but what about” questions that only lead the discussion further afield.
@NiVo FYI UCSC is a D3 school. The only UC that is D3- perhaps worth taking a look.
@JLDDCC thanks for the reference to USCS, her times aren’t fast enough
in D24’s case, it’s obvious that if she’s not securing pre-read / strong coach support from a school on her swim list, unless that school is listed on BOTH her recruit swim list AND non-recruit college application list, the rejection from the coach is equivalent to a rejection from the coach/admission/school as she will not otherwise be applying to that school. That should be clear to all.
indeed, if she’s not recruited as a swimmer, but the school is on her non-recruit application list, she will apply to the school, and if admitted could potentially walk-on to the swim team.
for all the other D1 schools on her non-recruit application list (ie Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, UVA, Dartmouth, Columbia/Barnard, etc) she’ll apply as any normal applicant, and will not be part of the swim team if admitted.
for clarification, D24 is full pay and not scholarship dependent, though she would love to receive a merit / home scholarship.
Grinnell has been added to her swim recruit college list, and her subsequent May meets will broadly conclude her recruiting journey, with the final conclusion with 3 additional meets in July/August.
Fantastic addition!
But I wonder how much overlap there is between the kids who got halfway through the recruitment process and the kids we see on CC the time? You know the ones I’m curious about, they always list some varsity sport as an EC, but when you ask them whether they’re “recruitable”, the answer is “No.” At that point, it’s not much different than saying, “I contributed to the yearbook.”, no?
Maybe I am naive but I can’t imagine that “I contributed to the year book” is the quite the same as varsity athlete + club athlete, sometimes at high levels + team captain, sometimes with school awards - even if not recruitable at school of choice.
This endless thread has taken yet another turn, but I can add something here. 
This specific question came up in a panel of five AO’s from very selective universities (two Ivies, one NESCAC, one Claremont, you get the idea) held at my NARP daughter’s private very competitive HS - a parent told the story of having a daughter who’d participated in her sport almost exclusively during HS, only to find that she wasn’t being recruited by the level of school she hoped to attend.
The AO’s were unanimous on this front - that they see this all the time, and they understand that commitment to a highly competitive sports team in HS is meaningfully different than most other activities (just due to the expectations of the HS sports industrial complex). It’s all tea leaves but they made it very clear that depth in a sport over time was a significant asset to an application, even if it meant a lack of breadth. Anecdotally, we saw several examples of that play out in my daughter’s class, where non-recruited athletes (with essentially no other activities) had significant success in comparison to non-athletes in the same class.
That was helpful because until now, even though I don’t do a lot of Chance Me threads (I’d obviously be terrible at it), the “I’m not recruitable” answer has always been a conversation stopper. Now I know to dig deeper.
IMO, what movingtothebeach reported is what I have also heard (and also seen in practice), and I attribute this to the long list of desirable characteristics and skills that dedicated athletes often have (some of which I listed in a post above). I can’t say that all highly rejective schools value athletics as an EC more than any others, but I think many do…there is some art to how ECs are portrayed in the application/essays/activities too.
Thank you for chiming in. That was always what I (chose to?) believed.
Come to think of it, now that you added this concrete feedback, I remember a talk given by Princeton’s Dean of Admissions at our school a couple of years ago.
IIRC she was explaining holistic admissions and how they consider ECs, the importance of context and how commitment vs breadth was important. She specifically used the example of a swimmer, acknowledging the demands of the sport.
Nathan Chen didn’t do a recruitable sport but I’m sure the AOs recognized that achievement. Yes, a high level of commitment to a sport – or music or anything else – is valued. But it doesn’t get you a coach in your corner.
My kid’s classmate played a varsity sport all 4 years of HS. The kid made sure to do extremely well academically and to diversify with significant involvement in many extra-curricular activities.
The kid was named a Regeneron STS Scholar for research performed in HS and is now attending a top 5 school. Going on a limb, I think the AOs were much more impressed with the Regeneron award than the kid’s athletic performance and commitment to the sport.
updated list/self chancing
Swim Recruit List (4-11)
Non-Recruit List (UCs + 9)
Varsity sport is not the same as a high level (even if you are not Nathan Chen) athlete. Of course, I have no idea what his involvement outside of school was, but I don’t believe that is what we are talking about here.