After navigating the D3 athletic recruiting process with my D23 (in a different sport) this past year, and having received invaluable advice on CC threads, i just want to put a note up on this thread as a cautionary tale of what not to do.
I have followed this thread sporadically over months, and recently re-read the first 200 or so posts. What I see there is the OP consistently misinterpreting advice and information, and mischaracterizing procedures and drawing overly general and wayward conclusions (note: this is critique of their ideas, not them as a person). I am amazed at the patience that various posters have shown with the OP in attempts to correct the record and–if not to get through to the OP–at least not let false statements stand for future parents/athletes who might peruse these.
The same pattern has continued recently. Two things that struck me recently:
- the idea of only adding potential schools to the list in late April of junior year (“waiting for couple drops before adding”) is backwards. Back in December 2022 in the early days of the thread, the OP mentioned targeting 20-25 colleges. Multiple posters also encouraged them to cast a wide net. The time to do that was then. Rather then seemingly months and hundreds of posts spent trying to nail down theoretical probabilities and percentages of Likely Letters at places where that was never going to happen (times didn’t/don’t meet Ivy/D1 recruiting standards and apparently don’t meet top D3 swim program recruiting standard either), the OP/athlete needed to have conversations with a range coaches to have a realistic assessment of the athlete’s “market value”. That would have quickly eliminated a lot of dead-end avenues, which needed to be done ASAP given the late start in the process anyway. As things stand now, with only maybe two commitments to academic pre-reads so far (if i am reading things correctly), the idea of waiting to hear back from other programs that have been noncommittal at best before reaching out to other schools seems ludicrous. The best time to to this was months ago, but waiting further really risks other trains leaving the station and doors closing, whatever metaphor one prefers.
One should cast a wide net early and then organically narrow it later, not cast a narrow net and incrementally widen. Whether the OP gets this or not doesn’t matter to me much (though I wish their daughter well in the process), but maybe future parents will see this.
- From the very start of the thread, swimming seemed to be talked about primarily as a way to gain more certain odds of admission to highly-rejective schools. This doesn’t seem to accord with the strategy of having some less-selective schools in the “swim recruit” category, but then schools with even lower admission rates in the “non-swim recruit” category). The usual strategy would be to realize that without the hook of being a recruited athlete–i.e. without a hook for a chosen ED school–actual admissions odds are much lower than published data, and reach schools would be even reachier.
This backwards strategy is compounded by the types of schools on the two lists. The first is primarily LACs while the second is the very very pointy end of LACs combined with incredibly medium-sized private universities that don’t seem to have much in common other than very low acceptance rates and high rankings. This indicates that the student doesn’t really know what kind of school and atmosphere she’s actually interested in (and probably also that the list was compiled primarily by rankings). If a D3 LAC is appealing to attend if there is swimming involved, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be if not recruited. And if it isn’t in that case, it doesn’t pass the “broken leg” test in the first place.
Finally, there seem to be some fundamental contradiction in what is an acceptable outcome. I have seen different characterizations of the student’s desire and need to swim competitively at the college level. And I have seen frequent references to the fallback position of a Canadian university or two. If that was actually an acceptable outcome, I don’t think this thread would have reached 800 (!) posts. Focusing on a “win or go home” U.S. college strategy that contains all reaches --assuming coach support isn’t offered anywhere–is highly risky.
As others have mentioned, if the standard of “academically-selective” schools that are “worth” $400K to attend includes some that the OP has listed, there is no reason not have have cast a much wider net earlier. If Franklin and Marshall is on there for instance and meets the criteria in terms of adequate US News rank order and median test scores of students, LACs are preferred, and geographic considerations are minimal (as seems the case from the variety of places on the list), where are the other NESCACs such as CoCo, Trinity, Hamilton, Bates (those all also have the advantage of being in the bottom half of the NESCAC women’s swim championship standings this year–I think the ones in the top half have already negatively responded?). If Pomona and Claremont McK are on the list, what about Pitzer (combined sports teams with Pomona) or Scripps (combined team with Claremont and Harvey Mudd, and adjacent to very integrated with all the Claremonts)? What about Occidental? If Carleton’s OK, what about Macalester? For a selection of others in the same ranking neighborhood and test scores of F&M, what about Dickinson, Gettysburg, Oberlin, Denison, Skidmore, Whitman, Bard, Muhlenberg, Wooster, Willamette, and others? Many/most of these have strong environmental science/studies offerings,bnand outcomes in the field and quality of instruction are unlikely to vary in significant ways. If a student prefers an LAC atmosphere and the educational advantages they offer, these should be prioritized over more "prestigious " large state R1 universities (UCs) and private medium-size universities.
For posters who have patiently stuck with this thread and offered useful advice and information: thank you!
