Glad to see that your daughter has broadened her list!
@YoLo2 has an important point- It helps a lot for student athletes to have an accurate assessment of their abilities when starting the process in order to not waste time contacting programs that are not a fit. This is especially the case for team sports where stats don’t matter as much.
That’s where a quality coach can be a huge asset. My D24’s club lacrosse coach sat down with her at the end of her sophomore year. She asked for my D24’s potential list of 25-30 schools. She then went school by school and eliminated many that would be a stretch athletically. This helped us refine the list and focus on those schools where my D had a more reasonable shot at playing.
Sorry, you are right that I shouldn’t have been so definitive! Very sport dependent, and also level dependent. The stronger programs will wrap up recruiting often months before the weaker programs (as athletes trickle down) as well.
FYI-Wesleyan hired new head coach today.
Thanks for the heads-up, assistant coach fowarder, and she looks forward to meeting him new coach by zoom.
ugh - the coaching merry go round…it was a hot mess for my kid the spring/summer between junior and senior year and ultimately resulted in her moving on from four d1 schools and three d3 schools and her losing out on an offer from 2 d1 schools. It did help her secure an offer at a school that had previously written her off, but man it is really hard and discouraging to have to start over and reestablish communication. Best of luck you your daughter and hopefully the new coach doesn’t come in with recruits and transfers following him.
I agree, but far better to happen in spring/summer than fall…when some new coaches clean house and break some/all the verbal commits to bring in their own recruits.
From our little happy school, we have many Ivies, T20, and CS direct entries this year, many from your list of schools. This is peanuts compared to some schools which have 50+ Ivies, 80+ T20, etc every year. I get this weird sense from general comments on CC that international folks believe that US parents and students do not know what is going on in their own backyards. I would seriously recommend that you remove this mindset and see kids here as peer competitors with huge advantages of being in country.
Some sports at the 5Cs have certain of slots/tips/pre-reads/winks allocated to each college. I believe wlax has 3-5 for Claremont, 1-2 Mudd, 1-2 to Scripps. Ymmv, but this give folks wiggle room and discussion with the coach who is the coach at all three colleges. Do your research here on CC.
Good luck.
For '24s who do not get in the first wave for selective D1/D3,
do not give up hope. The musical chairs list changes and changes and changes. We personally know from our area 4 girls who got offers really late in the game, like September-October, in some highly rejective D3 schools. Keep those lines of communication open and keep at it. Good luck.
Musical chairs don’t help, but the assistant coach was very upfront with D24 in both emails and zoom call about the arrival of a new head coach at Wesleyan
The new head coach’s previous team at Kean University wasn’t faster than Wesleyan and is academically in a completely different league, so one could hope he won’t bring too many recruits from his previous posting, as opposed to having another NESCAC coach coming in.
Just be ready for assistant coaches to also be replaced when a new head coach arrives - very often they clean house. Best of luck
If I’m keeping score accurately: Oberlin and Trinity College have been added to the list. No indication of how/why these were added rather any number of other D3 LACs in roughly the same general US News ranking position and “academic selectivity”. Are these two additions on the radar at all for an international family’s perception of adequate prestige? Also, those two and other suggestions were seemingly dismissed by the OP recently as not meeting that bar.
Trinity and Oberlin would usually be considered by most observers to appeal to different students in terms of campus vibe, politics, popular majors, setting (urban vs rural), and geographic location. Other than ranking position, they seem an odd pair to add.
Just another example: Skidmore is tied at #39 with F&M and Oberlin and Trinity (and also Lafayette and Denison–which has a VERY strong swim program, so cross them out) in US News LAC rankings and it is more “selective” than either based on admissions rates (though less selective based on test scores). Oxy is ranked slightly ahead at #37. Why no consideration of these? What about Holy Cross and Macalester (ranked higher)? What about previously mentioned, slightly lower ranked places like Union, Whitman, Dickinson, Connecticut College, Bard, and Gettysburg (#25 in CSCAA Division III Poll–probably too fast anyway)? These are all in the same general tier of prestige, name recognition. selectivity, academic strength, etc. There may be compelling geographic and “fit”/vibe reasons to rule them out, but I haven’t seen that entering the potential recruit’s described decision-making process at all to date.
Only incrementally expanding the list at a late date and waiting for communication and trying to establish interest and relationships doesn’t seem the way to go.
I brought up rankings precisely because of how much you have repeatedly emphasized the importance of things like rankings, prestige and selectivity in the school selections. in fact, those are pretty much the only characteristics that seem to have driven the list. I and others on this thread have repeatedly noted the problems with this.
It could be a coincidence that the two schools with “less prestige” that were just added to the list have the exact same US News ranking as the lowest one previously on the list (F&M), but I somehow doubt it. Other than rankings and “selectivity” data. where else are the notions of prestige coming from in the first place for an international student who has never been to any of these campuses?
You recently dismissed suggestions of adding these schools and others in the same prestige category as not being worthy of consideration.
I’m not sure how your comments are helpful. At the end of the day, the list has been expanded, which is good news. Sure, it would have been better to do so earlier in the process, but it’s done. You seem to be attacking the OP and the daughter for doing so.
There are no attacks. I’m making observations about the process in a public forum. At the end of the day, the OP has ignored much of the advice on this thread, but I think the information and analysis provided could be useful to someone else going through a similar process at some point.
It’s pertinent to ask questions about the decision process and why certain schools were added and others were apparently not considered. Obviously, someone in the family changed/relaxed their criteria recently to consider schools that weren’t before. What is the new criteria? Is it not useful to point to other schools that may be decent matches?
I see your point and in principle, I agree with you. It just comes off as aggressive. Or perhaps I’m just being too sensitive after a long day.
[[quote=“Momofthree24, post:922, topic:3623592, full:true”]
I see your point and in principle, I agree with you. It just comes off as aggressive. Or perhaps I’m just being too sensitive after a long day.
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Thanks. I thought I responded pretty neutrally in tone to the OP’s post to me that started with an extremely condescending “ one day somebody will explain to you…”
@YoLo2 is just saying the quiet part out loud.
His comments are comprehensively spot on.
The OP should be less defensive and listen to sound and experienced advice.
This is too important a process to not be open to suggestions from those who have successfully been through it before. The swim and non swim lists are tragically flawed and incremental change at this late date is like watching traffic on a bridge you know is going to collapse.
A reminder to all that CC is supposed to be a friendly and welcoming site.
The OP is evidently using an “international” ranking system which is why some of the family’s choices come off as arbitrary to American readers (a failing shared by every ranking system, IMHO.)