And I think the OP’s daughter has zero chance of being a recruit at Stanford, one of the best women’s swim teams in the country. They don’t take recruits because they are an (academic) legacy to the school or because they are a minority. Recruits are fast swimmers.
OP’s double legacy may get her into Stanford, but it won’t get her near the pool.
I believe the OP has said more than once that swimming is not on the Stanford list. Stanford is on their regular academic college list…sans swimming.
I believe they have stated that they know and understand that. In the Stanford case they would forgo swimming for the opportunity to go to a very top well known academic school, which is certainly understandable and I would tend to agree with.
My comment on Stanford being the OP’s 2nd best admissions option was not to give undue weight to (double) legacy status, but to illustrate how unrealistic his approach has been to this process.
The non-swim schools are more rejective than the swim schools? Counterintuitive at best…
While I am hoping the Canadian schools work out, I fear a total shut out.
It is amazing to me the level and breath of expertise and experience on this thread, and the narrow sliver of advice the OP has taken to heart.
Personally, I think Wellesley overlaps almost all of the OPs requirements. Of course he has said his daughter would prefer a coed school…wonder if she will regret not having this wonderful option after experiencing complete shut out?
The list needs to be 2x-3x larger (with slower swim schools), with the fall back that it comes back to one school that makes a firm recruitment offer.
Not really. OP is willing to give up swimming for a tippy top prestigious university. Otherwise not willing to give it up. A lot of people would make the same choice.
Likelihood of it working out is a different matter.
But @superdomestique is talking about being recruited and using URM status, legacy status and other ways to be recruited. OP/daughter may decide in Sept to use the ED spot to apply to Stanford to get in as a legacy, but right now OP is still talking, on this thread, about recruiting and @superdomestique said that (“But this 900+ post thread is about swimming recruiting…”) but then mentioned Stanford.
I agree with @superdomestique that a good way to pick a match for swimming could be to pick a conference and then look at the lower ranked swim schools (may be higher ranked academic school). You might still be in the Ivy league or NESCAC, but not swimming for the top school. That’s not going to be Cal or Stanford in the PAC-12. OP/daughter may cross off the PAC-12 and decide no other school in the conference is worth it to her, and move on to another conference like Liberty or Patriot leagues.
Original question was where could OP use swimming as a hook to get into a top school (and swim on the team, as the daughter wants to continue swimming). She has the academics, but so do many students and she wants the extra admissions help being a recruited athlete provides. I’m just saying that isn’t going happen at Stanford.
To put a finer point on it, the swimming hook is currently not catching anything/anywhere.
There is a hook at Stanford, albeit minor, and swimming is off the table.
Lots of eggs in the Canadian basket…
Shouldn’t a parent do something to minimize the possibility of disappointment next April?
Hoping for faster times is not enough.
Neither is hoping for good grades and ok scores being enough at the highly rejective schools on the current list…
Tough love is better than late love…
Stanford doesn’t have ED. They have REA.
Lots of recruiting still to happen and time will tell. Those who are saying OP is very late to the game don’t have deep experience in recruiting.
OP’s D has near safeties in McGill and Toronto (based on D’s stats and HS historical results), and OP has also said D would be happy to attend either of those schools. I take OP at their word that those are accurate assessments.
OP’s search process is not atypical, at all. Athletic recruits are often working two distinct lists (where they might be recruited and where they would apply if recruiting doesn’t work out). It is common for schools to come and go off these lists. I continue to be surprised at the level of criticism directed at OP on this thread.
Expectations are overly optimistic - I think you have a fair description of the profile based on what we were told.
I just disagree that everyone should give up on their top choice, given a reasonable shot (good enough for the name to go in the hat) for the sure thing. Maybe I am misunderstanding your position but I took it to mean that the parent should help her find a school where she will very likely get an offer. IMO the parent has to help the student understand the trade offs and determine a good bottom of the list. My kids, at least, were not interested in giving up their shot by committing to a lower (in their list) school.
If you are not willing to accept an offer somewhere but pursuing it, aren’t you just wasting everyone’s time?
There has been many back and forth, and we’ll use this as an update response
a) D24’s application strategy could have started earlier, could have include broader list of swim schools, and could have included women’s colleges such as Wellesley, Smith, or Mount Holyoke. Every one has their opinions which we duly consider and many posters know that their advice has benefited her journey over the past several months (Thanks indeed!!), others must also respect personal choices that D24 made in her personal recruiting journey.
She does not intend to attend a women’s college (which is also the preference of the very vast majority of women attending college in America). She made an exception by including Barnard in her non swim college list because it’s obviously a full part of Columbia University.
she doesn’t think she has the STEM competitiveness to be happy or in fact even admitted to Caltech/MIT
She absolutely is keen and intent on collegiate swimming and being recruited. However, it is also her intention to attend a highly selective college, which is reflected in both her swim college list, and her non swim college list, both of which can be considered heavily weighted towards highly rejective schools. as stated previously, if she cannot swim at a very selective academic school, she would rather attend such a school as a walk-on or with no team swimming at all
b) her non swim list is restricted to UCs (all counting as one) + 9 schools. That is a strict policy in force at her high school, and isn’t negotiable
c) Her college lists as it stands is not “frozen” and goes through continuous changes. More changes can be expected as more swim times come in, together with summer college visits, meetings with coaches, and hopefully pre-reads.
d) Her college list is objectively not delusional, she’s engaged in active dialogue with the McGill coach, and has the academic cuts required for regular admission as publicly communicated by the University
e) D24 is eligible for about 30k/annum home scholarship if she attends a university ranked Top100 in the world. Tuition at McGill is about 1/3 of full pay tuition at many US Colleges, which would be fully covered by such scholarship.
f) She had been confirmed for pre-reads at several schools, and understands that doesn’t guarantee getting a slot, but still represents a necessary step towards a slot. She indeed will have much more clarity by June, after completing 3 more swim meets.
McGill environmental science / McDonald School of Agriculture Campus: 30/42 predicted
McGill environmental science / Bieler School of Arts & Science: 38/42 predicted, 37/42 actual
I don’t think so. My daughter announced in spring of junior year that she wanted to play in college - after saying for 2 years she did not! So we started, and really didn’t do much until the summer because her sport was a spring sport and she was playing. But we were realistic and knew that the top athletic schools, who had had their recruiting lists published (no NLI/acceptances yet but their lists were set) for over a year were off the list. We were late and we knew it. Her club coach helped a little by passing on the names and numbers of coaches who were looking for players. Her high school coach wasn’t connected. She ended up at a school I read about that was starting a team. We took a chance, they took a chance. We were open to all divisions, and she talked to all the coaches who had interest in her. Could she have gone to higher ranking teams or higher ranking academic schools? Yep. She was happy where she ended up.
I think OP has his academic list and is happy with it, and is just looking for some swim possibilities without being flexible on the academic ranking. That’s fine, OP asked about recruiting. If one of the academic list schools was a possible swim school, great, but it doesn’t appear to be the case.
I don’t think it matters. If she applies REA to Stanford, she won’t be able to ED to another school even for athletics (unless she withdraws the REA). It’s still just one shot.
@twoinanddone “If one of the academic list schools was a possible swim school, great, but it doesn’t appear to be the case.”
all the schools on D24’s two lists of schools (possibly with 1 exception) are very academically selective, and she would be happy to attend them (of course, she may change her mind after visiting some of these schools, which is normal), indeed preferably with a recruit slot, or even a walk-on spot.
we know the schools at which she’s been asked for pre-reads, and the detail of her ongoing coach dialogues. Could there be more interested coaches? indeed. Could there be more certainty, indeed it would be preferable too.
But is her current journey not leading anywhere as you describe? that’s surely not our view at this moment. the future will tell.
Good point. I would agree. If you are able to or happen to get in to a tippy top school such as Stanford, IMO, it is certainly worth considering even if you can not play your sport. The opportunity to go to a Stanford level school for what it has to offer would outweigh most of the LAC even with the athletic hook (IMO).
The following assessment from the OP is from February. I think everyone just accepted this at face value, but based on other information provided to-date, it doesn’t appear to be accurate to such a degree that there must have been some major conversion errors, or errors in pulling results.
The athlete’s best event appears to be the 100 Free, with other events having a significant drop-off in relative competitiveness. The PBs reported in February by the OP were 100 SCM Free = 58.68 and 100 LCM Free = 1:00.35. Based on the SwimSwam Swimulator Real-Time Converter, that translates to 53.57-53.76 100 SCY for a 17-year old female.
For the February 2022 Ivy League championship results, that PB time is outside of the listed times in the 100 Free (SCY) altogether: last place (33rd in prelims) was 53.00. 16th place in the B Final was 50.97. And that 16th place time in the Ivy would have been good for 4th place at the February 2022 NESCAC championship. 1st place in NESCAC at 50.52 would have only been good for 13th place in Ivy.
For the NESCAC championship meet, the OP’s D24’s time would have been completely out of the scoring (top 24). 24th place was 53.33.
I don’t know how this apparent discrepancy arose. But if those were the presumptions of the athlete’s recruitability a few months ago, it’s no wonder that the subsequent lack of coach interest from Ivys and faster D3s came as a surprise. The targeted swim school list doesn’t appear to have been realistic. Again, I have no experience in swimming recruiting: am I missing something here?
What are her current best times?
I think I am done contributing to this thread.
Hopefully the OP will post their outcomes, good or bad…
Best of luck to all.
whilst Amherst would require faster times for D24, it’s another school where the head coach is leaving. This is particularly problematic since Amherst has one single head coach for men’s and women’s, no assistant coach, and only one diving coach.
I hadn’t heard that. Where did you see it? Any news on the new coach or where the current one is heading?
Nevermind, I found the announcement on the schools page.