Even at NLI schools, there is now an exception made for athletes who want out of the contract to follow a coach or because they don’t like the new coach. I just don’t think it is common to pick the coach at the D3 level as it is to pick the school. Even the OP didn’t start this process saying “She wants to swim for Coach Smith at school A or for coach Jones at school B.” OP started with a list of schools D was interested in attending for academic reasons and then trying to match daughter’s swim levels with those SCHOOLS, not coaches.
My daughter’s coach left just after my daughter graduated, going from a D2 to a D1 school. Not one player followed her. Different types of schools, different areas of the country, different weather, different financial aid situations. The coach isn’t going to take a whole team to the new school, and I just don’t see a lot of students at LACs wanting to give up their teams, friends, professors, traditions to follow a coach. Maybe, maybe a recruit who hasn’t even applied to schools yet would think “Yes, I could go to Bates so I’ll apply there too” but I just don’t see it as a big wave of students changing their minds to follow a coach.
Vanessa was recruiting for Bates at that time; that is why she instructed @Eve17 to communicate with head Coach now.
In our experience, Vanessa was only involved in the process up until preread. After that, all communication went to Coach Peter.
As @TonyGrace stated, I think that a swim recruit that had a relationship with her at Bates can certainly reach out to her when she starts at Wesleyan; I just don’t believe she would initiate the contact. (Ethically, conflict of interest).
My DS had also been in the recruit “pool”-pardon the pun- at Wesleyan, but had only dealt with head coach. My DS took himself out of consideration there because he hated the campus; we didn’t even make it through the entire tour. Had he still been interested, he would be fair game for Vanessa as a Wesleyan representative, to continue communicating with since he was already in talks with both teams.
My guess is that she will be trusting the list of recruits that has already been assembled at Wesleyan and not much will change on either schools’ lists at this time. By this point, targeted recruits have most likely been explicitly told they have been chosen for prereads. By June in junior year, there were no new surprises on the recruitment journey for my DS.
Soccer might be different. My son communicated with both heads and assistant coaches. Depending on the school, towards the end the assistant might check in weekly and the head every couple of weeks.
The important thing is to know who is on charge at each respective school, whether new or old, and proactively connect with them, which D24 is actively doing during this quieter period before the her July meets.
Some interesting numbers have been consistently floated, of schools pursuing 40-50 athletes, and aiming for 6-8 swimmers for each squad/year. Once that dialogue is engaged, it means pre-reads only position you in the Top50, and it is most natural to ask coaches where he/she sees a candidate’s ranking on that list, to have a reasonable assessment of the chance to ultimately be recruited within the T6-8. Of course, once the competitive jostling and positioning takes places between athletes and teams, commitments will play out.
The exception being teams/schools where the messaging is very strong early in the process, as close to a guaranteed spot as one can see.
We expect our radar to become much clearer in the coming weeks. Several school coaches are slowing their response (Carnegie Mellon, Swarthmore, Pomona, Washington St Louis), and indirectly telling D24 she’s being dropped.
One post that mentioned 50 pre-reads for Middlebury in a different sport. And they did it in two batches: no more than 20-25 in the first batch with a July 1st target. And then other pre-reads later in summer if needed. Schools are “pursuing” (i.e., communicating with) far more athletes than that in any given recruiting cycle.
An estimate of 6-8 coach-supported recruits “slots” (using the term generally and not in terms of slot vs tips, etc.) might be on the high end. Some team positions are filled by walk-ons who achieved admissions on their own without coach support.
You had mentioned that your daughter has three positive pre read results already. Additionally coaches at many nescac schools should be in discussion with her about how to submit and what to submit for pre reads. Those are the schools she should be focused on and really look into at this point.
The funnel narrows sharply at these highly selective schools in June and July before senior year. Make it a priority to research and visit the schools where she remains high on the coaches list and has positive pre reads. Love the schools that love you back! Good luck
I think it should have already been pretty clear about these particular programs and others at a similar level. Were any of these schools explicitly saying they were going to put your D24 on their initial pre-read list and then subsequently backed off?
Below is my assessment from May 1st (not mentioned there, but Pomona’s final ranking this season is #10) . Targeting swim programs ranked in the top 25 in D3 doesn’t seem to have been realistic. Time and energy would have been better spent elsewhere.
“It looks like overall swim program strength generally explains other schools on the list that haven’t show interest (or explicitly said that the swimmer was not fast enough), such as Chicago (#6), Carnegie-Mellon (#12), JHU (#13), Swarthmore (#15), and WashU (#17). Top 25 D3 swimming schools are probably unlikely unless there is some unusual circumstance. Need to move further down the list”
[Edit to add: Tufts (#4), Chicago (#6), and Johns Hopkins (#13) were already ruled out in mid-March explicitly for wanting faster times. Williams (#5), Bowdoin (#14), and Middlebury (not in top 27, but placed 5th in the NESCAC championships, just after Bowdoin, and in front of Bates (#20) and Hamilton (#27)) were listed in late April as explicitly being “too fast”
These other schools listed now (CMU, Swat, Pomona, WashU) are right in that top range too, so shouldn’t be a surprise either. Likewise, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (#10), Amherst (#18), and Bates (#20) are also unlikely to show interest based on overall program strength].
Can you just say her times? Also, you have to remember that there might be 100 kids with those same times and 100 with better times. It sort of seems like you might be looking at this through a tunnel so to speak.
the times have been posted, you may look if interested.
you are correct to point out that that there are thousands of kids with faster times, but selective D3 swim coaches can only recruit swimmers who satisfy their academic requirements and pass pre-reads. In that sense we’re very much looking at this process through a binocular which only focuses on fast swimmers with very high grades
If you want WashU, check with the coach to see if a roster spot is an option provided that your daughter can pull herself in. There are many swimmers on that team who did not have coaches’ support through admissions, that’s actually pretty common. WashU loves ED, approx 65% of their class is admitted via ED 1+2, has a strong alumni network, beautiful campus, nice athletic facilities, nice dorms, good food. Everyone we know who went there loved their experience. I know that your daughter wants a supported slot/tip but a high stats kid using the ED round at a school that admits the bulk of their class via ED and has a larger team (available roster spots) might not be a bad strategy.
Fwiw, while there is a certain amount of physical serendipity involved in what makes a good athlete, the mental traits required to be a top swimmer also tend to be the ones needed to be a good student. For most of these teams, there is no shortage of excellent students for coaches to choose from.
Mentioning this because the OP is a strong student, but it’s unlikely that most of the girls vying for those same roster spots are academic slackers.
Very true. Odds are a little better where there is a hard testing requirement, but those are the exceptions. Speaking of… @NiVo did she ever test again?
I believe said this at some point, but the issue is not so much the OP is not a good swimmer but that she is at a level that is still achieved by thousands of swimmers.
Still, I think pretty much any D3 coach would take a walk on at this level. It is high enough that it is unlikely that there would be a surplus of similarly accomplished athletes. Given acceptance rates at these schools, I bet you can count in one hand the number of kids calling up the coach and saying “I got accepted, can I swim?”
100% agree. This swimmer is good, for sure, and could be a useful addition to a team, it’s just that she’s not exceptional (enough) in this pool to get that coveted slot…
But I think the problem is that the binoculars are focused almost exclusively on schools that have top 25 D3 swim programs where the prospective student athlete’s (PSA’s) times aren’t as competitive and don’t seem to be generating much, if any, coach interest. In other words, the PSA doesn’t seem to be considered fast enough (though they could most likely get a walk-on roster spot if they got admitted on their own).
As others have pointed out, there is now a really strong correlation between fast D3 swim programs and schools with very selective admissions. This could end up freezing the PSA out from any programs that are interested in offering coach support in admissions, unless they re-focus on less-strong swim programs that still have strong academics (but may not have extremely low acceptance rates or as much perceived “prestige”).
As an aside, another thing I don’t understand is how the stated application list would almost completely change if the PSA doesn’t get recruited. One would think that if the schools are attractive to the PSA and if their academic record is as strong as stated, these schools would still be targets for applying and joining the team as a walk-on if admission is secured on their own.
Not uncommon for potential recruited athletes to have two lists of schools…some schools might be on both, but many aren’t.
I continue to find the comments of some posters to be overly judgmental, which aren’t pushing the conversation along. OP’s D has her lists, is doing the right things recruiting wise, and working on what’s in her control as the process plays out. This student’s college search/recruiting process has not been an atypical one, at all.
Yes. I think most kids have “if I can’t do my sport, I’d rather go here” schools. As long as they are still happy with the swim schools without the sport (ie passes the broken leg test), in the same way someone needs to like their safety school even if they’d have preferred the dream school.