My D20 has 5 OVs scheduled with ivies/D1 schools (she is still undecided). All these schools require a flight to get to. There is a 6th D1 school that is local (no flight required) and has offered an OV. Is it within NCAA rules/ethical to ask the school if we can make that visit an unofficial visit instead? The idea being that she still gets to meet with coaches, watch the team practice, see facilities, etc. but that the school does spend any money in relation to the visit. To be honest this feels fishy to me but we can’t be the first family confronted with this type of situation.
Sure you can do that and you can just tell them that you already have the 5 OVs. Make sure they know so they don’t break any NCAA rules by feeding you or making a cookie with her name on it or throw confetti (see the violations self reported by Clemson today).
Agree with twoinandone.
My D/S was heavilly recruited Ivy & non-Ivy D1s. What we did was unofficially visit several schools that were top on our list by simply emailing the coach to let them know we are planning to visit the campus x date(s). They will usuually tell you if they will be on campus and will set-up time to meet, give a tour, review, etc. We did several Unofficial visits during the summer which worked out well and helped to narrow down which schools to OV. There was one unoffical visit that required a flight and was while school was in session. This was set up as this high end non-Ivy D1 was on a different recruiting time table then the Ivies. The coach set up a good itnerary for my D/S to sit in on classes, etc. but the school did not pay for anything and I don’t believe there were any team events attended including watching a practice, but you can still accomplish a lot and get a good feel for the school, coaches, etc.
Agree with both. Especially with what @twoinandone says about making sure the school knows to avoid some of the NCAA silliness. A lot of schools are becoming adept at this, because it is becoming more common for a particular school’s marquee recruiting events to attract a mix of kids on unofficial visits and official visits depending on the particular recruit’s circumstances. You see this in football at things like the Buckeye Bar B Que (Ohio State), Clemson’s All -In picnic, LSU’s On the Bayou, etc. Also pretty common on game day visits.
Really other than the rules around meals/transportation/housing, your daughter should be able to accomplish everything she would do at an OV during an unofficial.
We did exactly this with our daughter…she was scheduled for an official visit at a school, but another offer came in for her that was further away and the school would be flying her out. So we switched from an OV to an unofficial. No problems at all with the coaches. She was still able to stay on campus, but we had to pay a small fee for the night. She got to go to the basketball game, but we paid for the ticket. It worked out very easily…and that was the school she ended up committing to!