<p>My D is being recruited for crew as a cox. Fortunately, she will not need fiinancial aid or scholarship assistance. However, I do not want her to use her one ED bullet unwisely. Since she and I are new to the recruiting process, how do you assess whether a crew recruitment (or any other athletic recruitment) will be sufficient to ensure an ED admission to the selected school. Although coach may like you, and encourage you to apply, how do you really lock in an admission so you know your one ED app will not be wasted. FWIW, I am talking about recruitment at Wesleyan, Dartmouth, Princeton, Colgate and UVA.</p>
<p>One college coach said to my son, the most important question you can ask me is "are you willing to use an athletic tip on me with admissions? " if I answer yes, then apply ED, if no, then apply RD</p>
<p>He went on further to say if a coach is not willing to answer this question then steer clear.</p>
<p>Sounds like great advice. I look forward to more responses. By the way, I assume a tip is a free pass to admission?</p>
<p>Do a search on the Parents Forum for "likely letter" and you will find a thread entitled something like "Coach's Word as Good as a Likely Letter". It has a lot of excellent information. Colgate and UVA will most likely give you a stronger "promise" before your ED decision. I have known several strongly recruited athletes who did NOT get admitted to Princeton ED. SBMom's D was a recruited athlete at Wesleyan. You might send her a PM for info there. It is important to develop a strong relationship with the coach and get him to tell your D where she is on his list. At Penn, Admissions does a "pre-read" during the summer on the recruited athletes and lets the coaches know what the status is. Of course, this is ONLY based on scores and GPA and doesn't include the recs and essays. I was told of a kid who was not admitted because of a bad rec.</p>
<p>Start here. There are many more excellent threads if you search recruiting on the parents forum.</p>
<p>Thanks so much.</p>
<p>Not a free pass exactly. A tip could possibly be rejected by admissions. At least in the NESCACs, coaches are given a # of athletic "tips" each year that can be used with admissions.
In my son's case, his coach gets 6.5 tips per year divided into what are termed A, B and C band tips. As I understand it, the banding relates to the academic credentials of the student. Say for example the average GPA and SAT score is a 3.5 and 1400 out of 1600 respectively for the typical admission to a school. A C band recruit might have a 3.2 with a 1200 SAT. A C band recruit must be an "impact" player for the sport, meaning is anticipated to play all 4 years and have a significant impact on the program. If your child is not such an athletic impact, then the academic credentials will need to be higher.</p>
<p>There is a floor to all of this. We have been told through the grapevine that unless your athlete can get his/her SATs to 1200 (old scale) or over then a tip will not get him in no matter what.</p>
<p>I will concur with MomofWildChild---the NESCAC coach we have been speaking with will get a pre-read on his potential tips from admissions
and let the athlete know how things look before an application is filed</p>
<p>There is a lot of good firsthand info on these boards about the recruiting process. You might want to start a thread on the Parents' Forum so you get more information. I just went through it with S (recruited by some top academic DIII LACs, some Patriot League schools (including Colgate), some other random DIs and DIIIs and some Ivy League Schools). A lot of it depends on the sport and the coach, too. Some coaches have a little more pull with admissions than others, and some sports are, frankly, more important to the school than others.
I felt that the athletic factor greatly increased the difficulty (and the fun) of the college search and admissions process, because it was important to find the right ATHLETIC fit as well as the right academic fit. It was really nice to have the help with admissions, though. One thing to keep in mind is the "broken leg" test- where would your daughter be happy if she broke her leg and could not compete in her sport? The coach is the adult on campus with whom your child will have the most contact, so a good fit is really important. So much to learn.....</p>