unofficial school visits, tours, demonstrated interest

S and I were in a constant battle about how many schools should be on the list. He wanted it smaller, I wanted it bigger. We settled on about 15 or so high academic schools that he initiated contact with, probably half of which were in enthusiastic contact back with us. As his junior season went on several high athletic schools sought him out and ended up on the list so it did get a bit out of hand for a while. I was talking to the head coach from the school that was probably #1 on S’s list and he told me that S really should narrow it down a bit. I told the coach that I was afraid to tell anyone no until S had a firm offer. At that point, he told me that S had a spot on his team if he wanted it. Once that happened, we started being pretty ruthless in paring down the list. His top few immediately gave offers when they found out that their competition did. Once we had that, he started telling any newcomers that he was pretty far along with X, but that if anything changed he would let them know.

My situation was different though because this coach has enough pull that as long as S meets certain thresholds the coach can get him in, and fortunately it was S’s #1 choice. If this was a 50/50 situation, I would still be afraid to cross anyone off the list until I knew that we had a firm commitment from a coach at a school that he would be comfortable attending. I probably would be opposed to S applying ED to a school that even gave him an 80% chance of being admitted since he had other good options on the table. Of course, I don’t know your situation or why that program is more appealing than the #2 or #3 on the list.

@jmtabb,

Flexibility in recruiting is key. You never know when a “better” recruit will come along and displace you. And often coaches don’t tell the student, they just stop responding to emails.

I will say that your daughter is a poster child for why parents push their kids to do well academically. It opens up a world of athletic opportunities.

Funny, there was an article on the coaches’ association web page last month with a coach bemoaning the recruits who ‘ghost’ the coaches, just go silent and never replay to emails after a certain point in recruiting. Of course, it is really a very small world and the coach and player are likely to run into each other again.

I don’t know about swimming, my D’s sport is D3 bball, but we keep a lot of schools on the list right up to when she hit submit on her ED1 app. We found at least one coaches list was fluid. D was on the list, then she was off. Then she was back on. And although D had already visited most of the schools on her list, OV’s really made a difference. A couple schools fell off D’s list. As someone mentioned on CC it is like musical chairs. It worked out for my daughter, but man it was very stressful.

From my two sons swim recruiting process, the coaches and students stay in contact via email every once in awhile. Send coach LC time updates with any drops from recent meets etc. You need to let the coaches know that you are definitely interested in visiting for an official visit in the fall. The coach will reach out to you and ask for your transcripts,test scores etc for the preread. These schools will not allow your student on the visit without it getting done first.In the fall there are only about 8-10 week ends or so before the ED date depending on when your school starts.With swim meets and studies, to go on five, as allowed if all D1, is very time consuming and if D3 not always financially feasible. My recommendation would be to visit and meet with as many of the programs that fit your needs unofficially, narrow it down to about three and go to those officially. Your daughter will know just by meeting coach, looking at pool and campus which programs to knock off list.Main thing is let coach know you want to come for an official visit, he or she will then reach out to you. Asking for exactly when and what they need as their time table calls for it.
Good luck and enjoy the process.

One more point to keep in mind is the constant churn of coaches through jobs. What sounded good one week can be gone the next as someone moves on. My DD is only a sophomore and both the coaches at her final two D3 options have already moved on. It’s crazy how little warning can presage a move like this. If in doubt, keep a school on the list.

Going back to date of pre-reads for D3 – I can’t remember if there was an official NCAA or conference reason for the date, but as best I recall, the NESCAC, Centennial, Liberty and North Coast Athletic Conference schools said July 1 before senior year was when they could start academic pre-reads.

This is all so helpful. Our son has been emailing just a handful of coaches, when I suggested another school he has some interest in he said he shouldn’t have too many schools, but I think he should have a longer list as you never know what will work out. His sport is rowing - I don’t know if that changes it because there are far fewer schools that have rowing?
I also had a question about the differences between recruiting for men vs. women. Son and a female rower have been sharing their recruiting news/ideas/etc with each other. I think that recruiting for men and women in the same sport is like apples and oranges. Is that accurate? There are more than a few schools that don’t even have men’s rowing (or it is a “club” sport, not NCAA sport), but do have women’s rowing.
And finally - son did very well at Youth Nationals - making the grand final - he seems to think that will make no impression on coaches. Any insight here? Maybe he knows more than I do!

Women’s rowing is an NCAA sport, so a female has to follow the NCAA rule, register with the clearinghouse, etc. The number of scholarships is pretty high. For men, it is not an NCAA sport but still a varsity sport at many schools; no clearinghouse needed and the scholarship rules are different.

That much I knew – now that I think about it, my question is probably too organic/specific to really get the kind of information that I am interested in - regarding the differences in men/women in rowing recruiting. The fundamental differences, as you point out, probably are at the heart of my inquiry. I imagine women (particularly very tall women, with some nice wins/medals) get a pretty robust response from coaches! Not that son has not - I think he just doesn’t understand the that it will just be different and they probably should not take differences in communications from various coaches too much to heart. There sure is a lot to learn along the way here. Thank goodness for CC - a place to share all these things a parent wonders about.

I think you are correct that it is comparing apples and oranges. One isn’t NCAA, so very different.

Plus the reality is that because of Title 9 and football, men’s and women’s sports really aren’t comparable anyway. The money and opportunities have to be better for the women to equalize the huge resources devoted to football.

S and I had the same conversation regarding number of schools. He is a wrestler, so not that many D1 schools to pick from, probably not 20 in the country that met his academic and athletic desires. I wasn’t really comfortable crossing anyone off of the list before he had an offer. He kind of treated it more like he expected to get several offers, so talking to a small number was fine. It was a constant issue with us up until the day he got his first offer. You don’t necessarily need a huge list. But unless he is a top recruit coach needs may come into play and he might not get any offers if he only talks to 5-10 schools. It really depends on how he stacks up against the other recruits. And personally as a parent I think that is very hard to judge. That’s why I kept pushing for a wider net.