Rejecting 25 recruited athletes is not as certain as you get at a NESCAC. I don’t see issues like this at Williams and Amherst. Sure there is no guarantee. But 25? With good scores and essays? Sounds like the school is shifting priority, which is fine if they actually told people this in advance it simply lowered the number of slots. But it sounds like the coaches gave the same canned speech they give every other year, which for Wesleyan is no longer true.
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I’d suggest we not take this ‘25 out of 70’ from an anonymous source as fact without further corroboration.
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I know of a recruited athlete to Wes that this happened to in 2019 (class of 2020). My kid was in conversations with a Wes coach last year and was told that she was in their top 3 for her position. Then they committed to someone else in May- before the end of junior year. This was much earlier than any other Nescac school and I wondered if they even do pre-reads. (It was also before we could get to the school to play in front of coaches d/t COVID). That early commitment seemed like it could be the reason for students committing and then being deferred in ED. I don’t know if the posters on this thread received pre-reads, but Wesleyan Admissions really needs to get their story straight. My kid went through pre-reads at Swarthmore, Haverford, Carleton, and Amherst- in the summer of 2021. Totally different experience than what people are describing at Wesleyan.
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We know someone who had this happen at Williams. FWIW, we were warned last year from coaches at Wesleyan, Williams, and one other - that there was limited room on the bench. Some students took a year off and others are extending their stay.
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Congratulations to your son! I am happy to hear that not all athletic recruits were affected by this highly unusual behavior. I can confirm the “25 recruited athletes deferred to RD” number and I can also confirm that all coaches were informed of this Admissions decision TWO DAYS before the ED1 decisions were released. Like your son, my DD was supported strongly by the coach. He conducted an Early Read for her and assured her that, to the best of his abilities, he would do whatever he could to assist, and that Admissions rated her as a very likely admit. He was “shocked” by this outcome, as were we, and when we found out the extent of the travesty, my disappointment for my DD turned to outrage. For Admissions not to see this coming is deplorable. They should have managed the coaches’ expectations months ago, not two days before ED1 decisions were released. By the way–where did the 70 number come from? Was that an estimate of the number of recruited athletes in the ED1 Round?
I can confirm the “25 recruited athletes deferred” number. Not sure where the 70 number comes from.
ED2 does give you have the option not to take that offer but try ED2 elsewhere if you wish. But it also implies that you have a higher than random shot at getting into the first school.
Sorry but I have not heard anything about a “Likely Letter.” The coach arranged for a Pre-Read with Admissions last summer and the results were very positive. Yesterday the coach indicated that he was in conversations with the Administration and Admissions, but I’m not sure there is anything he can really do about this deferral. I don’t blame him–he has been very supportive of my DD for months and he was surprised and shocked by this deferral. Admissions should have let all the coaches know about these limitations months ago. My DD was invited on a recruiting trip in early fall and at that time she was told that the team had room for 6 recruits. When she fell in love with the school and the team she wasted no time in committing and filing her ED application. The coach sent her several positive, encouraging, but realistic emails. We are fully aware that D3 coaches cannot make admissions promises, but still… It appears that this was grossly mis-managed by admissions and it took down the hopes and dreams of 25 prospective student athletes as a result. I’m sure that they will all be fine in the end, but this setback could have been easily avoided.
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Sorry for your daughter, andI believe that she will get into her fit school. My friend’s D had similar experience last year, another D3 Top school, as that school’s coach fully support and told her “deserve to wait”, they even gave up another D3 school’s likely letter and ED chance. But got deferred. Quite frustrated, but she didn’t regret since she tried.
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I estimated that there are roughly 70 athletic slots per year. NESCAC teams generally have 14 slots for football and 2 slots for every other sport. There can be variability from year to year, for example if rebuilding is necessary, or if coaches make trades, things of that nature. There can also be soft support recruits as well in addition to the fully supported slots.
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Could you explain what ‘soft support’ is? How helpful is that for the application, And it only happens at D3 schools? Thanks
Soft support is per se less helpful/meaningful than full support, may or may not involve a pre-read, and the degree to which it helps can vary dramatically year to year…both by college and within a college. Many of the selective D3 schools, and Ivies, have some type of soft support concept, sometimes called a tip (terminology is variable as well).
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yes! i did! and congrats
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I feel the frustrations of athlete parents expressed in this thread, but am also surprised by the near-certainty of expected admission. No matter the athletic skill, these kids are part of a pool that only came into focus for the admissions committee a few weeks ago. This pool may have been larger, more accomplished, more diverse than the coach–who, after all, is not in admissions–could have known, and so, perfectly understandably, the admissions decisions did not go as s/he thought. Should the pre-read athlete be selected over the trilingual playwright or the first-generation robotics innovator? I, as I expect most here, would say no–first defer and let the full picture come into focus. That, I would guess, is what’s at issue here. I’m happy to think that Wes attracted such a bumper crop of great applicants this year!
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With the knowledge that nothing I say can possibly assuage people’s feelings in the heat of the moment, I can almost guarantee you that the 25 deferrals were not the result of a shift in Wesleyan’s priorities. There is always going to be a demand for scholar-athletes at Wesleyan and AFAIK there has been no talk of teams being cut. The rosters definitely haven’t changed.
OTOH, the college has been telegraphing for months that they would be sending out fewer acceptances this year because of an unexpected rise in applications and yield that began in Spring 2021 (See, the “Wesleyan over-enrollment” thread with over 4K hits.)
I am not privy to any inside information; offline, other alum have been just as gob smacked as some of you. However, IMHO, the college is being conservative in light of last year’s results and this is just their way of kicking the ball a little further down the field. Not worth a bucket of warm spit, at this point, I know. But, hopefully every parent’s son and daughter will wind up at a place they can love when the dust finally settles.
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I can’t comment on a given school’s institutional priorities, but athletic recruiting at the NESCACs is a well established process. The competition for athletic slots is fierce, and athletes experience most of their rejection before the college admission process as the recruiting pool continues going through the funnel.
Recruiting is based on trust and honesty between the coach and the recruit, generally the only reasons a fully supported recruit with a positive pre-read would not be accepted are poor grades or some type of disciplinary issue first semester of senior year. Every fully slotted Wesleyan recruit gave up other opportunities to verbally commit to Wesleyan. When that process breaks down due to something outside of the recruit’s control, there will be consequences for the future recruiting classes at that school.
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My kid has no skin in this game, but I can tell you that something was “off” with the coach we spoke with months ago (not a few weeks ago, as you wrote above). Late spring/early summer one of their coaches could not say for certainty how many slots they had open - it seemed that this coach was giving inconsistent messaging based on their own uncertainty of many factors. Some of it may have been related to students who deferred or came back after time off. Didn’t follow that trail and now very glad we trusted our gut. Bottom line: The word is already out and it will impact recruiting/admissions efforts next year.
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Thanks, Golfgr8. As you say, the key issue is lack of certainty until all the pieces are in place–which, for the full ED pool (not just athletes who were in contact months ago) was just the case a few weeks ago, following the 11/15 deadline. It sounds like estimations should have been more cautiously or carefully made, but the bottom line is that Wes appears to have had a particularly competitive ED pool, with extra-difficult decisions to be made.
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Clearly there is some breakdown in their recruiting process this year. Maybe it’s due to the over-enrollment, maybe the 25 recruits not accepted in ED will get in during RD, but it’s really unfortunate that these many of these student-athletes chose wrong when deciding where to commit.
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You also wonder if those 25 athletes requested financial aid.
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