This is a term I have never heard before. A friend’s kid who is going through recruitment too - and was offered a “comprehensive visit” – another college athlete we know opined that it was an invitation to visit but the school/team was not paying?
It could be as simple as tour of campus, meeting with team coaching staff, tour of athletic facilities and maybe an overview with admissions. These are fairly common, but I’ve never heard that term before either.
I suspect it is a way to qualify it as a visit that is meaningful but not paid for. Many schools dont have very big recruiting budgets.
At minimum it means meeting with coaches in addition to Admissions personnel. Whether those meetings are group or individual probably depends on school.
I only heard it once, and it was a tour of campus/info session, a long meeting with the coach, and some potential team members showing her around the athletic facilities, and taking her out to lunch. They offered to have her stay in the dorms with a teammate for the evening but we didn’t have time. The only thing they paid for was lunch.
Like others have said, I would assume comprehensive is intended as a descriptor rather than as a term of art.
If all they are paying for is lunch you might want to pay for yourself. Buying lunch makes it technically an official visit that counts as one of your 5.
Yes, this is a very good point. We had a bit of an unorthodox situation, but other potential recruits should keep this in mind.
If they pay for anything then the school may consider their " comprehensive" visit an official visit, so you. should check on that. My son has been to a few Open Houses for recruits( official term) and we were told they could not even give us bottled water and we had to pay for everything including lunch and parking. But we met with team, coach, admissions, tour of campus and facility. Some people paid a lot money to travel and came from far away.
The kids were told if things proceeded as planned they would get an invited tor an OV in the Fall where things would be paid for.
If a school offers an “official visit” - or when you are there for an unofficial, the say they want to invite you for an “official visit” in the fall - that wouldn’t necessarily include all of your expenses? I am thinking about airline tickets from coast to coast - that is obviously a big expense for a team. Would an official visit perhaps be an invitation to visit and that they would host the prospective student in the dorms, and feed the prospective student but the prospect might have to pick up the airline ticket? Maybe it varies by school? These would be division 1 schools.
Varies by school, but I would guess that in most sports at most D1 schools they will pay for travel. D3 technically can pay for travel, but rarely does. I know some people who have paid for their own lunch and travel to a close school so they could save all 5 slots for schools that were farther away.
@345winter There might be reasons why a recruit would want to pay the costs of an OV, as dadof4kids suggests. But I haven’t heard of a D1 official visit in which the program asks recruits to pay. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but I’d sure wonder where I sat on the recruiting list if a coach suggested that. Unless it is common practice at the particular program.
Thanks - some of the D1 programs have, per other posters, very small recruiting budgets (men’s rowing - although my original question about a comprehensive visit was not for my kid/sport). I am floored by the idea that anyone would foot the bill for my kid to visit - not that he isn’t a terrific kid - this whole sports recruiting thing is just so new to me. I presumed this kind of recruiting occurred for football, basketball, or those revenue sports, but not for a sport really no one watches like rowing, unless it was for an Ivy or a UW/Cal type program. So much to learn.
I think the recruiting budget dictates a lot. We drove to a D2 visit and were not offered reimbursement for the travel, but the school did pay for a hotel room as it was a new team and there were no dorms/teammates to stay with. They fed D at least once, but not the parents.
For a D3 OV, I paid for all transportation and D stayed at the school, with meals, a game ticket (although I’m not sure it cost anything), and sleeping over covered by the school. I think that is the common way to do it. If she would have traveled alone, I think someone might have picked her up at the airport or maybe they would have paid for the shuttle.
Schools can now pay not only for the student but for parents to go on OV. This may only be happening in big time football, but I think they finally realized that many students wouldn’t make the decision without the parents seeing the schools. I think it also makes the recruits behave.
We paid for 6 OV’s to D3 schools. One local, D drove to, 2 were a 6 hour drive away, one 10 hour drive and two required us to fly there. All except the local visit also required us to book a hotel. D stayed in dorm, parent stayed in hotel. Yes, 6 visits, but this is D3. All visits except for one D drove to cost us oop. Money well spent, imo. Expensive yes, but allowed D to get a good feel where she fit. We could afford it, I don’t know what folks do who can’t.
Just to make sure we are using accurate terms, an official visit is defined by the NCAA as a visit where the host school pays for some or all of the following:
- Transportation to and from the campus (in FBS football and D1 basketball this now can include airfare for the recruit and one parent)
- Food and lodging (up to three meals a day)
- “Reasonable” entertainment expenses while on campus
In D3, a student can be hosted in a dorm with a current student without the visit becoming an official visit under NCAA rules, or at least that was the way it worked a few years ago. In D1 and 2, if you are not paying for lodging, whether in a hotel or on campus, it is an official visit. Although I can’t find a citation, I believe there has to be some relief from the OV rules for eating in the cafeteria, because I know my son ate in the caf with current players during unofficial visits at several schools.
I agree with @mamom that visits, even when the parent has to pay out of pocket, are invaluable. My son took a ton of unofficial visits and only one official visit, to a school where he had been committed for about six months. The unofficial visits really made it much easier for him to make a decision on where he wanted to play and go to school.