<p>she is junior swimmer, with AI ~216, and winter national swimming times. she emailed 2 ivies and there were some replies. She then wrote them back on her first SAT score(2070 ) but they did not write her back.</p>
<p>Does it mean that they are not interested on her anymore? She is preparing her AP tests now and did not have time to contact other coaches. She plans to write to more schools after she takes ACT 06/14. Will it be too late?</p>
<p>what should she do? neither my family nor the swimming club has no experience on athletic recruiting process. </p>
<p>She can email them again, but, yes, they are likely not interested. My son contacted a bunch of coaches for swimming and got about a 50% return. He was particularly miffed at one school that totally ignored him, as he felt he fit the niche well with his time and strokes. By pure accident he found out that they had already signed on someone else who was transferring from another school as redshirt. Another school had international prospect and they weren’t interested either. The ones who were kept close contact with him, and where he went, the coach was instrumental in his acceptance.</p>
<p>No. It’s been some years, LOL. Good luck to you. He was barely national times, so it Ivies and top swim D-3 schools. Two ivies recruited him, one he applied to did not. GOt into the one not recruited as one Ivy, Dartmouth dropped the swim program that year, only to resurrect it the next, and the other, the coach left for James Madison, and never told anyone. The new coach had his own recruits so that was the end of that. That was at Brown. He got into Cornell, and BC even though the coaches were not interested. It was a harrowing experience. People think athletes have it made. They’ve never gone through the process. It’s nerve wrenching.</p>
<p>Depending on the school’s division, the coach cannot make direct contact until the summer after junior year. The coach can answer a phone call, but can’t return one. Does she have a coach or club that can make contact?</p>
<p>Contact other schools. Just keep after them.</p>
<p>A general rule of thumb for a swimmer of your D caliber is that you need to contact 20 schools, will get 10 coach responses and hopefully 4-5 official visits. Recruiting is a delicate dance between your D, your target schools’ coaches, and the other 100 girls they are recruiting as well. Each college swim coach in the talent pool you are talking about gets 100-200 emails from interested swimmers. They have to decide of those emailing them, who they want to talk to further. You need to think in terms of the following:
Your D is a treasured recruit until a faster one comes along
If your D is an excellent student too, its table stakes–there’s a lot of smart swimmers out there
Timing counts. You should absolutely not wait until after the June ACT to send out emails. If that’s your only choice, then it is very late, and you will need to scramble. July 1 is the first contact period for coaches to call–and they will have their lists finalized and prioritized in June. Each email–introductory–is basically the same. Learn to carefullly cut and paste (and double check accuracy) and send 1 or 2 a day to coaches. Make a list, check it off when she sent her first email, and then track correspondence with each coach. Make a file folder on your email account to keep everything sent to you.
Note that if your D is a sprinter she is much more valuable to a team than a long distance swimmer. Sprinters compete individually and on relays, scoring more team points.
Go to collegeswimming.com and cross reference her talent level with 15-20 schools that meet her academic, athletic and college major aspirations, and have her email each of the coach contacts.
Persistence is key. Don’t assume that lack of response is lack of interest. Things happen, coaches get busy, coaches change jobs. Keep at it. Update them via email. When we did unofficial visits to our target schools, often coaches would say “I get 100-200 emails from recruits a week, its impossible to keep up, the persistent ones were those we became interested in ultimately.” </p>
<p>Its not too late, but if you wait until mid-June you are setting yourself up for a challenging summer. It sounds like she does not have Jr Nats cuts, therefore will not have that chance to do meet/greet meetings with coaches after the Junior National meet. That meet is a recruiting spotlight for most colleges. She will have to email routinely and if possible, go do unofficial visits to her top five schools prior to July 1. </p>
<p>This will not “fall into your lap.” She will have to work very hard to get traction and interest from colleges. Think about NESCACs, or lower D1 competitive schools too while pursuing the Ivy League schools. </p>
<p>Best of luck. This is a very fluid, challenging process, but it can be successfully completed. </p>
<p>I would have her attempt to contact more schools before she takes the ACT. Have her cast a wide net and email and fill out a recruit information form for all of the Ivies. As I see it her problem is not her test scores and grades but her swim times (and they are probably OK for some of the Ivies). NCSA Jr. Nationals this spring was a very fast meet (several national age group records were broken at this meet) and this may have an impact on Ivy League recruiting. I would also contact the UAA schools including Emory, Wash U, and Chicago as well as Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>Any of these schools that are interested should be asking for transcripts and test scores soon for the academic pre reads which occur in June and July. She should ask the coaches which meets they are planning on attend this summer. Most Ivy coaches will be attending USA Swimming Jr. Nationals and I suspect many will be attending the NCSA Jr. Nationals the following week. She should try to attend at least one of these meets this summer. </p>
<p>swim4school and others gave you great advice. One of my children was recruited by all eight Ivy’s - eventually. A couple of the faster programs showed interest immediately. Other schools where she would have been one of their best swimmers didn’t respond to the first couple of emails. Recognize that some coaches are more organized and handle recruiting more effectively than others. Keep sending updates when you have new information to share and don’t get discouraged or take ignored emails personally. </p>
<p>A swimmer with multiple winter national cuts is recruitable at most Ivy’s. How much interest there is will depend on what events your daughter swims and individual team needs. Someone who swims the 50, 100 and 200 free will be in more demand because of relays than someone with similar abilities that swims distance events.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your advice and tips. I really appreciate.
She is sprinter, her best events are 100BK, 200BK, 100FLY. Due to the heavy course load, 4AP and 2H this year, she is not able to go to winter national or NCSA Jr. Nationals. She will swimming 4 events on the grand prix at Santa Clara on June.
I have created an account at colllegswimming for her and have found it very useful. Here is a button called “ how do I fit” ( to school). It places you to the school team according to your best time. What position (e.g top 3, middle or lower half) on the roster will considered to be a good fit for the team. </p>
<p>Sorry I have been busy and just got chance to reply. </p>
<p>I also have question on the Unofficial school visit</p>
<p>How much of benefit one may gain from the Unofficial school visit? I heard no official visit (or not financially supported) for D3 school visits anyway, shall she visit some D3 schools on August? </p>
<p>or shall she pay Unofficial school visit to all schools she is interested? </p>
<p>She is taking 6 AP on senior year and cannot afford to miss too many days of school. </p>
<p>Your daughter should let her target schools know that she will be competing at Santa Clara. After the meet is over update the same teams with results. Hopefully, the calls will start in early July. If your daughter qualifies for summer juniors or seniors, make sure that she attends. It is a great way to meet coaches. Basically, its speed recruiting with athletes and coaches spending modest amounts of time together before moving on to the next conversation. </p>
<p>Although I don’t know of any D3 swim teams that pay for transportation, that doesn’t mean that they don’t offer recruiting trips. There are several excellent excellent D3 schools with great teams and outstanding coaches. Although none rival the best D1 teams, several D3 teams have better facilities and higher caliber athletes than many D1 programs. </p>
<p>My daughter had a couple of unofficial visits early in the recruiting process. Unless your child can get in on her own, she she be trying to get invitations for OV’s. Although it can happen in exceptional circumstances, it is very unlikely that a swimmer who was not invited for junior day and/or an OV will be offered a coach’s full support. Although you are allowed five D1 and an unlimited number for D3, I believe most swimmers are ready to stop at less than five. </p>
<p>thank you for your input, hangNthere. ( btw, I love your name)
I will make sure my daughter notify her target schools for the Grand Prix meet.
We did get some invitation on Junior days from the general admission but not from the swimming coach specifically, but again due to her busy schedule, she was not able to go. .I guess now we have to wait for the OV invitation. </p>
<p>To answer the question on which ivies. she wrote Columbia and Princeton University. there were some communications but then there was none. </p>
<p>I am going to contribute the bit I know about this process…my d did mostly NESCAC recruiting two years ago and she’s not as fast as your d (she just missed juniors) but I wanted to say that first of all, unofficial visits were extremely helpful to her and if you can do a few this summer before things heat up, it’s a good idea. My d had some really surprising reactions to some of the schools we thought were a good fit. Sometimes it was the coach, sometimes the training plan, sometimes the administration of the school and how they handled recruits. It’s just good to have that info before the formal invitations come.</p>
<p>Second, the havoc wreaked on d’s schedule by the OV season was just awful. I would suggest not doing all the visits. Trying to make up missed practices while on the OV was so stressful, and trying to get all your schoolwork done and making up exams–ugh. So again, try to narrow down the options by exploring as much as you can ahead of time.</p>
<p>Third, about the Ivies and communication–some coaches are better at recruiting than others. I think the advice you’ve gotten is spot-on. We’ve had some really strange interactions with coaches…sometimes they are emailing and sound so eager, and then after a few exchanges they go silent. One coach sent my kid a list of criteria that was just false…I’m pretty sure no one on the current roster ever got recruited with those times! They were way too “optimistic” for this team. Another coach pursued my d, then left his job, so when d paid an unofficial visit she was introduced to a different coach who was clearly not interested. It was good that d made that visit because she crossed that school off her list. And then come to find that the sprinter they DID recruit was not as fast as my d, lol.</p>
<p>Good luck, I think your d is in a great position to do well! Exciting times for you!</p>
<p>I SO agree about narrowing your list sooner rather than later. DS had 11 schools on his list, and that was just too many schools and coaches to “juggle.” </p>
<p>I also agree that some coaches are just strange! Most were very nice, though. It was hard for DS to tell ANY of them no.</p>
<p>The school that I liked the best offered DS a full-tuition scholarship, but he was turned off during his visit. There was a big party off-campus, and most of the runners were drinking. DS just could not comprehend why athletes would do that. The athletes at the other schools didn’t drink, at least around him!</p>
<p>The whole process was fascinating - we visited D1 and D3 schools. Everything from tiny (1,000 students) to huge (UT-Austin at 50,000). UT had treadmills IN the swimming pool with big-screen TVs the kids could watch while running.</p>
<p>And after all that, DS got injured his senior year in HS and never ran again. So life throws you curve balls sometimes! </p>
<p>Narrow the list by fall, so that the “break up” phone calls are not so time consuming and AWKWARD! And dont get pressured into verballing…it’s awful when you do and then find out your real #1s scholarship offer was not their best and final!! Scholarship negotiating is like buying a used car…gotta kick the tires, hem and haw, and realize you are not getting the best deal if you agree too early. Of course, that is dependent on your athletes skill set, and their predicted impact on the team…</p>
<p>@shellz "…negotiating is like buying a used car…gotta kick the tires, hem and haw, and realize you are not getting the best deal if you agree too early. Of course, that is dependent on your athletes skill set, and their predicted impact on the team… "</p>
<p>True, but at some programs you’re going to feel like the buyer, and at some you’ll feel like the seller. </p>
<p>All excellent advice above and would only add that I assume you know that the Ivy schools don’t offer athletic scholarships - only merit or need based or whatever? (We didn’t know this until we went on a campus tour - duh!)
It’s early and I would say your D is an excellent recruit for some schools. The coaches are going for the ‘big guns’ if they can get them, so they’re doing their own net casting as NCAA rules permit. I would not panic if it’s kind of quiet right now. It will pick up this summer.
But there does need to be a strategy too - swimming or academics as priority? Ivy absolutely or other universities? We’ve reminded our D she is one major injury from not swimming - be in love with the place you go to school. Best wishes on this journey!</p>
<p>@varska…absolutely. We focused first and foremost on schools that our kids wanted to study at, then schools where there athletic profile was at the higher end of the spectrum. </p>
<p>One more point which was helpful in our experience was to apply to schools which competed in the same athletic conference. It drove up their desirability, and put us in a better position to negotiate. Again, that only works if your child actually wants to go to these schools. I would never suggest going to a school for just the athletics as it is too risky. </p>
<p>Lastly, D1 athletics is a job, which interferes with a lot. My kids could not study abroad, or take spring breaks due to training. More sacrifices were made on a smaller scale, which in isolation were no big deal, but cumulatively they were quite a lot to endure. Sometimes they wish they had gone to one of the D 3s that wanted them and had a more “normal” experience. National championships have softened the blow, a little , but again if they could do it over I think they might have chosen differently. YMMV.</p>
<p>Unofficial visits are THE MOST IMPORTANT visit you can do. If you can afford the finances and the time, they are what will absolutely show the coach your interest level and investment. Call/email ahead, let the coach know you are coming, and visit. My D received both scholarship offers from D1 and admissions offers from IVYs on unofficials.</p>