Hello parents, our family is beginning to get our thoughts together regarding our son’s application to various boarding schools for admission in Fall 2019. Our son is a strong squash player and we think it may be an important factor in his application. He is interested more in the quality of a school’s academics and STEM program and less on how good the squash team is. Do we first submit an athletic inquiry form via the school websites? Does our son email squash coaches? We are touring several schools this summer - should he try and set up a quick visit with these coaches?
Also, should he wait until the March-April admissions/decisions period is over, and try his outreach later in April/May? We really appreciate any insights you may have. We are new to the process as he is our oldest child and we aren’t from New England so we don’t have that many families to reach out to. Thank you.
Welcome @Eager2Board !! Lots of folks here who can help and offer support. My child plays a different sport but here is our perspective on your initial questions.
Yes, yes, yes and yes are the short answers. In the email to the coaches your son can reference that he has already completed the online forms. Please tell your son not to feel discouraged if some of the coaches take a bit of time to respond as this isn’t always an indication of their interest. The coaches may coach other sports and almost certainly have other responsibilities on campus. I think that waiting until after April 10 is a wise move.
Good luck and feel free to visit us often!
ETA: Love your Golden–we have 2 ourselves. My kid would say that missing the dogs is the hardest part of going to boarding school!
Thank you @AppleNotFar for the advice and for taking the time to respond. Will duly follow your suggestions. (Was it the Golden photo that lured you into replying??? BTW, we are only looking at schools that have dog friendly dorms. Ha :)) )
Hi @Eager2Board, my son (current freshman) emailed coaches for his fall and spring sports in the fall that he was starting the application process (fall of his 8th grade year). Like @AppleNotFar said, different coaches react/respond differently – some responded immediately and some took longer; one came to a game to watch my son play; one didn’t respond by email but (unbeknownst to us) set up a one-on-one meeting on our interview/tour day. They were all very gracious. Boarding school coaches are typically also teachers, dorm parents, administrators and advisors (and may wear additional hats), so they are definitely busy. My son didn’t do any specific athletics inquiry forms (just the general admissions inquiries), but it seemed to work well that he got in touch around the time that he was setting up his interviews. If you can arrange interviews during squash season, you can take the opportunity to go and watch the teams play. Good luck to you!
Reaching out to coaches is key. I would submit the athletic inquiry form and have your son email the coach directly. Unless the coach works in admissions, and some do, I would not wait to reach out. Coaches can definitely influence admissions but that influence is limited. DS1 was waitlisted everywhere his first admission cycle. The coach at one school was so upset by the waitlist as he had thrown his full support behind DS1 (Straight A student, low 90s SSAT overall, etc). DS1 reapplied next year got it but ended up enrolling somewhere else. If your son ever competes near a school of interest I would let the coach know. Several coaches came and watched DS1 and DD play, they always hung out to chat after the games, they like to see not only how a prospective student plays but how they communicate etc. One coach, at the school where DS1 actually enrolled, invited him back to sit on the sidelines with the team for a playoff game.
I agree with RedSox. The coaches we reached out to, who invited us to come practice with and sit on the bench during games with, both advocated for our child, I believe.
Also, have you checked out Mercersburg? Their squash facility is amazing. 
A coach may have admissions pull but I would say that if squash is important to your son, he should reach out regardless and get a sense of how that part of his life will look at any BS he is considering. While academics should come first, he should apply to schools where the squash program is a good fit for him as well. No need to compromise on that.
What schools are you looking at?
@cababe97 I’ll be honest, and I am truly a little embarrassed to say this, we have only looked at the “10 most well known boarding schools” so far. The only one of these whose campus we haven’t set foot on is Lawrenceville.
That mindset may change.
@hellomaisy mentioned Mercersburg. Never considered it. Don’t know it. So I spent some time tonight looking at its website, and pictures of its campus, and reading about it. Whoa, I am definitely going to make sure my son inquires there and visits. Who knew it had so many Rhodes Scholars among its alumni, to name but a few positive things I learned about it.
In another thread someone very recently published a dated college matriculation ranking of boarding schools. I had a visceral reaction to it and realized our family was falling into the same trap of “ranking” based merely on reknown and matriculation stats that involve many, many factors not necessarily directly linked to the quality of the education at a given school. As a family I am going to try and push us to explore and widen our horizons and look at a bunch of schools. AOF, Hill, M’burg, Peddie and many others. We have to start doing a better job of research and digging for info.
Our bad - we hadn’t considered many other schools before and I think we should be more open minded. Plus, our son has to “cast a wider net”.
Good night everyone.
I think that doing research on more schools is well worth the effort! Regardless of where your son ends up applying and going to school, your family will benefit from having a better understanding of all the wonderful options that are available. We found that the search process itself helped AppleKid refine what was most desirable in a school.
Also, I agree with @gardenstategal about not compromising on the athletic aspect. AppleKid primarily wanted to go to BS for reasons unrelated to athletics (like EagerKid), but in the end decided that the athletic aspect was still quite important. With a year and a half in, I can say that AK found a good balance of all the factors.
About coaches and teams (warning–lots of double negatives ahead): Our kid decided not to finish an application to a school we thought was otherwise very good because interactions with the coach had not been particularly positive. Our kid also decided against attending another very good school because the team environment wasn’t a match. DH and I supported these decisions as we believe that not clicking with a coach or a team is a valid reason for not wanting to go to a particular school. But we do not think the reverse is true. In other words, we discouraged our child from picking a school simply because of the coach and/or the team. The reality is that coaches move, or go on sabbatical, the composition of the team changes a bit each year, and your kid may decide not to pursue the sport in favor of some other interest, or they may get injured. We created the alien abduction scenario for just this purpose: “If aliens came down today and abducted all the boarding school coaches in your sport, or all the teams, which schools would you still want to attend? Which one would you want to attend the most?”. >-)
(Regarding our mutual love of dogs, I recommend checking out “A Dog’s View of Deerfield” on YouTube. And also search for “Dogs of Andover” on SmugMug—yes, shameless plug.)
The extent to which squash is an important factor in your son’s admission is partially dependent on how important squash is to the schools to which he applies. I suggest you look at the schools that have had winning records over the last 5 or so years at the U.S. High School Team Squash Championships. This will give you some sense of the strong squash programs. Focusing on the “10 most well-known boarding schools” may not be optimal if you want squash to play an important factor in his admission.
Before your son begins his outreach, he should have a sense of why a particular school is appealing to him including, but not limited to, a strong squash program. Are there specific academic strengths of the school that appeal to him? Other strong sports teams he’d like to play on? A good chorus? He doesn’t have to have it all locked down at this point but he has to be credible when engaging a coach who is likely a teacher.
Your son should realize that the initial outreach may be the beginning a long relationship that brings with it certain responsibilities - tracking the team on social media, providing the coach with regular updates on school and sports related progress, attending selected matches, perhaps even a major tournament, keeping them updated on visits to the school, etc. The more schools you apply to, the more onerous the chore. Doing this right is not for the faint of heart.
All coaches will tell you they have little or no influence on admissions. I think this is largely true. However, an applicant who is able to establish and sustain a relationship over many months and that shows genuine interest in a sport and a school will not go unnoticed. Know that every correspondence and interaction is likely to go in your son’s application file.
Finally, open the aperture. Look outside the narrow purview of many on this site. There are many very fine schools, outside of the “10 most well-known boarding schools” where squash can help your son gain admission.
And remember, athletes are seldom recruited to boarding schools, but athletes often recruit themselves.
“All coaches will tell you they have little or no influence on admissions.”
In our experience with another niche sport, this was not the case at all.
But GreenIndian’s assertion that “The extent to which [INSERT SPORT/ACTIVITY] is an important factor in your son’s admission is partially dependent on how important [INSERT SPORT/ACTIVITY] is to the schools to which he applies.” was borne out in our experience. In fact, I’d delete the word “partially”. If your kid is an impact player in a sport that’s important to that school…that’s a very good thing.