NESCAC coaches aren’t supposed to offer verbals prior to 7/1 (don’t @ me, I know it happens), nor should they make an offer without an academic pre-read from admissions.
Until you have a green light from admissions and understand coach is offering full support I wouldn’t put much faith in it, even tho things could still work out.
Even when everything is in order it’s a long wait until mid-Dec when ED admission decisions are released.
My son usually got responses along the lines of “oh, those are great, there won’t be any problems” when he first submitted his scores to (non NESCAC) schools early in the recruiting process. As far as I can tell, that was all that was ever said about admission. He submitted his official scores and transcripts to admissions when asked, but if the coach passed along the official pre-read results it wasn’t worth passing the news on to his parents. Coaches develop a good feel for what it takes. I suspect they split their recruits into “no problem,” “see what admissions says,” and “no way” from experience and move forward accordingly. If a recruit is in the no problem bin, the coach might feel good about making an offer.
I think it makes a difference at NESCAC schools because, by agreement, they limit the number of spots the coaches get in admissions. Most other D3 schools (or D1 except Ivies, or D2) don’t limit the number and the admissions standards may not be as tough.
If a school in another conference wants to do a pre-read on March 1, it can. If it wants to allow the soccer coach to present 10 soccer players for admissions and admit them all, it can. The NCAA doesn’t place restrictions on admissions at any level, but does place restrictions on number or amount of scholarships. Since D3 doesn’t have scholarships, there just aren’t than many restrictions on D3 recruiting.
Did your D train with the college team during the OVs?
Couple schools want my D to train with them during the OV.
My daughter was scheduled to participate in the ‘Captain’s Practice’ during her OV at a D3, but it was cancelled because of weather. The D2 coach wanted them to workout together, but she couldn’t get the right waivers in place (team was new so there wasn’t a team on campus at the time of the visit).
Yeah, she had to sign waivers. “We are not responsible if your student dies during training.” Coaches were so nonchalant about the workout. “Bring your gear. You are going to workout
with the team.” So, this is the real id camp. I am pretty sure the other OV candidates will be playing.
this makes sense. i think that he falls into the “no problem” bucket, so the coach feels very confident that he can get him in. thank you.
D1 recruits can’t practice with the team and there are limits on what sort of training a coach can observe. The idea as I understand it is to prevent official visits from being treated as tryouts.
But recruits can train with team members when coach participation is limited, so a captains’ practice or similar. Or in a sport like track and field they can go out on a run with the team but a workout on the track with the coach running it and observing would be prohibited.
I don’t know about D2 and D3 but I imagine similar rules exist.
I’m sure the school has it all figured out so I wouldn’t worry too much. I mention it only to say that I think these sorts of things are usually more about giving the recruit a sense of the team, and potential future teammates a sense of the recruit.