<p>Scholar athlete daughter is very concerned about her chances:
GPA freshmen 83.5
GPA sophmore 86.5
GPA Junior 90.5
Very competitive eastern prep school
Between 2000-2100 SAT
SAT II between 650-700
AP's, all the usual
Offered a Slot, Likely Letter
HYP
Helmet Sport</p>
<p>She is very concerned that her GPA not There and could hurt her ?</p>
<p>LAX? Prolly fine with those test scores and those grades at a “known” school. If she’s the best, she’s fine.It really depends who else is lookin’ to play at the school she wants.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I understand…if she was offered a Likely Letter, how is she concerned about her chances? Doesn’t that mean she’s as good as in?</p>
<p>Coach can say Will ask for a likely letter. Admissions grants it. As she is a junior, he has not asked most likely as likelies can only be given after october 1</p>
<p>Has the coach had a look at her current transcript and indicated it’s “good enough?” This still isn’t a guarantee, but coaches have a good idea of what their admissions departments will accept. Encourage your daughter to hang in there if she hasn’t taken her finals yet. She will need letters of rec from 2 teachers. It would be nice if she has a couple of junior year teachers in core subjects who would say she is a strong student who they anticipate will do just fine in college. She should write her essays promptly (this summer) and allow plenty of time for editing and review. There is probably someone at her school who can help with this. Her application will need to be complete in Sept/Oct. Doing a top-notch job on all the components will help her case.</p>
<p>Coach has said she would get a “likely letter” in Oct…since that comes from admissions , is not the coach only suggesting she would get one ,however it is not the the coach’s call ?</p>
<p>Thank you ,we will heed your advise…it sounds like you speak from experience.</p>
<p>charter, the coach will have a good idea of who can get admitted, but several things can happen that make this a little tenuous. One is that admissions will want to be sure that your daughter is an academic fit for the school. Each Ivy has a slightly different idea of what that is, and every year coaches are surprised by students they thought would be admitted but who are not. By admitted, in the case of an athlete, I mean offered a likely letter on condition that they will attend.</p>
<p>The other possibility is that other athletes will present themselves to the coach before the final recruit list is made. If your daughter is still in the top group, then no problem, but if she slips down the list, and more athletically-qualified athletes indicate they would accept admission, the likely letter may not be offered.</p>
<p>I don’t know how highly ranked your daughter is in her sport. The higher her national ranking, the less likely it is that another athlete will advance past her on the list.</p>
<p>For these reasons it would be good for your daughter to entertain calls from other coaches. She can be vague about her plans at this point and say she is very interested in attending a school in the Ivy league. Be sure that coaches within the league do talk to each other, so if she is asked the direct question about whether she has commited to school X, she should say something like: school X is her first choice, and she is hoping things work out with them, but she is also aware that she should keep options open until she is admitted to school X, and if things don’t work out there, she would be very pleased to attend other schools in the league.</p>
<p>Well said riverrunner. I couldn’t agree more.</p>
<p>Charter – Your daughter’s grades improved every year and likely letter support/slot was probably offered before end of junior year, which ended up being her best year academically. Additionally presume that LL support/slot was offered after knowing SATs. I really understand your daughter’s apprehension as mine has the exact same situation, but it seems to me that the LL remains likely. Still, as has been said here many times, until you have something, you have nothing. Riverrunner has so much good to say on these boards but as to continuing dialogue with other coaches my daughter was told that would not be cool.</p>
<p>Ah, but you really need to not burn your bridges til the letter is in hand. Sorry, but the coaches are casting a wide net at this point, and you need to keep your daughter’s best interests in mind. If she has worse grades next term, gets injured, or another, better player with better grades shows up, it can mean she is left holding the bag. The boards have some “sad tomatoes” every November.</p>
<p>Helmet sports at HYP and NESCAC swimming are different animals and the recruiting is pretty much done.</p>
<p>I think it’s a little premature to stop the dialog with other coaches. It’s only early June - no official visits have occurred, it’s doubtful that admissions has even given a pre-read yet.
Certainly she doesn’t want to mislead anyone - but keeping the lines of communication open at this point can’t hurt.</p>
<p>doubtful, curious about your comment about NESCAC swimming being pretty much done. Surprising that this is so with SAT/ACT results still coming in … Could you elaborate?</p>
<p>doubtful, why discontinue dialogue with other schools at this time ?</p>
<p>There are other posters promised LLs, not swimmers, who have been mislead. There is nothing wrong with keeping options open.</p>
<p>peonies – sorry for the confusion but I was implying that a lot of the recruiting for helmet sports at Ivies is done. I don’t know about NESCAC swimming other than from what I’ve read here and from kid’s friends and it sounds like it’s still definitely going on.
Charter and OBD, I’m not saying that the dialogue should be cut off and I know you’ve got nothing until you’ve got something, but upon “verballing” coach told my kid to feel free to announce it to the world and that there shouldn’t be attempts at ongoing recruiting with other schools. Everything written about my kid now says " so and so, who’s committed to such and such, scored three…" . So it’s out there and on various recruiting web sites and we imagine coaches look at these web sites and it seems strange to tell someone you’re interested in their school when it’s printed in several places that you’re committed to another. And the coaches are all pretty familiar with each other as well. They talk. I’m not saying we’re right and other approaches are wrong, bu I believe it will all work out for the best and this is how it’s working out for us – with some apprehension like you. Good luck.</p>
<p>^^^ I cannot emphasis enough the adage “until you’ve got something, you’ve got nothing” - truly, a coach can tell you anything they want, but the final word comes from the admissions office, and the strength of a recruit in a coach’s eyes can change overnight. You might have the strongest academics possible, but in terms of who the LL is requested for, the coach’s eyes are always open to other recruits that become available. Also, there is the possibility of numerous twists and turns in the process - from June 3rd to October 1st is a long time.
My daughter is very excited to have been recruited by, and committed to, an ivy, the #1 university in the country in her sport. However, it is not one of the ivies and others she was initially recruited by, and not the school she initially verballed with. Nothing is guaranteed until you have that LL in your hand.</p>
<p>doubtful, thanks for clarifying. Good luck to your student! And good luck to Charter, too! As others have pointed out, this process can vary so much from individual to individual, sport to sport, college to college. Even for an exceptional student athlete it can be stressful at times while also being rewarding. The advice about keeping options open to some degree at this point in the year, while also not being misleading to coaches, seems to be sound for many student athletes.</p>
<p>Amen, Mayhew. We all want to trust, and it would be so much simpler. But til you have the letter in hand, you have nothing-and believe me, the coaches are continually evaluating ALL their options til mid-October, so my advise is tell them “you’re my number one” but tell the others-“I’m interested if it doesn’t work out”. Or be coy and don’t commit.</p>