@sunnyschool
Oh I have no doubt some kids who excel get some attention but until you have that likely letter in hand fall of your senior year of HS all you have is first an interest and then a contingent support based on an expectation that those stellar athletics continue AND academics are at the AI level tested by the academic pre-read by admissions. Those who garner interest as 9th graders will have to pass academic hurdles in order to progress to the next step.
@tonymom - I think you are naive. Those are commitment letters. Unless the kids screw up, they have a commitment to that university. Yes, either party can pull it…but, I have personally seen many kids getting those letters in early HS, or the summer before HS, and sure enough, gone to those universities. In fact, a few to Yale.
@sunnyschool, your comment on 3 kids already committed to Ivy League schools by 9th grade cannot be correct. The articles you cite pertain to early recruits to schools not in the Ivy League. If you read the Harvard Crimson article, the 6th paragraph says how recruiting is different for the Ivies and makes it challenging compared to other schools.
“The early commitment trend in certain Division I sports makes recruiting uniquely challenging for Ivy League coaches. It is an Ivy League principle that recruited student-athletes are academically representative of the student body, and our admissions offices alone make admissions decisions. Elsewhere in Division I, coaches may be able to promise roster spots to recruits with limited high school records; Ivy coaches, however, cannot. This is in keeping with a founding principle of the Ivy League: students-athletes should be admitted by the same process as all other students at our schools. In response to the pressure recruits experience earlier at other schools, Ivy coaches encourage athletes to give themselves the time to follow through with our admissions process and commit to supporting their application, but cannot offer admission. If a student decides to “commit” to an Ivy institution, it means that that school is their first choice. When a coach from an Ivy institution “commits” to a prospect, it means that the coach will support that student’s candidacy in the admissions process. Unlike their counterparts at other institutions, Ivy coaches must wait until October of the candidate’s senior year to get definitive word about an applicant’s acceptance. This notification takes place only after a student has submitted a complete application, which is reviewed by the Ivy school’s admissions staff. At Ivy schools, it is the admissions office alone that admits candidates.”
Also scroll almost to the end of the NYT article that has a couple of paragraphs on the Ivy League process.
"Ivy League colleges, which generally have the toughest standards for admission, generally avoid recruiting high school freshmen, but the programs do not stay out of the process altogether, according to coaches at the colleges, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the topic.
Two Ivy League coaches said they were generally able to look at players with a grade-point average above 3.7 and a score above 2,000 on the College Boards — out of 2,400 — much lower than the standard for nonathlete applicants. Ivy League coaches can put their recruits on a list of preferred candidates given to admissions officers, who in turn help the process along by telling coaches in the summer after an athlete’s junior year whether the player is likely to be admitted — months before other applicants find out."
My kids have gone through the recruiting process for Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth (the Ivies all follow the same rules). The coaches may look at you at camps/showcases/tournaments when you are in 9th grade, but Ivy League coaches cannot commit anything. All recruits have to be accepted by admissions. Coaches will submit transcripts, test scores and senior class schedule to admissions during the recruit’s junior year (summer before senior year) to get an early “read” on the recruit and they will tell the recruit if the read is positive. They will then be asked to “commit” to one school by applying through ED or SCEA, and will probably receive a “likely letter” prior to the official ED or SCEA decision. But a recruited Ivy League athlete is not 100% “in” until the acceptance letter comes. With respect to the 3 families, either their kids committed to schools that are not in the Ivy League or they have exaggerated comments of support or interest from an Ivy League coach, but it was in no way possible that it was a binding commitment.
Does anyone remember the article a year ago from the New York Post from an ex-Yale admissions officer?
(Forgive the fact I don’t know how to do the special quotey thing)
" And then there were the athletes. After fierce pressure from the athletic department, I had to admit a highly sought-after French Canadian hockey recruit. He had crappy grades, dismal scores, and his essay consisted of one sentence scribbled hastily in pencil: “I want to bée a great hockey player.” To add insult to injury, he decided to go to Boston University. "
So I don’t quite believe the coach who says “Admissions looks at athletes with the same discerning eye as other applicants. It doesn’t matter if I tell them a recruit is the next Derek Jeter; he will not gain admission unless they are convinced he belongs here.”
However, likewise, it’s impossible to believe a large portion of Yale students are so abysmally lacking in academic qualifications and merit.
@BKSquared Two of the schools are in the Ivy league, actually.
https://www.prepwellacademy.com/blog/10th-grade-lacrosse-player-commits-to-harvard
2020 Commits for Boys Lax (note Cornell and Princeton are listed):
https://recruitingrundown.com/commitment-center/2020-commitments/
Oh and I know a hockey player who committed to Cornell in 9th also.
Again a “commitment” is not an admission. You aren’t in until the fat lady sings or you have that likely letter in hand from the only people who count…Admissions Department.
Here’s the Girls - 2020 Recruits - all the Ivy Leagues seem to be represented on this HUGE list:
I’m aware that “commitment” is not an admission but they ARE being recruited in 8th, 9th grade! IE, they are getting recruited and getting on “commitment” lists before they have any HS academic record or college testing (ie PSAT, SAT, ACT, etc).
Many/most DO indeed get admitted to those colleges, and do attend these colleges.
The Ivy League doesn’t necessarily like the trend and as mentioned in one of the articles, they are trying to pass new rules on this. However, they ARE participating in this trend, as of now.
As I stated earlier, I know there are many legit reasons to have athletes at Yale or the other Ivies. But there exist probably equally many legit reasons to have debaters, musicians, dancers, or writers at Yale or the other Ivies as well. Why are/were athletes recruited this earlier, whereas debaters, musicians, dancers, or writers are/were not?
Agree with that @prof2dad , but the recruiting is crazy esp when done so young, before HS academics are even established.
@sunnyschool, you can choose to believe what you want to believe, but the process I described is based on personal knowledge having had one on one discussions with Ivy coaches and going through the process, not hearsay or some blogs/sites that have a dog in the hunt. Even looking at the sites you linked:
The Prepwell Academy piece is not factual, it is a hypothetical:
“[In this account, “Harvard” is used only to help illustrate the process]” It goes on further to say accurately:
“This so-called “commitment” is non-binding, not in writing, and unofficial.” I don’t doubt that highly sought after underclassman are “recruited” by Ivy coaches, but there is no binding commitment, either by the school or by the athlete.
On the Boy’s Lax list, they actually also list some Brown recruits. Note though that this site is a self reported commit list. Again I don’t doubt the boys listed are being seriously pursued by Brown, Cornell and Princeton, but there is no true commitment based on Ivy rules.
On the Girls Lax list, there is even a very specific disclaimer:
“These are unofficial lists of early signers, commitments, recruits, and walk-ons. Because a player is listed does not necessarily mean that s/he has signed a letter of intent or otherwise made a formal commitment to attend. Some recruits who are committed to a school may not yet have been accepted for admission.”
It may be just a matter of semantics of what you mean by “committed” but @tonymom’s (who I believe has a son who is a Yale athlete) comments are accurate, a recruited Ivy athlete is not “in” until he/she is accepted by admissions, and admissions has a unilateral right to say “no”. The coach will tell you after the early read, “everything looks good with admissions – there shouldn’t be an issue”. Based on past history and knowing their AI hurdles, they undoubtedly tell the underclassman something to the effect, “you are on the right track, you need to keep your gpa at xxx and we need an SAT/ACT score of at least XXX”. What parents and kids elect to hear and “report” to their friends and organizations is another story.
I agree it’s non-binding - I never said it was binding! I just said these kids are being recruited.
I personally know 3 girls in my son’s grade who have commitments. It’s more than being “on the right track”…they are being supported by the coach for admission to that university. And you can’t “commit” to more than one university or college, from what it appears.
And the Ivy league recognizes it is out of control and they are working on new rules.
There are entire websites dedicated to this process and they appear to be based on tangible information. And, the kids I know are indeed on the lists, showing as “committed” to the schools they told all their friends they are “committed” to.
As a parent of two recruited athletes (Princeton and Duke) I can attest to the accuracy of what @tonymom and @BKSquared are saying. In my kids’ sport the college coaches begin watching the prospects long before any of them have HS transcripts or SAT scores, and in many cases there is (usually permissible) communication between the parties long before the official recruiting eligibility period.
In our family’s case, communication began in sophomore year and was done in strict compliance with NCAA and Ivy League guidelines. In our first in person discussion with an Ivy League coach we were able to share very strong PSAT and SAT Subject Test scores and a very strong GPA through sophomore year. The coach was pleased because he knew this student was on a good track to admissibility and the coach also indicated that he’d had his eye on this prospect for some time.
Although there was no discussion of offers or commitments, I walked away from that meeting confident that an offer of support through admissions was extremely likely if my child decided to apply to this school. Sure, my child could have “verbally committed” to the school, but that commitment wouldn’t have been worth the paper it wasn’t printed on.
Similarly, any offer from the coach at that point would have been meaningless, because the coach was constrained by the terms of the Joint Statement for Candidates on Common Ivy Group Admission Procedure.
http://ivyserver.princeton.edu/ivy/downloads/manuals/Ivymanual2011-12%20copy.pdf
Those are the rules and it is how it works.
Everything isn’t always “what it appears”. I’ll take your beliefs one by one.
These commitments are meaningless. See above (Such communications given by coaches, whether orally or in writing, do not constitute binding institutional commitments.)
They aren’t, at least not now. A coach has no ability to support an applicant until, at the earliest, July 1st after the student’s junior year of HS.
Yes you can. If someone wants to tell eight different Ivy League coaches they intend to attend their college, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
@prof2dad “As I stated earlier, I know there are many legit reasons to have athletes at Yale or the other Ivies. But there exist probably equally many legit reasons to have debaters, musicians, dancers, or writers at Yale or the other Ivies as well. Why are/were athletes recruited this earlier, whereas debaters, musicians, dancers, or writers are/were not?”
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@sherpa - what sports do your 2 athletes play?
I think you should take it up with these websites then. IMO if it means nothing, then no one would be making a big deal of it…and they are. Enough that Ivy league wants to set new rules on early recruiting.
What would be interesting is to track how many on the Lax lists for 2019 and 2020 actually DO play for those schools as Freshmen in college. Hopefully someone is tracking that.
I read somewhere that 15% change from early commitments.
@sunnyschool - I think you might be conflating a few things here. @tonymom was talking specifically about Ivy League schools, which most definitely DO NOT issue commitment letters before October 1st of a student’s senior year. And when you talk about the Ivy Group proposing rule changes, please understand that they aren’t proposing the Ivy League change its rules; they’re asking the NCAA to restrict its early recruiting rules which are less restrictive than the Ivy rules.