JCG posted:MK,
It's great that it worked out well for your family, but based on few stories I've read here on HSBBW in public and private, as well as some local anecdotes from the non-digital world, your strategy carries some risk. If the coach fails to get the kid through admissions, then you're left to scramble to get other applications in, with or without baseball. If my 2017 up going that route, at the very least we'll have the other apps teed up.
I 100% agree with you - I left that part out. We were worried right up till he got the call from the coach and there were many here who helped me with my 1000s of questions at the time. It would have been a scramble for sure but he had time to get applications in and with the common app it's a little easier now. I did hear stories (directly here via PM) from people whose sons did not get in to their top choice after applying ED1.
We did have a list of several more schools (with baseball involved) where he could have applied regular decision and got in - at least in theory based on what I received from Admissions at those schools. He was not as interested in those schools for a variety of reasons (most of which were not baseball related).
None of it is easy, that's for sure.