Thanks all for the posts. I'll post a few things we learned along the way and what my son went thorough that may be of help to others going through it. This will read like a stream of consciousness.
- Conversations with coaches once you've played in college seem a lot more straight forward than during recruiting for obvious reasons. There was much less "leading on" so to speak". For my son, many conversations were "we need to see what we lose in the draft" and "send us your top 3 preferred majors along with transcript".
- Good luck figuring out what credits will transfer. Sure we looked at majors, but besides a pre-read through admissions, they aren't digging in on your transfer credits, at least in my son's experience.
- Your kid likely isn't graduating in a normal 4 year window. I can't say for sure, but my guess is all credits won't transfer, so unless you're taking extra classes in the summer sessions, it may be difficult.
- Transfers don't seem to get as much merit aid. I posted about this before, but my son was getting 5 figure merit aid (3.5GPA 1290 SAT) at original school, barely getting anything now at a school with a 90% admission rate. Obviously this is specific to the institution, but in general it seems like transfer get less.
- Baseball money is still possible and more available then many believe. Again will be different for different situations, but not as scarce as many think.
- You can ask admissions for more money. This happens all the time for students having nothing to do with sports. It's a business, and if you show you have other offers they will work with you. Of course you may not get it.
- Depending on your kid, this may be the first failure he's had in baseball. It sucks. I have a a type A personality and grew very frustrated when I felt that my son was not moving fast enough to figure out what he was doing. Fortunately I had some good guidance that got me to relax a bit and reminded me how difficult it was for my son. This was not easy, and I regret some of my behavior during this time.
Some other details;
My son's velo was down a good part of the season. He had a very good slider, but was wild with 85-86mph fastball. In pens he was sitting 89-91. His freshman year he had Synery verified 94mph. When he went into the portal and posted on social media, he was very honest about current velo, schools were obviously concerned. The school he is committed to didn't have a lot of interest initially, but he told them he would be back up to 90-91 in a few weeks, and he was against live batters.
For us my son wants to coach when he's done. For us baseball is the most important thing. He'll graduate with a finance degree because that's a good degree to have in NYC when you don't know what else to major in, but staying involved in baseball is the ultimate goal.