With 2018 we've been in the middle of the high academic and Ivy recruiting process. If you have a 2019 understand that the timeline for Ivy recruiting has moved up: the Ivy's are identifying impact playing juniors now. If your 2019 junior has the academic strength and high level baseball skills where he would standout quickly, try to get him to a fall Ivy camp. There are still a few left; your son will have a chance to spend 2 days under the watchful eyes of all the coaches and possibly start developing a relationship. At a minimum, when your Junior shows up at the PG Fall Academic, or AZ Fall Junior Classic in Oct, or HF Jupiter in Nov, the Ivy coaches that saw him for 2 days in the fall will be paying attention to him if he stood out during the fall camp.
Off season of junior year: last big off season to get stronger and faster
These coaches are baseball guys first! They are looking for ball players with hopes they'll have the grades and min ACT scores to get through admissions. No C's, along with a 27-28 ACT can get a kid into Cornell, Brown, Columbia, Penn, or Dartmouth... Coaches will be more aggressive with kids they like early in the recruiting process.
Princeton HC stated point blank, at the recent Showball HC Camp that their timeline for identifying juniors is much earlier than in the prior year. If your kid has a few D1 tools, good grade transcripts thus far, and a desire to attend a top academic school like an Ivy, again, I'd suggest getting him to a fall and or winter camp so he can start to get noticed, then plan to attend the other showcases I mentioned above.
We didn't think the fall junior year camps were that big of a deal and chose to keep the net cast wide with all recruiting events. It was a mistake, we needed to blend a few larger showcases along with the individual camps of my sons highly targeted schools to increase his chances. If you are a Pitcher and wait for the winter camps you'll conflict with the arm having been shut down and needing the proper time to ramp back up. Also, bats will not be as primed as they were during the fall.
JMO with very recent experience. Looks like my 2018 is destined for a high academic D3, and that is still, a great thing, just not quite what my 2018 had originally hoped for.
(Excuse any grammar violations, rushing this before work....)
Cheers.
Edit: had to correct few mistakes, but messaging the same.