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Reply to "True Walk-ons"

Almost never.

When my son was a freshman, his school had its open tryout on the first official day of practice--after the practice.

By this time of the tryout, the recruited/returning players had been doing conditioning as a team and conducting captain-led practices for about a month. The team had already bonded. They already had their lockers. They already had all their practice gear. 

There was a page on the team website announcing the tryout and specifying all the paperwork that had to be submitted beforehand. Players wanting to try out had to look for that page.

The coaches barely paid attention as the 25 or 30 true walk ons warmed up in the outfield. A few pitchers got to throw a half dozen or so pitches in a bullpen. Nobody got to swing a bat. Nobody got to field a grounder. It was over in less than half an hour.

A player would have had to show something very special and unexpected to get noticed in that scenario. Nobody did. 

I think that's fairly typical.

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