Chico Escuela posted:I'm coming to this a little late, but my 2020 recently went through the HA recruiting mill (including at multiple NESCAC and Centennial schools), so I wanted to weigh in with a couple of general thoughts:
Cast a wide net. I agree that playing baseball in Maine has its drawbacks; but Colby, Bowdoin and Bates are terrific schools and your son may or may not end up with better options. A kid who is targeting the NESCAC presumably is a very good student; but very good students have a 10-15% chance of admission at these institutions without a baseball 'tip' from a coach. Coaches at these institutions typically only have a few tips available each year. And if your son is thinking HA D3, then let's face it: he is almost certainly not getting drafted. What goes on in the classroom/science lab means a lot more to his future than what happens on the baseball field.
The process is unpredictable. There were coaches who seemed very interested in my son who suddenly ghosted him late in the process. Some coaches never answered repeated emails, even though other schools in their conference that have much stronger baseball programs and academics made him an offer. Your son may have the entire NESCAC calling him, or maybe only a couple of schools--and you'll never really know why.
Focusing on just a few school is a high-risk strategy. Maybe your kid falls in love with a particular school but the coach won't support him with admissions. He can apply as a non-athlete, but even for great students, that is a roll of the dice (unless there is a building on campus named for your son's grandparents). If his first-choice school says "no," then getting near-certain admission as an athlete in a colder climate, or at a school that was 3rd on his list for other reasons, can look very appealing. If Bowdoin isn't a good fit, don't pursue it. But I don't think ruling it out because you think it's colder in Brunswick in March than in western Massachusetts, upstate NY or Vermont is a good strategy.
Finally, HS students don't really know what college is like, and don't necessarily have a good grasp of what they want. My son was focused on very small colleges (mainly because my wife and I encouraged that). Then, late in the process he announced that he only wanted to attend a larger university. When my son had this epiphany, there were only two schools that met his new criterion where he had been talking with coaches, and he essentially eliminated a bunch of others from consideration. Luckily things worked out and my son is going to what emerged as his first choice. But that was not a given. And it was possible partly because he had thought broadly about potential schools.
Absolutely true re. trying to get into NESCAC without a preferred slot from the coach. These schools have a ton of sports rosters to fill and only have a total student population of about 2,000. When you start factoring in legacies, kids with deep pocketed parents, diversity students, there are not many spots left for the regular student (no matter how high the SAT or GPA).