Aug. 1….. Tips

Make sure that you and your son visit the campus of every school that offers if he is considering their offer. And visit while school is in session so you can evaluate the vibe, interact with students, and watch the baseball team practice. Scheduling a visit is a great way to buy a little time as most coaches are reluctant to be critical of a recruit that is doing his due diligence.

I will say this. Obviously you're going to want some time to discuss, visit, and run the numbers, but do not go in with the we'll see approach and plan on sitting on the offers in hopes that something better comes along.

Ideally there are no timeline with offers but do some research in advance in the event they only give you a few days/weeks.

Thanks, adbono. Seeing campuses is certainly something I’ve mentioned.

PABaseball-I’ve thought about that. Which may or may not put son in a bind. The schools with the coaching changes are still interested. At least that’s what we’re being told. How much interest? I don’t know that answer.

I’m hoping that this will be treated more like football where the coaches give the kids time. Especially since the communication has been shut off completely with the rule change. Some of the calls that may or may not come tomorrow will be with coaches that are new to their schools and haven’t had any contact with my son, or any other kid for that matter.

Both of the schools mine committed to gave them a deadline. The first had a week, the second had two.

The first school made the offer and then said take a few days to think about it. There was a pause and he shot me a glance as if to say what about the visits we have lined up in the next 10 days. The coach cut in and said something along the lines of there are plenty of kids who want to come here, you're in here right now because we want you. He said you emailed me telling me you wanted to come here, your coach kept calling me telling me how well you'd fit in here. He said I'll give you a week, but if you're not interested in coming here - what are you doing here? He said he wouldn't bring another player in for a visit while he gave him time, but after the week he would have to move on.

I never thought of it that way. It was a fair point.

The second gave him an open ended date. Then they called back and made it two weeks. They said if he was looking for better and he wasn't able to match their commitment to him he would be better off exploring those options. They also said they weren't interested in players who weren't interested in them. They were right, he was waiting for something better. While it did come it was very disappointing and showed they weren't all that invested in him. He listened to the offer, didn't even take the visit and ended up committing to the school that was more invested in him.

The schools with the open ended deadlines seemed like they knew he could do a bit better and didn't want to run him off with a deadline. Neither of them seemed excited about schools that gave open deadlines.

Double check that he understands the offers before ending the calls.

If percentage, how is it calculated? Percentage of Cost Of Attendance? Percentage of tuition? Flat dollar amount?

How many years? Is the offer the same for each year?

Also, make sure he keeps his ringer/vibrate on as much as possible today. And that he answers calls from unknown numbers.

Things are going to move fast, now. Good luck.

Excellent advice by the board.  Hopefully these 3 schools are his top 3 choices.  If so, I'd absolutely make plans to visit on your timetable and theirs.  See everything there is to see before making a decision.

As @MidAtlanticDad suggested things move fast at the offer stage.  Lots of different things can happen.   My son had an offer (no timeline) from a local D1 that had always been his dream school.   Enter another school that had exactly what he wanted to study, and invited him to their prospect camp.   Inadvertently, his travel coach told the local D1 that he was going away that weekend to attend another schools prospect camp.   Before he left for the prospect camp, he gets a call from the local D1 that he has 72 hours to decide on their offer.  Be careful what you say and who you say it to in confidence.  Lesson learned.

With these new rule changes, my conversations with bigger schools is that things will happen fast and guys who have never put deadlines on prospects are going to have to put deadlines now.  Everybody thought this was a good thing for players but I think it is horrible.  They guys made my sons offers in the past that I still stay in contact with said they will have to put deadlines now because they are pressed for time.  As has been said it could be 24 hours, 2 weeks or a month.  Some will say no deadline but the longer you take the less they think you are interested unless your son is one of the top 50 in the nation.

Consider it like dating.  If a guy asks a girl on a date and she says let me think about it for very long, he moves on because he assumes she is not interested.  But this is closer to the mindset of asking her to marry him in the old world.  Now it is like the show 90 days fiance.