college applications

cibaseball,
I hope someone has the answer as I have been asked this question myself.
I was wondering if online applications are just preliminary ones? Is that why there is no fee or question.
Help needed.

ci - my son applied to about five schools using online applications because they were free. There's no catch that I ever saw. I think it's easier for schools to process and it encourages students to apply. You'll still have to mail in the transcripts. My '05 son didn't commit until in February, so he went ahead and applied to several schools that showed interest in him with baseball and that he received the apps from, because we were scared to wait. We did wait on schools (with the exception of two) that had fees for applying. IMO, there's no reason not to apply to the freebies if you're not sure what direction he's going to go. Never really knew if the online apps coming to the kid had any definate baseball connection? Probably not - I think some schools are just using these more routinely.

In this day and age it is becoming more common to use on line applications--- go for it

By the way you should be applying now as if you were not a baseball player but a normal student--do not get left out in the cold

TR, you're absolutely right. My son is an '07 but we are starting the indepth research into all aspects of schools now, and the first question we ask is whether he would be at that school if he didn't play baseball. We figure that we needed that much time to find the right fit.

JohnLex7,
Excellent. The last thing you want to do is wait until your son's recruiting season to START researching schools and taking unofficial visits. It will be an emotional time and players (and parents!) don't often think clearly when schools start to pay attention! Better to have a well thought out list of schools that "fit" with and without baseball going into the process.

Thanks all for that info, son never applied (until after the NLI) so I had no idea.

John - You'll find next year that some colleges will come to school and that suddenly D will have applied to a school he's never talked about. Why? They get out of class!

Son didn't want to write all the application essays if he didn't need to, so he waited until he signed his NIL in Nov. and then applied (that way he only had to write one essay). I