College Commitment

Congrats and best wishes!

hshuler posted:

Congrats and best wishes!

Thank you!

Awesome, congratulations!!  JC can be a great route.  Pay close attention to class transfer situations.  That can be the biggest drawback if you are not careful, sometimes even if you are.

Great news!  Good luck.

Congratulations, Wesley. For many students, JuCo offers some real advantages. Here are some highlights: less expensive, more baseball games and practices, more turnover (more opportunities to prove yourself), and lower admissions standards.

I have three pieces of advice for you. First, start planning for your junior year transfer today. Have a realistic idea about where you might transfer to, and understand the transfer rules for those schools. Second, find out where their recent graduates have gone to play baseball. You may want to look at those schools for yourself. Third, find out how many players tried out for the team last fall. Was it 40? 60? 90? You don't want to be surprised by the turn-out when you try out next fall. Good luck.

Congrats and keep working hard, especially the books!

MidAtlanticDad posted:

Congratulations, Wesley. For many students, JuCo offers some real advantages. Here are some highlights: less expensive, more baseball games and practices, more turnover (more opportunities to prove yourself), and lower admissions standards.

I have three pieces of advice for you. First, start planning for your junior year transfer today. Have a realistic idea about where you might transfer to, and understand the transfer rules for those schools. Second, find out where their recent graduates have gone to play baseball. You may want to look at those schools for yourself. Third, find out how many players tried out for the team last fall. Was it 40? 60? 90? You don't want to be surprised by the turn-out when you try out next fall. Good luck.

Thank you. I will start planning ahead of time for Junior year. I will look into where most recent grads went. Last Fall the coach said they have at most 40 guys try out, he keeps it at that and for the spring keeps 26 guys on the roster.

Congrats on the commitment! I’m no expert on the Juco experience, but my son just finished his first semester at a top Juco baseball school. He is in the middle of a 4-2-4 Transfer. He has signed an NLI to return to a D1 Program this fall. Over the holidays, we had a chance to talk a lot about his Juco experience. Here are my takeaways on his observations:

Overall, he (and I) are very pleased with the experience. He is glad he made the jump … The Juco program delivered on exactly what they said they would deliver: the opportunity to grow physically/mentally, improve as player, easy access to the classes he needed, and (most importantly to him) exposure to D1 Programs and MLB Scouts.

Having spent his Freshman year at a D1 4 year school, he said that while the academic demands were easier at the Juco, the baseball demands were much higher. As I’m sure you know, there are little or no limitations on Juco programs when it comes the number and length of their practices. In addition to 6:00 AM daily lifts, they had practices of 3-5 hours everyday. In fact, from mid-August through mid-November, they practiced 88 of 90 days! I’m guessing this isn’t the norm, but be prepared for that kind of demand.

As far as recruiting for the next level, after baseball talent, Academics was still at the top of the list. Coaches want kids that are academically solid. My son’s always been a good student, but one of the added benefits of the year at a Juco is that the D1 he is transferring to awards academic money to transfers solely based on the GPA from the Juco. He was able to take advantage and REALLY maximize his academic money at the D1. As far as transfer credit goes, CabbageDad is correct: You need to stay on top of it. It was helpful for my son to connect with academic advisors at his new D1 school early in the year. He was able to map out exactly which courses to take. Not sure this is the case at every Juco, but at my son’s, his scholarship covered all of his classes … as many as he wanted to take. He carried 18 credits in the Fall and has 17 credits this Spring. Not always easy, but this will keep him well ahead of pace to graduate in 4 years (important to Mom and Dad!).

One note of caution, the Juco he attends has dorms, and the baseball team lives together. As the “mature” Sophomore he is (lol) he noted there were a handful of Freshman, that weren’t able or willing to manage their academic, athletic and social demands adequately, and 5 of them did not return for the spring. His observation is that while the baseball dorm is fun, it's not a great place to develop time management skills and discipline … you need to bring those skills with you!  Again, Congrats and best of luck!

Congratulations and keep grinding!!!

COLefty posted:

Congrats on the commitment! I’m no expert on the Juco experience, but my son just finished his first semester at a top Juco baseball school. He is in the middle of a 4-2-4 Transfer. He has signed an NLI to return to a D1 Program this fall. Over the holidays, we had a chance to talk a lot about his Juco experience. Here are my takeaways on his observations:

Overall, he (and I) are very pleased with the experience. He is glad he made the jump … The Juco program delivered on exactly what they said they would deliver: the opportunity to grow physically/mentally, improve as player, easy access to the classes he needed, and (most importantly to him) exposure to D1 Programs and MLB Scouts.

Having spent his Freshman year at a D1 4 year school, he said that while the academic demands were easier at the Juco, the baseball demands were much higher. As I’m sure you know, there are little or no limitations on Juco programs when it comes the number and length of their practices. In addition to 6:00 AM daily lifts, they had practices of 3-5 hours everyday. In fact, from mid-August through mid-November, they practiced 88 of 90 days! I’m guessing this isn’t the norm, but be prepared for that kind of demand.

As far as recruiting for the next level, after baseball talent, Academics was still at the top of the list. Coaches want kids that are academically solid. My son’s always been a good student, but one of the added benefits of the year at a Juco is that the D1 he is transferring to awards academic money to transfers solely based on the GPA from the Juco. He was able to take advantage and REALLY maximize his academic money at the D1. As far as transfer credit goes, CabbageDad is correct: You need to stay on top of it. It was helpful for my son to connect with academic advisors at his new D1 school early in the year. He was able to map out exactly which courses to take. Not sure this is the case at every Juco, but at my son’s, his scholarship covered all of his classes … as many as he wanted to take. He carried 18 credits in the Fall and has 17 credits this Spring. Not always easy, but this will keep him well ahead of pace to graduate in 4 years (important to Mom and Dad!).

One note of caution, the Juco he attends has dorms, and the baseball team lives together. As the “mature” Sophomore he is (lol) he noted there were a handful of Freshman, that weren’t able or willing to manage their academic, athletic and social demands adequately, and 5 of them did not return for the spring. His observation is that while the baseball dorm is fun, it's not a great place to develop time management skills and discipline … you need to bring those skills with you!  Again, Congrats and best of luck!

Thank you for the reply! The JuCo program that your son attends sounds very good. What is most important to him, the D1 exposure and MLB Scouts exposure is also important to me. As for the recruiting for transfer for junior and senior year, academics are important and I am on top of it, have Mid Terms right now, took a break from studying to reply. As for scholarship, I have not gotten anything from the JuCo, but I will be looking into it when I transfer. As for the dorms, the JuCo I am attending does not have dorms or any sort of living so I will be renting a two-person apartment across the street from the college and hopefully get some one I know to come to the school with me and be a roommate. Any other advice?

 

 As for the dorms, the JuCo I am attending does not have dorms or any sort of living so I will be renting a two-person apartment across the street from the college and hopefully get some one I know to come to the school with me and be a roommate. Any other advice?

You may want to contact the coach to see if he might have some other players you can room with.  My son went the JuCo route and the coach was good about pairing up players who needed off campus housing.  The JuCo my son attended did not have any campus housing (very few do) but they did have good relations with several apartment complexes in the area.

Colefty gave some very good advise concerning transfer credits and the general baseball life at a JuCo.  My son was busy in the fall from the time he arrived on campus.  The fall semester is basically tryout time for the spring squad.  In his case, there were 50+ players (all but two recruited) competing for 35 roster spots.  In the fall they had practice 5-6 days a week (3-4 hours), lifts at 6 AM, with classes from 8 AM to about 2 PM.  Study hall was mandatory for freshman and those with a GPA under 2.5.  Skip study hall and  you would be running sprints for the entire practice.  The fall season was usually 15-20 games (about 10 doubleheaders) and for away games they typically only took 25 players (bus capacity).  If you didn't make the travel squad you stayed "home".

Once the spring season started it was 3 games every weekend (doubleheader on Saturday) with usually 1-2 mid week games so an average of 4-5 per week.  Schedule was 56 games (max allowed) with about 50 actually played.  Some that were cancelled due to weather were never made up.  Once the season started the only day off from baseball was Monday.  The rest of the week they were on the field every day whether it be practice or a game.

Anyway, congratulations on the commitment!

FWIW - my son received a scholarship to a D2 university following his sophomore year.  Breaking the school record for doubles in a season (24) and was ranked 2nd nationally among DII Juco players in that stat, and a .365 batting average helped a lot.

What COLEFTY said about academics is very important.  If you can maintain a 4.0 or so, many 4 year schools have very good academic transfer scholarships.  These, shouldn't count against what ever monies you get for athletics.