Greetings,
Early in the process for us (2018). Just a curiosity question. Did your son end up playing at a college you had on your radar, or was it one that was completely out of the blue? Thanks!
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Not quite out of the blue...
In the fall of son's sophomore year, the college saw him play and sent a letter: "we saw you at such-and-such tournament and saw you make several key plays...keep in touch." He just added the school to his list of about 10-12 schools to send his info and baseball schedule to, not really thinking he could get in even with baseball, but hey, they said to keep in touch. After several unofficial visits to other schools, he got an offer to the school he is attending the summer after sophomore year.
Both of our sons ended up at schools they targeted early and heard from early. And they both let the school they ultimately landed at know they were very interested early.
It was a school from his original list of about fifty made soph year. It was a list of "we agree you have the potential to play there." It was not one of his top ten choices at that point.
My daughter played softball. Her school was one of the tops on her list. With a very specific major her choices were limited. The major was more important than continuing with softball. Fortunately she got to do both.
We were very diligent made a plan with a top 50 list early, worked it down to a top 25 then top 10 and the out of the blue his eventual school came in. Go figure.
My son will be at a school that he targeted from the beginning. On initial list of 30-40 schools that he contacted however they admitted later they didn't pay any attention to original email and only got interested after seeing him pitch. That may have been because original email went to RC not PC and as I recall went out as C/RHP. Will never know
One camp and one more pitching appearance and it was a done deal.
Son is a 2017. Honestly it all happened very fast. I would not have predicted the school he ended up committing to. But I believe it's the right fit for him. By 2019 I guess I'll know if it was the right decision !
Ohio Dad posted:Greetings,
Early in the process for us (2018). Just a curiosity question. Did your son end up playing at a college you had on your radar, or was it one that was completely out of the blue? Thanks!
I think this is a very good question because some of the answers may reveal who is better at marketing: parent's and players who do it only once or twice--or coaches who do it for a living.
The schools on my son's initial spreadsheet all fell by the wayside, mostly because they were only casually interested in him. All the offers he seriously considered were from schools that got on his radar through the initiative of coaches.
He signed with a school he never considered until a coach contacted him very late in the recruiting process--after my son thought he had narrowed his selection to his final two schools. One phone call overthrew my son's calculations and had us headed down the road to visit a school 8 hours away.
When my son transferred, he signed with another school that was not on his radar until the coach reached out, using my son's former travel coach as an intermediary.
Not to hijack the thread, but . . .
justbaseball said "Both of our sons ended up at schools they targeted early"
BOF said "We were very diligent made a plan with a top 50 list early"
backstopdad32 said "My son will be at a school that he targeted from the beginning."
So my question is: what is "early" or "the beginning"? I mean from the perspective of the player making a list and contacting colleges. The "Recruiting Timeline" here on HSBBW has that in Junior year, which seems late . . . but what do I know?
My son is a freshman at a D3. His school was on his radar early (sophomore year of HS), but only because it was obvious (in state school with a good academic fit and a long history of baseball success). He didn't give them much consideration until the D1 schools that he coveted did not covet him back.
As I recall my son sent his first batch of emails right before the summer of his rising sophomore year or after he had played varsity as a freshman. I would agree summer of Rising senior is now too late to start that process if you are striving for lots of D1 programs.
Early for me would have been end of sophomore year in HS for my son. He chose not to do that. Didn't want to think about college at all at that age. He finally began to truly think about it somewhere in middle of junior year and got serious at end of junior year. He was late to game but not terribly late. I know the trend is for recruiting earlier. BUT I think that is a select few in reality. The top 3-8 in a state unless you are in a hot bed like Florida, Texas, or California, then it might be top 20- 30? ( pure guess). I think for the majority of D1 and all of other levels, sometime in junior year or even D3, NAIA, JUCO -senior year in fall. The top 20 D1 schools and the top 200 kids in USA maybe that is late. For most others that I have experienced and seen. If you are D1 material you get noticed sometime in sophomore year or summer after, but it heats up junior year and gets confirmed with offers in summer after junior year.. That is just my opinion from the little I see in Ohio.
As far as my son. He ended up at a school that was originally in his top 20 but not top 10. He had dreams (like lots of kids) of playing for a big school. Wasn't meant to be for those initially top 10 but he not be happier with where he is
2019Dad posted:Not to hijack the thread, but . . .
justbaseball said "Both of our sons ended up at schools they targeted early"
BOF said "We were very diligent made a plan with a top 50 list early"
backstopdad32 said "My son will be at a school that he targeted from the beginning."
So my question is: what is "early" or "the beginning"? I mean from the perspective of the player making a list and contacting colleges. The "Recruiting Timeline" here on HSBBW has that in Junior year, which seems late . . . but what do I know?
That timeline was written several years ago. For top D1 prospects who mature early it may be entering freshman year of high school. For other D1 prospects it's post soph year. Most mid major D1 down to D3 players most likely won't be receiving offers until post junior year. But it's good to get exposure post soph year.
When players are recruited early it's not because of school ball. It's due to competing at top 16u and 18u showcases and tournaments where they can be seen and build reputations.
The key is recognizing your son's ability and potential upside. A lot of money has been wasted in the name of delusion.
My 2016 will be pitching next year at a D3 school that was added to his list when I made him get serious about a list during Jr year of school - to set up his plan for the summer between Jr year and Sr year. By "getting serious" I mean taking a list he had created Soph year and cutting it down to schools he was really interested in. His list included Northeast D1 schools and D3 academic schools. When he was shown little interest from his targeted D1 schools over the summer he switched focus to the D3 schools, including attending HF late summer. I don't think his school was on his list prior to the "getting serious" list he put together heading into last summer. They just happened to be the school that was most interested post Headfirst.
As a couple of posters mentioned - there are very few early commits in the Northeast and other parts of the country. 2016's timeline was pretty normal for the players we know and know of up here. Even the top players seem to get on schools radar via summer tournament/showcase play between soph/jr year and then commit the summer before Sr. year. The D1 commits happen over the summer and then those players who were on the D1/D3 bubble or thought they were on the bubble but were just D3 all along start shifting their focus to D3 schools as those schools ramp up recruiting late in the summer and at their Fall recruiting camps.
Early or late it doesn't matter. Everyone goes (commits) on their own timeline. Enjoy the process and don't get wrapped up in what others do.
Unless of course, you like the over recruiting schools that "herd" commits two to three years before they are even eligible to play their first college game. IMO, is everything that is wrong about college recruiting.
I can assure you, if you have a legit player, he will get an opportunity. We had a player that was patient and didn't commit until after his senior year of high school to Purdue.
Ohio Dad posted:Greetings,
Early in the process for us (2018). Just a curiosity question. Did your son end up playing at a college you had on your radar, or was it one that was completely out of the blue? Thanks!
I will claim a big swing and miss....yes out of the blue. Son had interest from schools within the same conference but had no idea what his eventual school was about, or could offer him. It was very much worth the effort of finding out.
Based on the responses (and thanks to everyone who chimed in) it sounds like the timeline for when a kid first makes a list -- first starts targeting schools -- maybe is now fall of sophomore year.
Thanks for the responses so far. Need to start making a list.
Ohio Dad posted:Greetings,
Early in the process for us (2018). Just a curiosity question. Did your son end up playing at a college you had on your radar, or was it one that was completely out of the blue? Thanks!
Of my two sons, only one had interest in college. The one that had interest started seriously thinking about college while in JH, but not for a specific college at that point. For some reason, as it didn't come from his parents, he emphasized that he wanted to go to a "D-1" school, and we (his parents) were good with that. When he was about to go to HS, we (his parents) decided to put in in a private prep-school since, due our experience with our older son, the local HS didn't seem to be a good choice for our son to help him achieve his goal. We were fortunate, as the timing was right where we could afford to do that.
It wasn't until his HS sophomore year that he actually started to get specific about which colleges he might like to go to. But he really had no clue as to which ones he might prefer. He was beginning to get some ideas through travel ball as his team would occasionally get a chance to play at a college (even a couple D-1's). Then, based on school's baseball reputation, he began to like those D-1's who were currently having a lot of success. It wasn't until his Jr. year when we were able to visit some of those schools that he figure out what criteria was important to him for a D-1 college. And he was working hard at HS to get a high GPA that he would have his best chance of getting what he would be happy with. In his Sr. year he was getting a LOT of interest from a lot of schools and there were quite a few he would simply ignore because he had absolutely no interest in them. He had prioritized his top 5 schools and had heard from all of them except his #1 of interest. He received offers from those top 5, again, except for not hearing anything at all from his #1 choice. He pretty much gave up on his #1 choice since he hadn't heard anything at all and it was mostly by chance that his Area Code team had practice on this school's field the weekend before the Area Code games started. The school's HC saw him in the practice warm up game and came to me and said he wanted to see me and my son in his office after the practice and make an offer. Well, when son got the offer, there was no hesitation in accepting and making the commitment and the rest is history. Son got to go to his "dream school". . . . though I, as his parent, really didn't think that was his best choice.
Son is playing at a school that was in his top 5 throughout recruiting journey. Not too much a surprise as he was focusing on specific high academic conferences. School may have followed him early but most of recruiting occurred junior year. Son doesn't remember telling me when he was around 11or 12, he talked about attending a school that a famous person went to, has a low acceptance rate, to play baseball and is close to home. Lo and behold..that's where he landed.
I had assumed son would look primarily at in-state options first, out-of-state public universities maybe, and probably not at all at private universities -- all based on expected net costs.
A strong private university took care of those concerns for us very quickly, and from there it didn't take long for son to fall in love with the place.
Injuries derailed the baseball career he'd hoped for. Many years later, he values the diploma he got quite a bit.
He did commit at a time that was quite early back then -- over the winter of his junior year in 2007. So the change from "not on the RADAR" to "sold!" happened really only over just a few short months.
He played for a college on his original list. (Short answer.)
On all family vacations from middle school we would make a point of visiting colleges. In the beginning, the results would be as expected, neither kid looked forward to the visits. Over time, each would begin to hone in on their interests and the visits got more productive. The real point was expose the kids to various types of schools - small, large, rural, urban, south, north, commuter, residential, etc., so that they wouldn't be intimidated by the upcoming process (S was an athlete, D's sport was, at the time, an NCAA emerging sport).
After ninth grade, academic performance became a bit more predictable and the college list building process began. That list then evolved into further versions as the baseball skills developed (S was a pretty small LHP in HS).
The school he chose was on the original list. But, we heard from lots of unexpected colleges (particularly D3s) during the process (primarily as a result of exposure at Stanford and Headfirst, which he attended both after soph and junior years) and he (and M and D) looked into every school which expressed interest and we were willing to explore the schools of which we were not familiar.
My son had a short list, only one school he was determined to attend. Realistically I always thought he would stay in state. He was good enough to play on any one of the big D1 programs in FL. But he discovered that someone else liked him better from the get go. We knew very little about that program and it took a year for the coaches to convince him. Knowing what I do now it was the right choice, his dream school really was not a good fit.
One thing to keep in mind, coaches recruit players, not the other way around. Sometimes you get lucky and your dream school offers, but that doesn't usually happen. Keep an open mind to all that are interested and don't worry, more than likely your son WILL KNOW who is sincere and who is not.
The school that my son will attend in the fall was always in his top 3 schools.
As Goosegg said, we visited colleges on vacations starting when his older brother was in 9th grade, so he had a good idea early on what he wanted academically.
For an elite academic D3 school, their interest in him was relatively early (January of junior year). The coach was in regular contact with him since that time, and my son recently cleared the admissions hurdle!
I think my son had someone looking over him, cause we made some mistakes for sure. He is where he belongs and that school was on his short list although they were not the 1st, 2nd or 3rd to offer. Funny how people you meet along the way can have a huge impact on outcomes.
My son will play in the fall where he thought he would play.
His mom and I had different (closer) schools in mind. 
When my son was twelve he wanted to play basketball and baseball for Duke. I busted that bubble by warning him he was going to grow up to be a 6'2" white kid.
Then from watching Vanderbilt webcasts (two players dads were former teammates) he wanted to be the next Ryan Flaherty at short.
Then when Louisville was in town he spent a game charting pitches behind the backstop with two players. So it was Louisville.
Then he got to high school. I told him it was time to get real between the best academic and baseball fit. He did have teammates play at Vanderbilt and Louisville. A neighbor played basketball at Duke.
Our story:
NTGson LHP had very specific D-3 school as target from middle school on. Not for baseball but for career for which he was passionate. Despite not being the "stud" in overall stature and build, he was fortunate from an early age on in having to tryout for any team only once. He was invited to play up constantly, including varsity summer ball as a rising 8th grader. Sometimes he had to ask us which uniform should he wear and for which team was he playing that day. He was a two-way player, predominantly a CFer. We had him participate in a local D-1 school's Showcase as a rising freshman in order to give him an idea of where he stood against legitimate high school players. That was an eye-opening experience for him, but he competed well and came away from the experience with confidence that he would be able to play high school ball and be a contributor. He started as a Freshman and has continued to contribute to this day.
As he grew in high school (we're one of those 5'8" Dads and 5'5" Moms) to 6'0" at 16 he was recruited to play for a nationally-renowned travel organization at 14U and stayed with it through 17U. His target school always stayed the same. We followed the advice so often given here: he reluctantly made a list, drafted his letter and contacted his target school along with another 10 or so in which he had some interest. As his performance improved, with some bumps along the way, more schools not on his list sent the "saw you play at....." letter. But he was dismissive of some very, very fine schools, thanked them for their interest while, in essence, saying to them, thanks but no thanks. We did take several unofficial visits to acclimate him to the process and assess the schools. Two local D-1s offered him and he was gracious in thanking them and told them that he would consider them. This was during his HS Junior year.
The kid is a 4.2GPA, 34ACT and one-time taker of SAT at 2100. He took the ACT's and SAT's in his Junior year. Dream school coach told him they were interested but hadn't been able to see him in person at 16U or 17U WWBA or Super 17's but would be at Long Island Showball. We went. They offered him on the spot: guaranteed acceptance to school which is extremely competitive for admission slots. In meantime, other mid-major D-1s were actively recruiting him. One D-1 saw him on the bump numerous times his 17U summer season (rising senior) against very good competition, sometimes at ungodly hours of the day or night. They were there, with the gun and clipboard. Their interest was obvious. They invited him to make unofficial visit at which they made very appealing offer. We did not force the issue, but the D-1 pressed somewhat for a decision so they could move on to their other recruits on their board. During that time he was visibly stressed. His Mom and I sat down with him and did the Pro v Con list on the two schools in which he was intensely interested, the D-3 and D-1, both of which offered the degree he wanted and the opportunity to pursue his chosen career path. He chose D-1 school, thanked not only the D-3 but also all the others who were contacting him to schedule official visits, etc. That took place in October of his senior year.
Ours seems to be a different kid than his teammates, two of whom have recently committed to very good D-3s. He was so focused on his career path to the exclusion of other schools that his Mom and I were concerned that he may overlook some great opportunities (including my Alma Mater). But his baseball skills, classwork and effort have paved his way toward meeting the goal he's expressed since middle school.
Well, I've got a funny story about this very question.
My wife is a Tarheel, and when my son was a youngster he used to like to tease her by rooting for Duke when the UNC/Duke basketball games were broadcast on the west coast. So it became a standing joke; she said he could go to any college he wanted as long as it wasn't Duke. This went on for several years, and in the 7th grade my son decided he wanted to play baseball for Duke.
So he found the coach's email on line, and wrote him telling of his interest and asking what he needed to do to play for him. The coach at the time, Hillier, actually wrote a nice email back to him. He seemed amused a 7th grader would write him.
As he went into high school and started thinking about recruiting, he forgot totally about the notion of playing for Duke. He wrote letters in his junior year to a few dozen programs, and Duke wasn't one of them.
He went to the Stanford Camp after his junior year. He returned, and a couple days later on July 1, the Duke recruiting coach called. (Totally different coaching staff - Hillier was long gone.) He had seem him play at Stanford, but could not approach him there because Duke was not there in an official capacity. A couple weeks later, they offered and he committed.
So, my son ended up playing for his original dream school AND it came out of the blue!
The new Duke coaches were very amused when Jeff told them about his email exchange with Hillier.
No, my son didn't end up playing where I thought he would. Initially, he had Utah, WSU, Oregon, OSU, ASU as places he wanted to play. Then, in the Fall of his Jr. Year, Air Force offered, and he accepted on the basis that he earned a 25 on the ACT. At the time, he only had a 24 with limited effort. After some time had passed, he decided that Air Force may not be a good fit, because he hadn't earned a 25 yet. In addition, if he did earn the 25, he would be at the bottom of the barrell Academic Wise. Since Air Force is such a demanding place, military obligations, schooling, and then baseball, he decided to reopen his recruitment. This changed everything! Several mid major D-1's jumped in, and a few Big 5 teams came to watch him pitch. However, it was late in the game, and the offers weren't what he was looking for. (Too Far From home, out of state tuition, etc.)
During his Jr. Fall, a somewhat local JC asked if he would commit to them, if he wasn't going D-1. He said yes, because he loved the PC. After decommitting and attending the U. Texas Camp, Jan. of Sr. Year, he had a bunch of major JC's call him. Ryan didn't flinch one bit, when he told each one that he was going to the local JC, because he wanted to play for the PC. Truthfully, it has worked out great, and he is having a great time where he is. Hopefully, he will reach his goal of moving on to a major program. This particular JC had been in contact with him since his Freshman year, and they never quit. I wouldn't have guessed in a million years he would end up there, and since there were some really good high academic offers on the table, I would have preferred that he did not go the JC route. I agonized over his dismissal of a few of the offers, but in the end, it was his choice. He felt strongly that a year or two of growth would put him where he wanted to be.
Out of the blue, and 10 hrs away. They came into the process late, but he loved the place and really liked the coaches, so we'll see.
Son ended up at a D1 40 miles from home. Sent them multiple emails starting his sophomore year....never one response of any kind...and never saw them at a summer tourney or HS game. July 1st of his junior year, RC calls at 4pm....says "we like what we see....come up for a visit". Set it up for a couple weeks later. Went to visit (1st and only real visit he took)....RC says "I want to see you throw one more time" Met him the next day in Cincinnati....son threw one inning, struck out 3 guys on 11 pitches. Coach emailed and asked son to call the next morning. Offer (and acceptance) over the phone and it was done! One offer, one visit....and he loves every minute of it so far.