East Cobb Academic Showcase

Thinking about this showcase (East Cobb Academic Showcase), mid June 2015, for my 2016.... has anyone attended and if so, what did you think? Looks like good number of academic schools attended last year but have not been able to find out anything else about the showcase. Thanks in advance!

Son attended the Fall version of this last November.  Didn't seem that well attended by coaches, or especially well run (though I have little to compare it to). Might have been because of it being the first time they'd done it in the fall.

Son was contacted by just one D3 school, though he's also a 2016 so maybe not on the typical D3 radar last fall. Other than a single kid sitting in the upper 80s, the pitching I saw was all topping out around 83-84, and son was a tick or two slower at that point.  He hadn't taken the ACT/SAT then, but would have been among the highest academically there based on grades and APs.

We're trying to decide if it's worth going this spring, vs saving up for a few other options.  Will probably depend on if we hear about more schools he's interested in attending (I think Emory may be the only one he's especially interested in at the moment that we know will be there).

Did you see on the website it lists the following schools attended in 2014?

College and Universities that attended in 2014
Columbia, Princeton, Wofford, Davidson, Tufts, Coast Guard, Dennison, Lee, Tusculum, Centre, Kennesaw St., Georgia St., Georgia College and State, Lagrange, Ohio Wesleyan, Oglethorpe, Maryville, Young Harris, Sewanee, Emory, Piedmont, Milsaps, George Washington, Montevallo, Covenant, Birmingham Southern, Berry, Morehouse, Rhodes, Harding, Washington and Lee, Presbyterian, Samford, Air Force, Bard, Presbyterian, and Mercer.

I suppose it is possible the majority of the schools listed attended in the summer and not in the fall (because the fall was a first time event) but your observation makes me wonder.  We recently heard about it from a Washington and Lee coach who said he would be there this summer so at least W&L will be there this summer....   

Approximately how many players attended in the fall? Why did you feel it was not as well run as it could be? Which schools did you see that attended the fall camp? Did the school coaches just observe or were they helping to run the camp?

Thanks so much - baseball gets pretty expensive at this point and no sense throwing away money....

There was a ton of standing around, especially for POs, when the games weren't going on.  That may be standard for these types of things, especially when there's only one field, I don't have a lot of experience here either.

The bullpens the POs threw were only observed by one or two coaches.  Again, that could be standard.  The actual pen they were in sucked, too, but I'm not sure there are any good pens at EC. They were also throwing two guys at a time in pens that weren't really big enough for it.

At a rough guess, there were 20ish scouts there for the games.  Most of them did seem attentive, and they were generally familiar with each other, for whatever that's worth. The only ones I know for sure were Covenant, Piedmont, Young Harris and Wofford.  This is the list they promoted (and the wording they used):

College and Universities Attending The Past Four Years: Air Force, Bard, Berry, BSC, Coast Guard, Covenant, Davidson, Denison, Emory, Furman, Georgia College, GA Highlands, GA State, George Washington, Harvard, Haverford, Hendrix, High Point, Kennesaw, LaFayette, LaGrange, Lipscomb, Maryville, Montevallo, Morehouse, Navy, NC Wesleyan, North Georgia, Oglethorpe, Ohio Wesleyan, Penn, Piedmont, Presbyterian, Princeton, Rhodes, Rochester, Rose-Hulman, Samford, Sewanee, Truett-McConnell, Tufts, USC Upstate, Washington & Lee, West GA, Wofford, Yale, Young Harris College

My son did it mostly for the experience of what it was like to attend one.  Now that we're closer to making some actual decisions, I'm not sure there are enough schools of interest on that list to make it worth doing for us relative to some of the other options.

Princeton told us last October that they plan to attend this showcase in June.

We spent a lot of time and money on "showcases"

Here is my two cents worth.

1.  Do a couple local things that are 100 or under to get the experience, and routine, factor in.

2.  Have someone locally with good credentials and non-bias give you an honest assessment of whether you son projects, D3, D1, Pro.

3.  If academics are your goal, I suggest Headfirst showcase. 

Its expensive (but no more than spending fees, travel, hotels and food for 2-3 others that aren't worth it).  Its well run, and the representation of the schools is legit.  They do basic combine stuff and all the schools observe each player in the age, on the field, so not much chance of being "missed".  They play around 4-6 games I believe with a group of scouts sitting in chairs behind a screen set up behind the catcher.  The one we attended was during a contact period and the coaches were not only approachable, the kids were encouraged to approach them, and each kid is given a book with a photo of each coach and a some details about them as well as somewhere to write notes. 

The quality of the schools was excellent.  I remember seeing about 100 schools of all shapes and sizes from small D3 to large D1 (including Princeton, Harvard, Vanderbuilt, Duke, Virginia, Navy, Westpoint, John Hopkins, MIT...You get the idea) 

My son as well as some of his teammates who attended this showcase last year will not be attending this year.  When my son attended, all players who did not play for East Cobb were separate from the East Cobb players.  Also, the guy who organized this showcase was constantly promoting his players to the scouts. It allowed my son to experience a showcase and what to expect.  This was just my observation.

FWIW, it's just one EC organization (Patriots, which is their academic teams apparently) that hosts the showcase and it's their players only who are handled separately.  My son plays for a different EC organization and was treated like any other non-Patriots player.

What type of GPA / SAT numbers would these schools be looking for? I assume the schools at Headfirst would be loking for similar numbers.

3.0 or 85% GPA is all they mention on the signup.  I'm not sure how much they're really paying attention to GPA, or maybe how much they trust self-reported scores, based on the conversations I overheard and the fact that no one contacted my son with regards to grades (his are legitimately very good).

jac,

Did you feel the showcase was worthwhile?  We are attending this year as there are a number of schools who previously attended that my 2016 has on his list.  Plus we plan to visit some schools on the trip.

Thanks!

My son won't be attending this year, but it also conflicts with another tournament he's in.  We're going to decide between a couple of other later showcases with a larger group of the schools he's interested in.

I don't really know what to think of this showcase overall.  My son's grades/scores are quite good, and he was competitive with most of the better pitchers who attended in the fall (I only recall one real standout), and he was only contacted by a single coach from that one. One teammate of his, a LHP who was better than him at the event, wasn't contacted at all, and neither were his other two teammates (both RHP sophomores, though, so that may have been why).

For most of these D3 it is still early for a 2016. D3's timelines are much different than the other divisions. For a 2016, most schools will start contacting 2016's this summer or even next fall. For your son Jac, you may not see the results of this camp until later in the year. Summer of Fall perhaps. 

Potential D3 players going to these camps so early gets players on the radar. It does not always mean they will be reaching out to contact after the camp.