HA D3 prospect camps

I too have a 2024, and I can suggest ...

1. check the school's baseball website for a hyperlink to camps (you may need to check periodically for updates)
2. google "baseball camp" and the head coaches last name (you'll get hits on prior year events that you may be able to project forward to this coming year)
3. have your son email, call, DM or text the recruiting assistant coach and express interest, and ask the coaches to add your son to their camp announcement email distribution list

For the best access to the HA D3 in the Northeast, going to Showball is a must. That should be the top priority. All the coaches are there and engaged in meeting the players. Hopefully your son makes an impact on them. He then has a chance to meet the coaches first hand. If that goes well then he should zero in on a few of the schools and visit their team camps.

The best bang for buck is to go to ShowBall or Headfirst; tons of HAD3 coaches at both.  ShowBall typically has the HCoach attend.  The individual camps are early fall and full of hopeful players.  Very few recruited players come out of those late camps.  The Ivy camps are an exception; HAD3 coaches help to run the Ivy camps. Great place to be seen by the Ivy, and likes of GTown, Holy Cross, NESCACS, JHopkins etc.

As 2024's the HC's will look at emails this spring.  While your son's are preparing for HS spring season, start playing around with video for pitching, fielding, hitting.  It takes a while to get it refined.

In that email ask the HC specifically which showcases, camps or tourney's they'll be at.  You can work your schedule around that.  Your goal should be to find a way to be seen by them at least twice.  My son is at a NESCAC and he attended 2 ShowBall and 1 HeadFirst, and was fortunate to be seen by a few of the coaches at a few tournaments.

The HC's are just starting to work with the roster prepping for a March 3-5 start (at least ours is).  While the HC's are traveling they have the time to scan for emails and look at video.

Colleges like Amherst, JHopkins need a minimum of a 32 ACT to be supported by Coach for admissions.  Coach has to love your skill, then he needs the 32.  Most other NESCACs & similar HAD3's need a min 30-31, few need a 27-28....  This is a ball park from where it was 5 years ago.  So, your baseball skills have to be really needed, plus you need to know HC will have no issue supporting you thru admissions if liked.

Additionally, you'd be really surprised how good the players are.  A number of them were already being looked at by mid D1's in their area.  But the players were looking toward higher academic schools and thinking of the next 40 years vs 4.  Also, most were vying for Ivy's and had respectable skills to be considered, but they just missed the mark, or preferred a smaller cache high academic school experience.

Plenty of threads on this site talking to this topic.  Feel free to DM with any specific questions.  Good Luck

Edit: the guideline for ACT for HAD3 was the 25th percentile number.  It was 31 for son's school 5 years ago, just noticed it's now 32.....Kids are getting smarter and getting better at taking these exams.  Damn...Ask the HC

@mjd-dad posted:

3. have your son email, call, DM or text the recruiting assistant coach and express interest, and ask the coaches to add your son to their camp announcement email distribution list

This.  "Express interest" - send a full recruiting email with your information (and link to video), you are trying to get THEM interested in YOU!  You can do this now, or in late May (i.e. not in season).  Tell them where you're playing in the summer, which showcases you're attending, and ask them where you can get in front of them.  Most likely they will say "come to our camp," especially if they are interested.

My son sent emails in late May, went to one D3 summer camp (July), Headfirst (early August), and had some word of mouth interest.  All gave him options.

The Showball in Boston usually has the greatest showing of NE HAD3. If you haven't already, start figuring out what the minimum test scores are for the different schools he's interested in. Some are going to be 1350 and some will be 1520. If he's towards the high end of the range he can put that in his subject line.

Most coaches will be able to give you their showcase/camp schedule by late May or early June. Some D3's do prospect camps during the summer, but as mentioned above, most do them in the fall (if at all). From our experience, none of them required attending a camp to get an offer.

Most D3 coaches don't go to tournaments unless it is in their backyard. I'd recommend looking at the Prospect Select Boston Open in July. There were several D3 coaches tweeting from the event last year. It probably overlaps with WWBA in Atlanta though, which other than Emory will likely not have any D3 coaches watching.

@Gov posted:

The best bang for buck is to go to ShowBall ...

Additionally, you'd be really surprised how good the players are.  A number of them were already being looked at by low to mid D1's in their area.  But the players were looking toward higher academic schools and thinking of the next 40 years vs 4.  Also, most were vying for Ivy's and had respectable skills to be considered, but they just missed the mark, or preferred a smaller cache high academic school experience.

How good indeed. Having not been to one of these, I imagine there's a gamut of talent. Still, if the idea is to "stand out", have a gander at some of the video at Showball's twitter feed. While not a fan of social media or metrics in a vacuum, it may help in making better informed decisions, especially depending on whether your kiddo is a pitcher or position player.

My 2022 is at a HA D3 (not in the NE).  He sent his academic resume and video to coaches at schools he was interested in (even mild interest) about a week before Showball camp.  Some responded prior, but most minimally.  At camp he did well and MANY of those coaches responded to his email after camp.  I would wait to decide which college camps you want to attend until after you've had that post showcase response.  It will tell you at which schools your son matches their need.  We had a completely different list pre and post Showball camp.

Make sure to have the academic side of things in order before school lets out.  Unofficial transcripts, SAT/ACT score, CLASS RANK seemed to be huge to some of the schools my son talked to, include classes registered for senior year.

You will hear differing opinions on college camps. Some people found them very useful/important.  My son did not—Showball and Headfirst were where he was seen/recruited. There are some very good previous threads on this site that go into great detail about college camps.

There are a few schools/coaches that seem to only recruit players who go to their camps (Williams, for one).  And from personal experience, some coaches will eliminate you from consideration if you don’t go to their school camp when they suggest it.  (One school saw my son at Showball, expressed serious interest, but disappeared when he didn’t attend their August camp — even though we explained that the family had a non-refundable vacation out of the county planned for those dates).

It’s a strange process. You can generalize (IMO, Gov’s advice above is spot-on), but weird stuff happens and you never really know why coaches make the decisions they make, even after your son enrolls and starts playing for them.

Amazing advice, thanks all!  So much to take in here, I’m grateful for the time you took to share your words of experience. Incredibly helpful.

@SierraSol posted:

Hi all, I have a 2024 who is focused on HA D3s in the northeast. We’re looking to do several showcases this summer (HeadFirst and Showball) as well as club tournaments. Given that he has a short list of schools that are top of the list for academic interests, we want to prioritize prospect camps that those schools may hold this summer. Does anyone know when those might be posted by schools. I hate to sign him up for a showcase or tournament only to cancel later if it conflicts with a prospect camp at one of these schools. Thanks in advance for any pro tips!

If you are like most parents of a recruit, get ready to be "very schedule flexible" in the late summer and early fall for HA D3s.  Set your priorities and stick to them.  In our case my son  was over with travel baseball tournaments in July (WWBA).  He went to a handful of camps and HeadFirst in late July.  In our case (D1 HA and D3 HA targets), it was not one exposure strategy it was a combination of WWBA/HeadFirst/Camp that led to his #1 school offering him eventually.  Several teams (D1 HA) had seen him at WWBA or at his local high school.  He attended a few D1 camps, and gathered more interest.  Then he went to HeadFirst, and a few of the D1s that had seen him before at WWBA began seriously recruiting him and he received offers.  Two schools in the same conference had camps the same weekend in August.  He attended the one that best fit his major, and was able to reschedule the other school as a visit (not a camp) through admissions to include an interview and campus tour.  They provided the hotel, and we had to purchase a flight.   

We were constantly juggling calendar dates to visit the schools that were the best fit for him.  You're going to be constantly dealing with cancellations, conflicts, and shifting priorities with your son's list.   Coaches go from cold to hot or hot to cold in a nanosecond.   The best you can do is to get it all on a calendar based on the available information, and then deal with it.  We had a couple dates (HeadFirst) that we were not going to change for any reason.

Just my experience, and best of luck!