My son did all this pre-covid. But, pre-reads were done to tell the coach whether a player would be admitted with coach support in Early Decision. Those usually consisted of a transcript+test score. Did your daughter's coaches do academic pre-reads? Did she apply RD with coach support with admissions, or just in the regular admissions pool?
@anotherparent posted:Did your daughter's coaches do academic pre-reads? Did she apply RD with coach support with admissions, or just in the regular admissions pool?
Yes, they did pre-reads. Yes, she applied RD. I assume there was some level of coach support (probably wasn't a huge lift with her grades and her curriculum) because the coach reached out to her to check-in about a week before decisions came out. Because she was an uncommitted RD applicant, we didn't really expressly request coach support. It didn't seem fair to ask for that without committing ourselves. But my daughter and the coach kept in touch through the process.
This is about a pitcher, so admittedly not the same recruiting dynamic as that of a position player. However, he's one of those kids with a less than stellar academic record who was still admitted to an HA school, one where the admit weighted median GPA is 3.9 (!) and 1440 avg SAT.
He is not that kind of student and his first year has been an academic struggle. BUT, he says he's happy there, he's getting by academically, and he's getting decent playing time and socially it's a good fit (ha ha).
He started with a list of 5 or 6 very HA schools that were academic reaches and peers of each other, as well as about 25 other HA schools that were not as competitive. A couple admissions offices from that list of six said no right away because his academics weren't rigorous enough. In retrospect, though, a high SAT (1400+) probably would have pushed his GPA/rigor over the bar at those schools.
But he purposely didn't submit an SAT score at first because his first score was low by HA standards. Then Covid hit, test dates were cancelled and local access to the exam disappeared. Double edged sword: good for him to not have take it but not good, at least theoretically, because he couldn't bolster his classwork with a good score (which he might have gotten if had to submit one; 1-1 tutoring on these exams works wonders.
The college he's attending came from that top list of 5-6 schools. Admissions there said okay on the condition that he switch to an AP course from an easier one for his senior schedule. The school didn't even need a grade, just needed to know that he was enrolled in extra one. So he did, and cleared a pre read and was admitted ED.
As has been often shared on the site, some schools allow coaches one or two admits a year who don't easily fit into the schools admissions profile. Son's school is one of them. Also good to know is that at some schools coaches trade their ED spots with coaches in other sports. For example, the baseball coach can trade some of his admits to the basketball guy, and the basketball guy will give them back the following year. So baseball may have 12 early admits one year and the next year they may have only 5.
Sorry for the late reply. Been running around adjusting to being a parent of a freshman college kid and dealing with a rising HS junior recruiting for another sport, thankfully not soccer...very minimal offense intended. I pretty much agree with everyone's feedback, especially Smoke's. My kid was a C/OF in HS and now an OF at a NE HA D3. He was a good HS student at a competitive private HS with a GPA in the low 90s and took the SAT and scored I believe was 1280? It was enough for most of the schools recruiting him include his current. There was one Quaker founded high academic college in the land of Poe that pretty much told him he needed to do much better with the SAT score to be considered. Thankfully he did not pursue this and as much as I want to be supportive, I don't believe he would be able to manage the academic rigor. He is a STEM major and is doing OK by his standards at his current school and I think he would he would be far below that if he attended that other school.
Anyway, his recruiting plan was always HA from D3, Patriot, Ivies etc. We live close enough to visit those schools that had "communicated" with him, i.e., from real direct or to his travel team contact to mass mailer camp invites. We started during his rising Junior year since our neck of the woods most schools were closed due the pandemic so it was easy to do walking tours. It was important to see the bricks and mortar. The kid was luke warm to this as most 15 year olds are generally wishy washy and abhor spending time with their parents. But he was bored with the lock down so he relented. These visits were huge in helping him decide as the facilities relative distance to the dorms/classes do matter! Even an hour saved from traveling each day between the facilities to the classroom makes a huge difference in their ability to do well in class. I am so happy that was a consideration for him back then.
Anyway, like any recruitment, the players skills determine the interest from the school. He was a very good but often injured player. He did keep in contact with his current school and was invited to their camp as a rising senior and did very well and was offered the following day. This school did have the ability to take a couple of academic unlikelys and several academic marginals. They did a preread, and he was told it was good enough to apply without their assistance. He had to apply ED, still irritates me as you really only have their silly estimator to tell you what you are going to foot. Sadly for me and I am sure for most folks it was very accurate. I probably bored everyone and sopped up a chunk of bandwith to post, so I am more than happy to share more details via PM. Good luck!
Great post! Fantastic insight; good luck to your son. He's off to a fine start!
I agree with Wechson's overall perspective. Yes, the HA D3 players are A LOT better right now than historically. HA D3 baseball has always been good but currently its great with the covid/extra eligibility trickle down. I read somewhere recently that nearly 60% of incoming '22 freshman in some D1 conferences were supplanted by transfers. Those "would be" freshman are now at D2 and D3 schools because they are really good. My son attends a HA D1 where the transfer players, some in their 6th year of college, are insanely good. As for HA D3 recruiting, my '22 had very good PBR metrics (103 EV, 1.91 pop, 7.03 60, 1550 SAT, played in D1 CA league) and he was ghosted by some HA D3s. Not to be discouraging but it's really tough right now. I agree with one poster's comments that evaluating your players passion for the game will definitely help move the process forward in the proper direction. Overall, I suggest expanding your search (my son had 30 schools on his "primary" list) to include HA D3s in the MidWest and work on improving the metrics. The latter can be fun and gratifying. My '22 absolutely loved working with his HS teammates on improving their performance. Metrics certainly aren't everything but with so much competition at all college levels it is essential that they be as high as possible. Best of luck to you and your family, I'll be rooting for you.
Depending on how high the academics are at the HAs he’s targeting, one more run at the SAT or ACT this summer might be good to squeeze in. He has a wonderful score, but for many of these schools it is well below the 25th percentile, and raising it would be one less reason to cross him off a coach’s list!
Hi all, it's been a while! I thought I'd follow up on this thread from last spring to share our experience, results, and recommendations for others with a similar profile to my son. I imagine that parents of this year's HS juniors are starting to make plans for the summer. So, I hope this is timely.
Review of key facts from the original post (more detail above in the previous posts in you want a deep dive): we live in Seattle, my son is a position player with stronger offensive skills than defensive skills, but he is a versatile defender (plays C and OF primarily), hits for average, rarely strikes out, developing power but has never hit one out. This context is intended to help the reader determine whether your player might be comparable. If your player is regularly hitting bombs, or is a pitcher, you can probably disregard the rest of my post.
We attended the following baseball recruiting events in the summer before senior year and fall of senior year: Showball (Boston); Headfirst (NY); school camp on campus at a NESCAC with approximately 100 players present; another school camp on campus at a different NESCAC with about 15-20 players present. We also visited several schools in person and visited with coaches separately from the events above.
If I had it to do over again, with a player of my son's caliber, I would not have done the Showball or Headfirst camps. Headfirst was a better experience than Showball, but neither camp really moved the needle on his recruitment. Sure, it was a cool experience. And I don't regret the time that we spent together. That was awesome. But looking at it from the perspective of offers yielded, they were both a waste of time and money. I've concluded that guys like him just aren't going to stand out in that setting.
The larger NESCAC camp felt like just as much of a cattle call as the two showcases. To the school's credit, the coaches were very transparent with us about him not being high on their list. But we went anyway because it was a dream school and thought "what the hell." We knew it was a long shot and, sure enough, nothing came of it.
The smaller NESCAC camp did yield an offered roster spot, which was very exciting for him. Part of me wishes that he had taken that offer, but he didn't.
He also got an offer from a MIAC school and ended up committing and applying ED there, where he was accepted back in December. (Applied without submitting test scores, BTW.)
Ultimately, he only had two* choices to play baseball, the MIAC school and the second NESCAC school. He liked both schools. Ultimately he went with the one where he had the longer visit. The MIAC school invited him to visit and spend the night with some guys on the team. He clearly had a great time and that was that. For what it's worth, the MIAC coach has never seen him play in person. Offer was made on video alone, which is kind of funny when you consider that we made four separate trips to the east coast to play in person for other coaches. And no, the MIAC school was not at either showcase.
*We cancelled plans to attend a Liberty League school's camp in October because he was satisfied with the two offers he had and was exhausted from all the travel.
He'll spend the summer training at Driveline and probably working at Chipotle. He's excited about next year. I'm happy for him and happy that my days of rooting for him on the field have not yet come to an end. Thanks to all of you for your input along the way. I do appreciate your advice even though I would do it differently next time.
@NotABaseballGuy posted:He'll spend the summer training at Driveline and probably working at Chipotle. He's excited about next year. I'm happy for him and happy that my days of rooting for him on the field have not yet come to an end. Thanks to all of you for your input along the way. I do appreciate your advice even though I would do it differently next time.
LOVE your closing paragraph! CONGRATS! All it takes is one and you had a choice which is awesome. We've been following your story closely, so THANK YOU for following up. It does feel like the whole HA process, for the well informed, might be changing. Your best post may have been the one which priced Showball per swing and detailed how few coaches were actually in the stands. THAT was a real eye opener. Your story rhymes holistically with other stories and tales of recent recruitment and has given families like ours the confidence and courage to forego money grabs like SB. If you dig deeply through the "best" performers at SB and see where they ultimately end up, you can see where finances may have been better deployed. Great video, a twitter acct , and a well connected travel coach (esp geographically) or smaller more cost effective regional camps can make subsequent cattle call college camps ultimately more useful and rewarding. We have family in MIAC land, and I will be PMing about your experiences as (at least) 2 schools are of interest to us currently. Thank you again for sharing. I imagine it's helpful even for pitchers for whom time and finances are tight.
I definitely wouldn't categorize SB as a money grab and it is WAY more valuable to HA coaches than spending money on video and twitter. The first SB my son attended there were 80+ coaches, the second 110. SB Boston last year was different because it was held at 2 different campuses and there were significant weather issues. If the player is not a standout, then yes, SB is not the right place to be. I'd say that is half or more of the kids there. If you are not a standout then your money is probably better spent with a paid recruiting firm like Play to Win or others. They can quickly identify whether a coach is interested and tell you whether a camp is going to be worth it.
Very few travel coaches are well-connected to D3 coaches unless they are in that specific region or maybe one of their players ended up at that specific D3. I watched several 2024's rely on their "connected" travel coaches for HA recruiting and ended up with nothing.
@TerribleBPthrower posted:If the player is not a standout, then yes, SB is not the right place to be. I'd say that is half or more of the kids there.
Exactly. And just to add some specificity, for position players I would define "standout" as "likely to hit one out during his 14 pitch BP." Because that's the only time everyone is watching.
@TerribleBPthrower posted:If you are not a standout then your money is probably better spent with a paid recruiting firm like Play to Win or others. They can quickly identify whether a coach is interested and tell you whether a camp is going to be worth it.
You're talking serious money at that point. I couldn't get my wife to sign off on that. So, we didn't go that route. And I'm not sure it's necessary, even for guys like my son who don't stand out. In the HA D3 space, my sense is that the coaches want to know that you are interested in them. Some of the camps are capped at 20 players. If you show up at one of those, you're sending a message that you are interested, while also having a decent chance of eyeballs on your kid. Of course, as has been noted elsewhere, it's good to get some indication of coach interest before attending that camp, especially if you're crossing the country like we were. We had that expression of interest at one of the NESCACs, with less interest at the other one.
@NotABaseballGuy posted:Exactly. And just to add some specificity, for position players I would define "standout" as "likely to hit one out during his 14 pitch BP." Because that's the only time everyone is watching.
I would say SB is definitely more pitcher friendly when it comes to recruiting. Every coach in college baseball is looking for more pitching. The hitters I saw get attention fit into a few categories; elite speed running bases or in the 60, pop times under 2.0, or hit bombs during the games. But the eyeballs were mostly on the pitchers.
@NotABaseballGuy posted:You're talking serious money at that point. I couldn't get my wife to sign off on that. So, we didn't go that route. And I'm not sure it's necessary, even for guys like my son who don't stand out. In the HA D3 space, my sense is that the coaches want to know that you are interested in them. Some of the camps are capped at 20 players. If you show up at one of those, you're sending a message that you are interested, while also having a decent chance of eyeballs on your kid. Of course, as has been noted elsewhere, it's good to get some indication of coach interest before attending that camp, especially if you're crossing the country like we were. We had that expression of interest at one of the NESCACs, with less interest at the other one.
If you are able to get coaches to respond and do your homework in advance, you might be able to limit your camp expenses to only a couple camps. Once you get to 3 or 4 camps you are exceeding the cost of the recruiting services. True, they are expensive, but the good ones know the coaches well, what the coaches need, and the typical players they will look at (academically and athletically). You can certainly navigate the recruiting process without one, but it is a heck of a lot easier with one.
I'm glad your son has found a school that he likes! Thanks for sharing the experience, it's very valuable.
Sadly, serious money can be spent, in a variety of ways. I think that if you're doing a non-local college search, you have to spend in some way; most players at D3s are local, even at the HA level.
I am glad, in hindsight, that I knew so little when my son was being recruited, he "only" went to one Headfirst (where he did hit one out, although I didn't realize what it meant at the time) and one school camp. Plus a lot of PG-type travel ball.
@TerribleBPthrower posted:Once you get to 3 or 4 camps you are exceeding the cost of the recruiting services. True, they are expensive, but the good ones know the coaches well, what the coaches need, and the typical players they will look at (academically and athletically). You can certainly navigate the recruiting process without one, but it is a heck of a lot easier with one.
I spoke with Justin at Diamond College Advisory Team (DCAT) in 2022. At the time, his package was $8,195. That was too much for us to front load at the time. In retrospect, did we end up spending close to that by the time we'd completed our four cross-country trips? Probably (especially if we're counting airline miles used). But we'd probably have had some travel expenses if we'd gone with DCAT too.
To Justin's credit, his prediction about the level of where my son would end up playing proved to be more accurate than my son's coach's prediction. On the other hand, we ended up landing that spot without his help. To those for whom that kind of money is insignificant, he'd be worth talking to.
@NotABaseballGuy posted:I spoke with Justin at Diamond College Advisory Team (DCAT) in 2022. At the time, his package was $8,195. That was too much for us to front load at the time. In retrospect, did we end up spending close to that by the time we'd completed our four cross-country trips? Probably (especially if we're counting airline miles used). But we'd probably have had some travel expenses if we'd gone with DCAT too.
To Justin's credit, his prediction about the level of where my son would end up playing proved to be more accurate than my son's coach's prediction. On the other hand, we ended up landing that spot without his help. To those for whom that kind of money is insignificant, he'd be worth talking to.
I would definitely screen them throughly. There are some that do a lot more than DCAT for the same or less.
I've said this before and I'll say it again....everything you need to know about D3 HA recruiting is right here posted in these electronic pages. You don't have to spend many thousands of dollars. Certainly not $8.2K to figure out the best fit. Save that money for D3 HA tuition because you are going to need it! By definition, D3 HAs are going to be recruiting nationally because the admission rates are so low. So, yes you do need to get in front of these coaches and have a large (showcases, academics showcases) and small target strategy (recruiting camps) that fit your budget. Recruited walk-on is an option as well. Recruited walk-on doesn't have the same meaning for a D3 HA as it does for a D1 school. There are plenty of stories floating around about D3 HA walk-ons that play college baseball.
As I posted on the previous page, my son's travel coach had only one D3 HA relationship in his "rolodex" (Washington & Lee). That didn't deter him. D3 HA engineering schools were a major target for us, and we spent a lot of time researching this. We did the work rather than spend a significant amount of money. What matters is the travel or high school coach will support you if they are called by the college coach.
We got our best results matching the academic fit and then bolting on the baseball. These coaches have a very difficult job, and they have to recruit nationally to get the combination of academic/athletic skills that will make it through Admissions. Making sure you have both covered makes their job easier. The first hurdle is academic. My son used the same "matching the academic fit and then bolting on baseball approach" in his final college selection. It just so happened that he thought the D1 Ivy had a broader/deeper engineering program than the D3 HA NESCAC school. That was his only criteria. Finding the academic fit first makes things so much easier in the D3 HA recruiting game. JMO.
I agree with fenway, of course. But I would just add that there are some people whose choice of major is something that is taught most places (History, Economics, etc.). I strongly feel that visiting a college, and hopefully staying with students (whether baseball players or not) can be a major factor in choosing. That applies to athletes and non-athletes.
In other words, if you plan to go far away to school, money will be spent, one way or another.
Take this with a grain of salt: I know kids who currently play and played in the MIAC and other non NESCAC HA schools. Be aware that some of these schools recruit LARGE rosters and use baseball (and other sports) to get more full fare kids on campus. I know one school that had 75+ kids at the fall baseball meeting. They have a JV team but they basically run it themselves like a club team. Many disappointed kids regarding baseball but some of those kids realize that they are not good enough and have a great college experience in all sorts of other ways.
@used2lurk posted:Take this with a grain of salt: I know kids who currently play and played in the MIAC and other non NESCAC HA schools. Be aware that some of these schools recruit LARGE rosters and use baseball (and other sports) to get more full fare kids on campus. I know one school that had 75+ kids at the fall baseball meeting. They have a JV team but they basically run it themselves like a club team. Many disappointed kids regarding baseball but some of those kids realize that they are not good enough and have a great college experience in all sorts of other ways.
Yes. That exists. This roster is not one of them. Eight or nine kids in his recruiting class.
As mentioned above, not all high academics behave the same way re: recruiting numbers. It's a good rule of thumb--no matter the academic level-- to check a school's roster numbers.
For my sons 35> 50.
Of course, they were lousy at math.