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!