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I just found this site......it has a WEALTH of GREAT information! I see many of you have a lot of experience with college recruiting and I'd appreciate some feedback, please.


My son (05 RHP/SS) has set a goal of playing D I baseball. His HS coach has encouraged him and says this is a reasonable goal.

Last summer, in addition to playing Legion ball, he was recruited for a team to go to the Baseball America Junior Olympic Tournament in Tucson. The team didn't do well, but it was a GREAT experience for my son!

He also attended the Stanford Baseball Camp in July. He enjoyed that experience, too.

As a result of this exposure, he's received letters from several colleges (Notre Dame, Air Force Academy, University of Hawaii, University of Arizona and a few others). We know these are just letters at this piont and don't mean much, except that he (and hundreds of others!)is on their radar screen (but it IS exciting to see my son's name on Notre Dame stationery!! Big Grin). He has sent transcripts and his baseball schedule to several schools, so we hope someone will be "watching him" this season.

He's looking forward to going to the Stanford Camp again this summer. My question is, should he go back Stanford's camp or is there a benefit in attending a DIFFERENT camp? Do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks, in advance, for your help!
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Norcalmom, welcome to the board and congrats on your first post.

I suggest that you take a look at your son's list of colleges/baseball programs that he is interested in. (If he hasn't made a list yet, now is the time. You can find a recruiting timeline on the site’s homepage.) Your son’s junior summer is very important, so you both should be looking for events that will provide the most exposure to the schools on your list. If you were referring to the Stanford All-Star Camp, this invitation-only camp is a great opportunity to be seen by many colleges, but look closely at the list of schools that attended. Since you are from northern CA, is your son interested in schools on the west coast? If so, than maybe attending again is not the best choice as most of the schools that participate in this Stanford camp are NOT west-coast schools. Just something to consider when you make your choice. Do your best to get in front of the right audience. A prospect camp at your son’s number one college may be the better option. Cool
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He should go back to Stanford.....Because of this camp, my son had offers from two D-1 schools back East, and flew back there twice on offical visits. From this camp he recently received phone calls from other coaches. Other college are now interested in him because big schools back East wanted him. This all happened because of the Stanford camp. Because of Stanford it looks like he will play for the college that was always #1 on his list.
norcalmom -
You're quite welcome. If Stanford is #1 you cannot go wrong by attending again. It is a great camp, our son also enjoyed it, and as you know the exposure is first rate. But, consider that they have already seen your son and you have the advantage of being local! Have your son keep in communication with the coaches, let them know of his interest in Stanford and provide them with his spring schedule. That way the coaches can follow your son’s progress if the interest is there. This summer you have an opportunity to continue to broaden your son's exposure. My suggestion is still to view all your options and decide which venues will get your son in front of as many different college coaches on his wish list as your schedule and $$'s will allow.

Good luck to you and all of us here in 2004! Many of us can use all the luck we can get added to our son's baseball talents. Smile
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I also highly recommend the Stanford All-Star camp. Many top colleges will be attending to help run the camp. An excellent opportunity for exposure to many schools as well as a top instructional camp. It fills up fast and usually for most positions it closes by the end of this month! Don't delay responding if you are interested!
Gotta agree on going to the Stanford Camp if for no other reason than the exposure to so many college coaches. As someone mentioned above, if a west coast school is your goal, there were very, very few there. However, I believe every Ivy school had a rep there and there were dozens of schools represented in all.

I would estimate that my son received contact from about 6 schools after the camp and none were ones he had considered before hand. His number one choice became a D3 school that saw him at the camp. He has verbally "committed" to the coach, he is now just waiting for acceptance by the admissions office.

My son called it the brainiac camp. The first question almost every coach asked him was what his SAT score was. There is an amazing amount of talent at this camp, great instruction. In many ways, good and bad it was an eye opener as to what college sports is about, the amount of work, competition, coaches attitudes etc. If you can, you gotta go.
Norcal,
My son went to try out in Houston for Youth National Team a few years ago. Although he did not make the team, we learned that this was great exposure for him and was seen at the time by some coaches, scouts who had followed his development. He was also very young but was able to keep up with the pitchers who made 2002,2003 first two draft rounds. He is an 04.
Key word is development, if he continues to mature and shows great player potential from year to year, AND excels in class he has a bright future.
My son also had the attitude "I will go where ever I get a full ride". This is not the norm in baseball scholarships. You will notice that as he matures so will his thought process on that subject.
As to Cal Poly- Coach Price left there after 2002. He was at the Stanford 2003 camp as the Kansas coach.

Not aware that anyone from Cal Poly was at the Stanford '03 camp and I'm quite certain that no one from Stanford was at the Cal Poly 03 camp (as they had been in the past when Price was at CP)

the 03 Cal Poly camp was actually a disappointment in terms of other school involvment. It is/was run in a very similar format to the Stanford camp and was advertised that many, many schools would be there. Unfortunately, with Price leaving, they must have lost many "connections". the only other schools present that I saw at the Cal Poly camp was one coach from Tennessee and a coach from UCDavis. The rest were local high school personnel and mostly Cal Poly's staff and some folks from the local semi-pro SLO Blues.

The camp was fine instruction and otherwise, but if your hope was to be "seen" at the Cal Poly camp this past summer, there was very, very, very little exposure other than Cal Poly's own people. It was nothing like Stanford in this respect. For that matter, I think Stanford's camp is unique at least on the west coast. My son has been to camps at SC, UCLA, Pepperdine and others and it is always just there own people. Only at Stanford did we find representatives from other schools and there were dozens.

Several people in fact left early from the Cal Poly camp making alot of noise that it wasn't as advertised (and it wasn't).
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Kansas University runs a similar camp. Our kid received an invite after attending the Stanford camp. Looks like KU used the Stanford attendee list as a mailing list. Most of the schools at the KU camp were also at Stanford, including Stanford. A couple Big 12 schools not at Stanford were at KU.

Our boy might have gone, but we ran out of showcase money. If I had to do this again I'd still pick Stanford as #1 recruiting camp to attend.

Word to the wise - your player's grades need to stack up to Stanford admissions requirements to ensure an invitation.
You need an invite to the camp. Have son write the obligatory letter to the recruiting coach expressing interest in the program. You'll get back the obligatory survey card. Return the survey card. Based on the data on the card you may/may not receive an invitation in the mail.

Yes, college coaches from schools that are not official participants in the camp will lurk in the stands. We received a call from a school who saw player at camp, but was not listed as a camp coach.
Also: Players are placed on teams and each team has a highly qualified coach, usually one of the head coaches from a University that is scouting the camp. The players attend workouts and training sessions and because the camp is over a 5 day period of time, each team plays several games so position players and pitchers all get plenty of opportunity to perform. The cost is reasonable if you consider that the campers are housed and fed in the dorms for the week. It is a great opportunity for players to learn what college baseball is like and also be seen by numerous schools. thumb
33's. I think it might increase your chance of being invited if your high school or summer coach contacts Stanford about you. I believe last year that they had 262 players and a long waiting list. This camp has become very selective even though the number of campers seems quite large. This approach is not necessary if you already have been contacted or received an invitation from Stanford as they usually make sure that anyone they might be recruiting is invited.
I don't know how they do it or the applicable rule, but from my observation (son attended last summer) there is no way this camp could have been opened to just anyone. Out of nearly 300 kids there, every one I saw could play.

My son has been to other college camps and you get a wide, wide range in talent. At the Stanford camp it was better, better and better still.

Of the schools that have seriously recruited my son, I believe all but 1 saw him at the Stanford camp.

I would not be surprised if it isn't already full. If there are openings still, apply now!
mhs26 and tar, they do what others do, they take a certain # of kids and close it down. my only point is that you do have to accept all comers, like it or not. i was @ the FSU Super Skills Camp last year and though the 44 kids there were all good players, there were some that were obviously not top D1 players. when i asked about this i was told that the camp was open per ncaa rules and that until the quota was reached, they accepted all comers. i had a conversation today with a top D1 recruiter that confirmed that there cannot be an "invitation only" D1 camp.
hey batter, it was open, believe it. there is a way and it works like this. if you are fsu or stanford you can get high quality players, 600 of them at an fsu camp i attended 7 years ago. fsu has 2 camps like this and they ask for advanced players only. then they have one which is an elite camp called super skills that targets some of the best players in the country. in that one they take about 40 kids only. even at super skills there is a small percentage of players with less ability. i do not believe stanford is somehow circumventing the rule.
I'm not in any fashion trying to imply that any rule is broken or any impropriety engaged in, but the manners in which applications can be processed is not that big a deal and most any "result" you want to portray is possible.

My son received an application last year and was accepted to the camp before it ever appeared on their website. I know others who swear they got their app in before other players they knew, yet the other player(s) was accepted and they were told they'd applied too late.

Also, if it's simply open to everyone, why did they call my son's high school coach to get a recommendation.

With all that and from what I saw, if this camp is simply enrolled on a first come first serve basis then they just happened to get apps from 300 of the best high school players I've ever seen before anyone else applied Wink

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My son was at the 2003 camp. Of the Ivies, Brown,Dartmouth and Harvard were "officially" part of it. I met coaches from every other Ivy except penn, not sure if they were there. All the rest were in the stands every day. Princeton appeared to have their entire staff. Yale had one coach as did Cornell and Columbia.
Dad...Yes, Coach Scott Bradley was at the Stanford camp and scouting for Princeton.

He was there to see a couple of infielders; a couple of pitchers; and, anyone else that he likely felt could help Princeton and get admitted to the school.

He picked up an infielder from Illinois; two pitchers from California.

He also picked up an infielder from Texas and a pitcher from Texas. He lost Will McDaniel, a big righthander, to Rice. Not sure where he is/was with a righthanded pitcher from Chet Lemon's Juice team in Florida.

Looking forward to the entire experience with my family and my son.
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