Transcript Requests

It was our experience that they happened when a program was really serious about my son. This does not mean an offer is imminent, it just means he is "on their board". My son had quite a few transcript requests from programs and never received an offer. Some of this probably depends on the academic bar for schools involved also. A school with high academic barriers are probably going to deal with this issue ahead of serious athletic discussions. Frankly it also depends on how hard he throws. Those academic barriers tend to come down some for those throwing 95. 

BOF posted:

It was our experience that they happened when a program was really serious about my son. This does not mean an offer is imminent, it just means he is "on their board". My son had quite a few transcript requests from programs and never received an offer. Some of this probably depends on the academic bar for schools involved also. A school with high academic barriers are probably going to deal with this issue ahead of serious athletic discussions. Frankly it also depends on how hard he throws. Those academic barriers tend to come down some for those throwing 95. 

  

This is generally true, especially at the higher divisions. But I know of schools that it does not matter if you throw over 100, the coach cannot get you in if you do not have the academic chops to get into the school through EA. Some schools in my sons D3 conference were that way. But then again those schools probably are not getting many players that can throw that hard showing interest. 

BOF posted:

It was our experience that they happened when a program was really serious about my son. This does not mean an offer is imminent, it just means he is "on their board". My son had quite a few transcript requests from programs and never received an offer. Some of this probably depends on the academic bar for schools involved also. A school with high academic barriers are probably going to deal with this issue ahead of serious athletic discussions. Frankly it also depends on how hard he throws. Those academic barriers tend to come down some for those throwing 95. 

  

I should have also said that son is a Soph. at a JC, and their Scout Day is approaching.  I was thinking that maybe they are in the middle of the process, and I am hoping that if they like what they see, he will receive some offers.  There are a lot of big time schools coming to the workout, and a bunch of major D-1's have requested his transcripts.  So far this summer he has 1 great offer from a really good D-2, but no legitimate offers from D-1's yet.  Just phone calls to coach and son.  Fingers crossed.

Coaches have a limited amount of time to recruit. A recruit needs to get over two hurdles: grades and baseball skills.  It saves a coach time and effort to cull out potential recruits and the place to begin is grades.  A coach could be looking for players who meet academic minimums and also players whose grades could entitle him to academic money - both situations are important in recruiting.  The earlier a coach has the information, the better.

Different schools have different cutoffs, but every school has some minimum a recruit must meet.

Just one data point on JC offers -  a school near us won the state championship.  They had 2 prominent guys who are now at high level D1 schools.  I don't know if they had other offers in the fall, but they didn't get offers from the schools they went to until late in the spring.

JCG posted:

Just one data point on JC offers -  a school near us won the state championship.  They had 2 prominent guys who are now at high level D1 schools.  I don't know if they had other offers in the fall, but they didn't get offers from the schools they went to until late in the spring.

We saw a little of both last year at my son's JC.  Big pitcher signed at the early signing period, and the fringe guys went in the spring/summer.

I just don't know how many of those guys had transcript requests in August prior to Soph. Year.  I am hoping that it is an important part of the process and that offers start rolling in.  I guess we will see.

I have the same experience as JCG with my son's friends who played JC ball, in most of their cases their recruiting happened after the season started and a lot depended on how they were playing. In general the JC recruiting happens much later than HS. It is also trickier for JC transfers at least for NCAA schools as the students will have to meet certain academic criteria to be eligible in the school they are transferring into. 

I was really surprised at how late some of this went on with one guy.  First week of June I ran into pitcher's mom and asked about him. She says she just dropped him at airport for official visit to Big 10 school he ended up going to, and while on the way he gets calls from a Big West school that had offered, and a Pac 12 school that had offered just a day or two earlier.