rugby mom

My son just got a call from a coach at one of the smaller colleges in the east.
He told my son that he the coach had gotten the okay from Admissions to assure him of a place at the college. He must submit the ED1 app and finish the process but that he is in.
My son is Student Council Pres, and has many extra currics. 3.8 unweighted GPA and plays an instrument well. The school is not his top choice maybe his 2nd or 3rd but given their interest in his sport and his not so great SAT 2000 and not great math, we think we should take it gladly.
Does anyone have experience with this sort of assurance?

ShesOnHerWay

rugbymom,
My first question to you and your son is:
If he wasn't playing his sport, would he want/be happy at this college? If the answer is yes, consider the ED admission. If no, (he only wants the college to play his sport), then this isn't the college for him.

riverrunner

I agree with ShesOnHerWay.
Are his top three choices reach, match or safeties for him? If he says no to this, does he stand a good chance of not getting in to any of his top three? I know, I know, if you knew the answer to that, this would be easy....

EMM1

I don't share the conventional wisdom on this point. To me (assuming that S is truly committed to pursuing his sport in college) the first question is does he like the coach? If not, don't do it.

ShesOnHerWay

EMM1, from the sound of RugbyMom's post, her son is interested in small, eastern LACs. The emphasis at these schools is really academics not sports. These are not D1 powerhouses. These are colleges where sports makes a more rounded student body; the student is truly a student-athlete, not an athlete-student. Yes, there is a difference.

Her son would need to feel like he fits with the school, the student population and the academic climate, first and foremost. Coaches at these school emphasize academics as well. While liking the coach is important and may make the final difference in which school to choose (also the team personality), if he is not happy with the academics and would not choose this school without the sport, the school isn't for him.

EMM1

1. Although I know from your other posts that your daughter will be attending Amherst, you seem to be under a misconception about the nature of DIII sports at such schools. S attends a very highly selective DIII school which is not known as an athletic powerhouse (at least not in his sport). No its not DI, but during the school year he practices six days per week, at least 2 hours per day. Moreover, athletes generally have a quite different experience than nonathletes at his school; they have a separate culture and hang out together. The coach is easily the most important adult in his life.

That having been said, coaches do leave. Its happened to him--twice--after he'd committed but before the season started. The first time greatly diminished the quality of his PG experience at prep school, while after a rough first season, its worked out for the best at college. BUT

The idea of fit is vastly overrated. You can get a good idea of the prestige of a school. You can also sometimes accurately predict that you don't want to go somewhere (an antiintellectual good ol' boy wouldn't be happy at Reed, and I certainly wouldn't recommend that a gay atheist attend BYU). But beyond that, in general, the nature of a person's nonathletic experience at a college is determined by so many unknown and unknowable variables that trying to make an ex ante prediction of the quality of that experience is impossible.

By trying to get a sense of the coach and the program, at least you can make a judgment based on something real, and (notwithstanding the experience of my son) is pretty likely to be lasting. So I say, prestige issues aside, go with the coach.