Academic pre-reads at LACs

Aimlesscat1
Mon, 21 Jul 2025 21:01:42 +0000

It varied for my D. She had been keeping coaches up to date on her academics so they were in the loop. She had her first UAA offer in late Feb./early March, long before the NESCAC timeline. She received a couple of other UAA offers over March through May. At the same time a couple of the schools also did pre-reads for merit money and informed us what that would look like. I am not sure if all of the pre-reads went to the AO but the response form the coaches was always “she is fine” from a pre-read perspective. Her test scores were high and her GPA was also very high with highest rigor so I would have been surprised at anything less so she might not be the greatest example.

JHU, Swat, and Haverford all waited for her spring grades so they happened in June. Haverford also required an interview as part of the process.

From your description of events I believe that the coaches saw enough success to be comfortable with keeping the process going. Unless a prospective recruit is a real impact player most coaches do not want to spend too much time with a kid that they believe cannot get past the AO.