<p>Bay and Blossom, I suspect you’re right about it being too early for D. However, this is what is happening on our end. First of all, coaches from a variety of schools began contacting her by mail as early as freshman year, and then even more so in sophomore year. D looked into those schools and for some of them she sent back their recruiting information forms. Since it was recommended to us by many others who had been through the process that she start e-mailing coaches now, recently she did just that. In response, coaches have replied with varying levels of openness that she is exactly what they’re looking for, to please come to their school she’ll love it, and that as soon as they are allowed to, they will begin recruiting her in earnest. Several asked if she would be coming to the campus to visit this summer (unoffically, of course). </p>
<p>From what I’ve read on CC, athletes are doing much more in the way of unofficial visits and thus a lot is getting decided early on in junior year. Therefore, I wanted D to do some cool-headed research this summer and start visiting some colleges before Sept. 1, after which coaches can contact her in earnest and there will be more marketing going on.</p>
<p>For example, I’ve been following all the recruited athlete threads on CC lately. In discussing the recruiting timeline, parents have posted that for their rising senior athletes, verbal commitments have already been given, even though official visits haven’t even happened yet as per NCAA rules. In their cases, the official visit was for those athletes who had already given a verbal to the school–it was not a visit for the purpose of figuring out whether they liked the school or not. That was a shocker to me. What that means for us is that we might not have all next summer and early fall to make visits and decide like we thought we would. It could all be over in July, and if we hesitate, D could lose out on a spot to those who already know what they want and are ready to commit in July.</p>
<p>D’s sports schedule will allow very little visiting during the academic year, hence why we’re trying to think this through so early.</p>
<p>If I’m wrong in my understanding of this, please let me know.</p>