New here. Son is a rising Senior (c/o 2026), plays HS Football, 5’11" 170lb cornerback. GPA 3.97 Unweighted (only B was in AP Calc BC, 89%), 4.6 Weighted (9 APs, 13 Honors, 3 Community College courses so far; taking 6 AP and 2 Honors courses his Sr. year). ACT 35 (Math 36, Science 36, Reading 34, Writing 33). Interested in majoring in STEM and/or Economics/Finance.
He’s getting interest from (and has been in touch with) Coaches from top-ranked D3 schools (MIT, U Chicago, CMU, Carleton, Grinnell, Pomona, Claremont, etc.) and position coaches and/or recruiting coordinators from several Ivy league schools following him on twitter. He attended 6 Ivy league football camps last summer (Sophomore) and attended Davidson mega camp few weeks ago, where he met with coaches from some of the schools interested in him. Harvard HC wrote saying he’d be a great academic fit and that it’d be worth his time to come to the camp this summer. MIT HC said something similar and wanted to see him this summer to see his growth from last summer. MIT HC also suggested that he retake his ACT 
to improve his Reading and Writing scores.
Not sure how offers are made, if any. We’ve been invited to visit some schools by coaches, and we will be visiting a few in the coming weeks.
Welcome any and all suggestions on how to navigate the process, what to expect during campus visits, what questions to ask the coaches, timeline for receiving support letters, etc.
Congratulations on the interest he is getting. He sounds like a good athlete and student, which is what gets the higher academic schools attention.
Others may give a much more detailed insight or plan though from my perspective it sounds like you are doing the right things especially as you had attended a # of Ivy football camps.
Here is some basic input from my end:
-you can get the coaches attention with the film/Twitter and grades, though they like to see you in person to see how you stack up vs film, particularly for football. So going to the camps help.
-it sounds like there is real interest from the coaches.
-If you have time, you can make an unofficial visit to the schools to check the school out in person and get a feel for the fit. Even though it is summer it can still be worthwhile especially if you have not been on campus.
I would do this if possible and your son can let the recruiting coach and/or the HC know that he is very interested and you will be on campus x date, and you would like to say hello if they are around. My experience is that the coaches will take the time to see you. If the coach is away, he may say I am away but I will let coach x know and he can show you around. That was our experience.
-when the coaches meet with you they will typically explain the timeline and give an indication on where you stand on their list, if they would like you to come for an official visit such as when school is in session.
-start narrowing down what your top choices are for the best fit, academically, school size, location, cost (if that’s a factor), etc. This may take some of the list to make it easier to focus, such as perhaps Grinnell is too remote.
Good luck!
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Have any coaches asked your S for his transcript and test scores with the intention of doing an academic pre-read?
Your S has to be asking the coaches what their process is and what is their timing for making recruiting decisions. Many Ivy football slots are already spoken for, I expect some of the D3 schools you mentioned also are far down their recruiting path.
For the H coach and his camp (which are revenue generators often with the $ directly going to the coach), your S should ask if there are any slots left and if athletes who go to the camp are competing for said slots. I would not go to any camp at any school this summer unless the coach directly says there are full support slots available and that your S would be competitive for them.
For MIT, their recruiting process is unique and full coach support does not mean likely admission as it does at many other schools. Your S can ask the coach what proportion of athletes with full support are accepted. I don’t know the current football coach, but the range of what I’ve heard from other MIT coaches is 20%-50% odds of acceptance with full coach support. Without improved ACT scores, I would probably encourage dropping MIT.
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Thank you for your feedback! Yes, all the schools mentioned above have asked for his transcript, which we took it as that they impressed enough with his film that they want to make sure he’d fit in academically. Agree with your point about asking for #slots available.
From what we can tell from twitter posts and 247sports offers and commits, most schools (ivy league, especially) are handing out offers like candies to top D1-level athletes, just to be in the game with those athletes, knowing full well that these offers are non-binding and that they can always rescind/reject them later using not-good-enough academics-to-get-past-admissions excuse. Looking at the timelines of offers made to athletes, it is quite clear that soon after one Ivy makes an offer, others immediately follow suit within the next few days just to be in the race. Also, looking through twitter timelines of players who eventually ended up getting admitted to these schools from last and prior years, it is quite clear that most of them were offered late in the game (Fall of Senior year), presumably after the players these schools were after committed to other power 5 schools.
I totally agree with your assessment about MIT process. HC does not have as much say as in other schools. One of their Asst Coaches actually told us that they’d like ACT score of 34 or above that my S’s score is fine. It was funny that this coach told us that the reason for HC to ask my S to retake the test was because there is plenty of time left; if this were early Fall, HC wouldn’t have asked us to retake the test.
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Thank you recruitparent! You are right that it does seem that they want us to visit the school to show that we are serious and are interested, especially the ones in remote locations. We are going on unofficial visits to some of the top D3 Univs/LACs next week. Hoping to get offers of support from a few. Our hope is that if we get a few offers, that’d generate even more offers from schools, where my S is still under consideration, for the fear of missing out (FOMO).
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Good input.
Just adding, I am not sure how close you are to some of these schools, such as Harvard if that is of interest, though if you can visit and reach out to the coach, I would recommend that. You should be able to gage where you are based on their response, and assuming they reply and they will meet with you on campus, you can ask and they should give you a sense as to where your son sits and if he is a candidate for a Likely Letter.
Sounds good, especially visiting the schools, speaking to the coaches one on one. Though just cautioning that an offer at one school does not necessarily mean others will then offer.