D3 and Ivy Football Recruitment, timeline, and offers

Athletic Recruits
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I’m curious about your backup plan. Clearly, the athletic “hook” at MIT isn’t as powerful as it is at most other schools, so you must have planned for this possibility. I would think that if your child were a borderline Ivy/FCS player, he would be a priority recruit at most high-academic D3 schools, especially given his academic credentials. Have you circled back with any of the other schools that made offers?

Personally, I am suspicious of most coaches, and even more so when it’s a coach at a school like MIT who has the least to give. To wit: Do we even know if he has any real influence with admissions, or does he simply “sell” possible influence to induce recruits into applying with “coach support”? Is his 80% success rate with “high support” kids based on actual influence, or is it just a skill for pre-vetting students and only offering support to those who are already likely to get in?

If I’m being really cynical, I’d argue that an MIT coach has every incentive to keep athletes from applying ED elsewhere. Non-binding EA sounds student-friendly, but for a top athlete, it’s a trap: you give up a nearly guaranteed ED slot at a near-peer school just to join the MIT pool. The coach is incentivized to maximize this pool so he can sell MIT to whoever happens to get through the gate in RD.

To me, the MIT coach’s only real value is “pre-vetting”, which is letting you know you’ve likely cleared the academic floor. Beyond that, he offers no guarantees. Going the MIT route requires a high level of trust in a coach who has very little leverage and thus more reason to oversell your chances in EA and to get you to forego ED at another school.

I’m sure that it will work out for OP’s kid, but for other poster asking about MIT must really consider what you are giving up to just get into this pool of possibility.

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84

Which is just fine. but you need to go into this with eyes wide opened, a B plan, and a willingness to submit a large number of apps.

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85

@westwave

I am sorry for your son and family - admissions is hard enough and then adding the anticipation from family, friends, and former coaches all adds to the stress. I agree that your son should reach out to other schools unless he is 100% MIT or bust.

I don’t want to add more stress, but from personal experience I would recommend you edit your post (if at all possible) to eliminate your son’s position. He could be fairly identifiable especially since the school is identified. You do not want your posts and detail to reflect his ability to be recruited and identified.

I thought I was very careful posting on CC about our child’s recruiting journey (several years ago) and not only was I contacted through CC by a parent that had identified our family, child, HS club and college - our child was also approached at a competition by someone that had read about their journey on CC (had identified them) and asked our child for recruiting assistance with the coach. Our child’s college also quit listing parent and sibling names/details on the team roster page to assist with privacy after several incidents of “strangers” tracking and reaching out to “network” for their potential recruit. (this never happened to us, but happened across several sports)

As you can imagine, we were all upset and it made me rethink about how CC is not really CC if too many details are released, as the college sports world is pretty small by each sport.

Again, sorry about your child’s early results, as he is obviously a smart and hardworking young man.

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