Midwest, as always we appreciate your awesome input. Also you are spot on about CC being an incredible community of knowledge, support and empathy.
My D, spouse and me all kind of disagree on how to the interpret of the coach’s last message to my D possibly walk on.
I tend to agree with your comment of the coach saying “I can’t provide admissions support, but if you get in on your own, you are welcome to come to pre-season tryouts." Of course, this interpretation may run somewhat counter to the pre-read that the coach performed and the information the coach requested of my D.
However, we totally agree that my D will need to apply to this school with “eyes open” as competitive tennis for my D could very well be over after high school. We have asked the coach similar questions that you listed and are hoping for some news that will give my D some guidance.
Thanks again for your great input.
Sounds to me like your D would be fighting for a spot on the team during the preseason, and there’s no guarantee she would be offered a roster spot. In that regard, I agree with Midwest that you’ll need to identify priorities and preferences – how important is playing the sport? Good luck with whichever path you choose.
Eb, we agree with your assessment. My D likes this school with or without tennis. Also, my D is willing to try out for a walk on position as my D believes that she will be competitive based on the team’s current roster of players.
We just want to make sure that my D has a genuine chance to compete for a walk on spot on the team. We have seen some schools have tryouts that may be perfunctory for the coach and that the coach never really takes these tryouts seriously as a way to add potential walk ons.
I could have written the exact same words that you wrote “My D, spouse and me all kind of disagree on how to the interpret of the coach’s last message” last year during my S19’s recruiting.
My S19 had a positive preread at a top SLAC two summers ago. We had previously visited the school and met the assistant coach in the spring. The head coach was at a big meet recruiting. My S19 was invited to an OV. This team has 2 weekends of recruiting normally when they definitely bring more kids than they will support. We knew that going in. But when my son came home from the trip (from across the country), he said that the head coach never met with him. I was furious but my son didn’t read anything into it. I was the one who had to point out to my son that if they were going to offer him a slot or were seriously interested, the head coach would have taken the time to meet him. I think kids read the best into what the coaches communicate with them, while we have years of experience and are able to be more realistic.
In the end, the school would have offered soft support but by then my son realized that he wanted to go where he was wanted. Fit was more important to him than prestige.
S19 could not be happier. He loves his SLAC and his team and had a great season last year. For my S19’s personality, it was important to be on a team with a coach who really wanted him there. You know your D the best. Will she be happy trying our with girls who were recruited? Will she always be watching the coach to make sure that she is being treated the same if she makes the team? I know there are no OVs but does she like the girls that she’s met on zoom? Is the school and team a good “fit” personality wise for her?
Good luck with everything! I wish you all the best during this incredibly stressful time. And have your D keep asking the coach point blank questions until there is no room for misunderstandings.
swimmon thanks so much for your personal input. It was very helpful to read.
My D is more than happy to compete for a spot on the team and is confident in her abilities. If my D gets fairly beatened out for a spot on the team, then so be it.
More than anything, we just want to understand if trying out for a walk on spot is truly viable option for my D. Also, my D does not necessarily need to be a recruit or a starter on the team. The main objective for my D to play college tennis is the unique experience that doing offers.
Personal and academic fit are the most important factor for my D’s college selection and tennis would be icing on the cake.
It seems like the pre-read is what has made it so hard to read these tea leaves. My interpretation of what happened (from a distance) is that your D passed some initial threshold for “talent”. As did a number of other players. All were asked to provide info for a pre-read.
After the pre-read, the coach re-evaluated those left in the pool. At that point, there were quite a few who were more highly ranked by the coach than your D, so she was no longer a recruit.
He is willing to take another look at her if she is admitted because, let’s face it, some kids can improve enormously at this point in their athletic careers while others may have peaked. Although he’s okay passing on her now, he recognizes that things could change.
She’s doing the right thing in chasing down the details to understand what she’s getting into. At some schools, the coach never gets to recruit as many players as he needs and walk-ons are critical to filling our the roster. At others, as mentioned above, coaches may recruit players who never see playing time and it’s virtually impossible to get a serious look when the coach is going to disappoint recruits.
Agree that there is some soul searching to be done in terms of how much she wants to prioritize tennis. It’s always hard for kids who have reached this level and have been devoting so much time and energy to their sport, to imagine life without it.
gardenstate, thanks for your thoughts. The scenario you offered makes a lot of sense in terms of what may have taken place.
This D3 school is one where sports are not heavily emphasized and is located in a large urban environment. We felt this school was a good potential athletic and academic fit for my D21 since my D21 was accustomed to tennis was not a hugely watched sport at her high school.
Thanks again for the input.
Question from a slightly different angle: are tennis ratings (and rankings for that matter) relatively accurate?
If so, do they provide an objective way to determine (from both coach’s and recruit’s perspective) who is going to be a better overall contributor to the team? If not, is the only way to determine who makes the team a round robin where every player plays a match against each other in the pre-season tryouts?
If there is integrity to the rating system, the question of preferred walk on status may be more straightforward than OP thinks, vs a (subjective) team sport, and may be a consideration in the decision making process.
Daddy, thanks for the input.
Tennis rankings are not overly accurate but do give a basic guide on the ability of a player. However many other factors can limit the usefulness of rankings. Things such as location of a player or specific match ups do not get reflected into rankings. For example, a tennis player from California, Texas or Florida with the same ranking as a player in South Dakota or smaller state will have a different skill level. Also many schools recruit foreign students who may not even have a ranking in the US.
My D’s coach emailed my D back a few days ago and told her that he typically takes 1-2 walk ons each year depending on the number of recruits. The stronger the recruiting class, the fewer the number of walk ons. Some years the coach has not had any walk ons. The coach also only recruits 3-4 players (where the coach provides academic support) each year since the tennis team is small in number.
My D believes she can walk on if there is are open walk on spots and this belief appears to be accurate based on the rankings of the current team members.
My D is still interested in this school and will be thinking about what next steps to take.
How does looking at the ranks of current team members help? Won’t she be competing against other students who aren’t on the team?
Austin, looking at the entire roster helps to see what level of player the recruits are and what level of player the walk ons are.
Presumably the recruits are the higher ranked players on the roster. The walk ons are lower ranked players.
My D used the rankings to see where her current ranking with fall within the entire spectrum of rankings on the team roster
I think your D is handling this very well. She might try to find out how the “walking on” works. Does he have specific tryouts just for people who he invites to walk on? Or are the tryouts open to anyone. My D plays a different sport and was told by the coach at her (then) first choice that he couldn’t support her in admissions but if she got in, she would be invited to pre-season and tryout. A player had to be invited to come to pre-season in order to walk on. If her situation is similar, then she would have an idea of her chances. If there are only a few players invited to try to walk-on and she is fairly confident of her ability, and the school is her first choice, then it seems like a reasonable choice.
gleegee, we agree with you exactly. My D understand the tryouts in the preseason with only invited players. My D intends to confirm this to be the case and then move forward.
Hopefully, my D will be able to step up and do well in any tryouts.
Good luck to your D on her sport and school too.
I’d echo what twoinanddone mentions about existing athletes taking leave. This is going to be a real issue at some schools where a decent proportion of athletes are taking leave or gap years. That’ll create a logjam over the next several years that might squeeze out walk-on caliber players. This will vary a lot by school and program. But based on the numbers you mention, if only a few athletes take leave and return next year, there’d be no room for your daughter. The coach should have a pretty good sense of this now or in the next several weeks, so it’s something your daughter could ask before deciding to apply ED.
polite, yes my D is monitoring the team members as to the seniors who could remain on the team this year.
Thanks for bringing up this good point again.
My D did end up getting some details from the coach relating to my D’s recent situation involving the coach telling her that she could tryout for a walk on position on the team.
It turns out the coach takes 1-2 walk ons each year depending on the size of his recruiting class. The coach offers academic support to 3-4 “recruits” each year. As per the coach, there have been some years where the team has not had any walk ons. The coach told me D that he is “recruiting” 2-4 highly ranked girls for the team this year.
The coach also told my D that the tryouts would be held during the first week of school and would be “open” to the general student population, but at the same time, the number of invitees would be capped to a certain numbers of players on the coach’s list. The coach asked my D to immediately inform him of her admissions so that he could include her on this list.
The coach continues to be very forthcoming with information and has taken some appreciated effort to answer my D’s questions. Given the historical rankings of the tennis recruits at this school, we do not believe that the coach will be overly successful in recruiting the highly ranked players he mentioned to my D. In our opinion, most players with similar rankings to players that this coach is recruiting this year would choose other D1 schools (for athletic scholarship money) or Ivies or other highly selectively schools that emphasize athletics more. Also this school does not offer club tennis to its students so if any student wanting to play competitive tennis would have to do so on the varsity team or not at all.
All of this has made my D reconsider this school and possibly participate in the tryouts for a walk on position.
Has anyone had a kid participate in the tryout process and can shed some light as to how tryouts work?