From my observation, and it makes me sad, it seems as if more highschool coaches are “professionals” on the boys’ side vs “teachers coaching” on the girls’ side. I think this hampers the recruitment process for girls, a lot.
I also agree that the $$$$$ in club sports and therefore the impetus to have 5 layers of teams and take anyone is totally ruining the sports and the process. I am more and more cynical the more I see. When we play a team and find out the starting 5 are all D1 committed and they just aren’t that good it really throws the whole system into question. So much who sees you on your best day vs actual quality and consistency of play.
I think this is a big part of the reason that my daughter is walking back from recruiting. She sees who’s getting looks and thinks it’s absurd - to the point of “I scored 20 pts on that girl in practice. She couldn’t defend me at all and was getting totally frustrated, how on earth is she going to play D1.” So my daughter’s reaction is to just remove herself because it doesn’t seem worth the race.
@one1ofeach my husband, who played D1 college football, told me when my son was younger and I was unhappy about something being unfair – “Talent will rise to the top. Coaches want to win. They will find the talent”. I think he is right.
As I shared (maybe on another post earlier), a girlfriend of mine has a son going through recruitment for football. She says its like dating. She would tell her son @ coaches “He’s just not that into you.”…
More love the one that loves you …or don’t chase after a dog that is interested in a squirrel.
I think this is definitely true about football, as most colleges seem to want to win badly there, and they also have a lot of scholarships and large recruiting budgets to find the kids they need. Not necessarily true about all sports, particularly on girls’ side where even in D1 schools some sports definitely get the short end of the stick. So they do try to get a star or two but as for the rest it may be whoever shows up in the right time at their camp or has some connection to the coach/school. Not everyone is a star by any means. Many of the kids also never actually make it on the field.
I am most definitely in for ?! We have been fortunate to have really good guidance from DS’s outside coach and I understand that the BS coaches (some of which overlap with the CC office) are very helpful, but I think they are more reserved for the bigger (D1) fish — there are so many of them.
Does anyone have a kid who is on the fence/unlikely to play but is going to approach it as interested in playing? A coach told me this happens all the time. Sometimes it’s legit, the kid doesn’t really know or gets injured and is out. Other times, the kid uses it as a hook to get into the school and then backs out of the sport. Naturally, can’t be done in Div I as they sign a contract but can be done in Div II and III. I was surprised by this. Seems unethical to me. Then again, it’s a huge EC for many. Thoughts?
At least in soccer, I don’t think you can fake dedication to your sport. Getting recruited is hard work and takes a ton of time! The kids getting recruited – to D3 – are team captains, are all state players, put in 10 hours a week in the off season practicing etc etc. Your heart has to be in it to put the time and energy in.
I do not see kids on the fence getting recruited. I see some kids toying with the idea, but not committing fully to recruiting. Those kids are not getting recruited.
^^ Yes. It’s hard work and a whole process parallel to the “regular” college process, especially for soccer and other team sports where it’s not just about times or stats but finding the right fit within a program/team, not to mention the fit of the school (academically and otherwise) and coaches. As noted above, I think there are kids whose interest fizzles due to the effort required, as well as kids whose school wishlist doesn’t match their recruiting prospects. But it would be hard to go through the whole process just to get into a particular school and then drop the sport. Plus (at least for DS’s sport) you are expected to apply ED, so you need to be very sure about the school.
I know kids who got recruited to top SLACs and dropped the sport after the freshman season. Soccer and field hockey as well. I don’t think they were faking interest in playing, but the grueling nature of being a college athlete while not really seeing the field (neither played much if at all) and spending a ton of time traveling all over took its toll and they decided it was not worth it. I think this is actually very common, the percentage of recruits who play for the 4 years is quite low at many schools and sports. Some walk out before the season even starts. Even in D1, most kids have little in terms of athletic scholarship so if the sports thing does not work out they drop without much or any repercussions. Or transfer elsewhere, if they do want to play but current team is not working out.
Agree that athletic fit is very important. I go to a lot of college games and I’ve noticed that at most/all a very small percentage of the team plays. If you aren’t a starter you are still spending alllllll the time but getting a smaller portion of the reward. Most kids good enough to be recruited are pretty competitive by nature so barely playing would stink. I know for my daughter that’s one of her issues. Even if she could get on a team at a bigger D1 she wouldn’t play and she’s not up for that. It would annoy her too much.
I am sure some kids quit for a variety of reasons. But I really just don’t see much of it at selective d3s. I’m studying rosters now, and schools generally bring in 4-6 recruits a year. And generally, that’s the number of seniors on the roster. Not much attrition, something I’ve been looking for.
Also, getting to a school, getting injured or finding you won’t get playing time is very different than the original scenario, of a kid knowing in high school they didn’t want to play in college (or at least, “being on the fence” about playing in college) and still pursuing recruiting anyway.
There’s a very helpful section over on the big cc board that has addressed the recruited athlete drop out phenomenon. It happens.
Some of the attrition depends on the team culture. Some schools groom their own, and kids starting as freshmen will still be playing as seniors. Some bring in fresh talent, so the starters tend to be freshmen. You can learn a lot by comparing rosters from school to school.
I don’t know any kids who said they wanted to play as a way to get admitted then opted out. I know lots of kids who didn’t play for 4 years, though, and quite a few who transferred after they decided to drop their sport.
Picking a school you love and a team you love and getting the experience you want from both is not easy.
Indeed. And here I already noticed a huge difference in how families approached it at my older kid’s day school vs. the boarding school the younger one is at. At my daughter’s school, everyone has a list of schools based on academic fit first, and then they pursued the athletic piece to see if they can make it work. If it did, great, if not, the college sports idea got dumped and the kid chose the school on academics only. Most play club, two actually managed to walk onto the team once they arrived (at Duke and Yale of all places, though obviously not in the major sports).
At the boarding school there are fair number of kids that just want to play D1 and have picked school just based on the team and coach. And we are talking very random schools, not power 5 conference or even close. Which I find weird as some of these kids are pretty strong students and I think a school with 80%+ acceptance rate is not likely to be an academic match. But they don’t seem to care when they love the coach and the team, and parents seem fine going along with it.
Thanks for all the feedback, this discussion has been so helpful!
I had to email to ask about GPA (because I didn’t know how to calculate it for tourney forms I need to fill out) and the college counselor asked me to have the kid go meet them.
At the meeting they gave her a list of colleges (she has ONE semesters worth of grades so ???) it was somewhat random IMO. As in Amherst but not Middlebury, Harvard but not Yale.
She was also told they don’t want me to put her GPA on the forms. She didn’t ask why, does anyone here have a clue? I have to note something as it’s a required field and yes I will contact them myself, just wondering what to expect.
She does not have weighted grades but when I looked up the conversion from 100 scale grades to 4.0 scale grades I found several different methods. Some said everything over 90 = 4.0, some 93+ = 4.0, there was at least one other. So I had to ask. Her school does not calculate GPA on report cards.
Yes, the showcases this spring ask for GPA and it’s starred/required on the several I have started to fill out. I’m also planning to have her fill out the coaches contact form on college sites ahead of the tournaments this spring. There are enough where coaches from “appropriate” (unsure how anyone is supposed to know this freshman year) colleges will show up that I figured it was time to fill out the forms.
love the one that loves you …or don’t chase after a dog that is interested in a squirrel.