Yes. That’s it.
GK1 was not athletically competitive for D1, including most Ivies, as well as for some top D3 programs. She could have applied and been admitted to a good number of them as a non-athlete. However, it was important to her to have a roster spot rather than hope for a walk-on spot. Now that’s not what I would have done, but I’m not the one going to college… 
Yes, I think there’s a big difference between D1 and D3. Although DS has friends going D1 who are excellent students, there seem to be plenty of kids for whom athletics are definitely the key. You can get a sense of this through Naviance as well, with some surprisingly low stats for kids going to Yale, Duke, etc. What we have been told consistently for D3 (at least for higher ranking schools) is that it’s academics first, then value to the athletic program, and if you make the cut on that basis, the coaches will dig further as to character and stuff like that.
We have also heard of walk-ons for both D1 and D3.
Here is what I found extremely useful: After junior year, for each college category on your final list (High Reach, Reach, Likely, etc.), our school calculated a personal % admission chance for you based on actual admission rates of students from our school with the same profile as you over the past several years. My kid’s reach schools, some with 6-8% general admission rate, were 22% admission chance for her. Her likelies, with general admission rates around 40-50%, were in the 85%+ range. I wonder if other BS do that as well. Anyhow, I may have been the only one in our household that even looked at these stats (kid had already fallen in love with her ED college and wasn’t even planning on applying elsewhere) - but then I’m also the snob of the family. 
Going back to the OP’s original question to address it more squarely:
“I’m wondering if any of you with kids at private schools who are also athletes spoke to the CC office earlier than normal to formulate a list of schools to target?”
Based on our experience, we told the CC which schools she was targeting, not the other way around.
Daughter’s target list was based on meetings with college coaches and our own assessment of likelihood of her getting offered a recruiting slot (all but one were D1 schools, one D3) at the school. We had started her process her sophomore year after getting affirmation from a college coach that she would be recruitable (by some program, if not necessarily his program) plus some strong national results, including head-to-head performance vs. college athletes and national team members.
On those early unofficial visits (got to get on their radar/show interest!), one coach suggested that we target 7 schools, with the goal of meeting 3 at the summer showcase before her senior year of HS (this was before they allowed off-campus meetings junior year), then getting at least 1 offer. Which is pretty much how it worked out. She got three offers and went to two OVs, picked one school, applied ED (they sort of insist on that, for reasons already covered) and signed NLI.
I realize things might be different in D3 and/or other sports, especially more team-oriented sports, but wanted to spell my kid’s process out in more black and white terms for the OP. The bottom line (for us, at least) is that the BS CC followed our lead, not the other way around.
And to be clear, the top D3 programs/schools pick their athletes on athletic ability first. They then have to hit the academic threshold. They do not pick great students who are “good-enough” athletes.
My kid talked to coaches at some schools and did not go the recruitment route for a number of reasons, which I felt really showed great self-awareness. He had the highest rigor. At a school that did not rank, I suspect his grades but him at the bottom of the top half. He was admitted to several "competitive " schools (not Ivy) and at a few was offered a roster spot if he decided to attend. He was a very strong but not exceptional player. (i.e., all league, not top club star or national team.)
He chose instead to be a walk-on in a different sport, a path that worked out really well for him.
I would really advise for everyone considering this route to take a step back and consider how important playing the sport is. If your kid isn’t whole without it, it’s key to find a team. If it’s more of a “maybe I can get into a better college as a recruit”, think long and hard about whether the will is there for that. Because it may not lead you to a more selective school or it may not be what you want your college experience to be.
Please consider also that so many athletes in college sustain injuries that may sideline them or kick them off the field forever. We personally know 2 boys who sustained serious lax injuries and they are no longer able to play. We know a boy at a top “football college” who can no longer play football and now needs to find another school.
We have friends who were told by a couple of coaches at their dream schools that there was no way they would get a scholarship, but maybe could be a walk on.
So what? PLEASE love the school enough that you would be happy going there even if you are not playing your sport.
I am definitely of the school of thought that you need to find academic match first and foremost, and then look for athletic fit within your academic matches. But you make it sound like top ‘football college’ is some sort of crappy school that is not worth going to if you no longer play football. They are all big state flagships where you can study anything and everything, and have great name recognition and strong alumni networks. Most of our family are OSU or Michigan grads, and we good have friends who graduated from PSU, Georgia and LSU. All with great professional careers, some with Ivy graduate degrees too. Now if you cannot handle big state school you should not look to play football at one, either.
Hmmm…@417WHB…Michigan grad…that explains it??
In the case of our friend’s son - he did play for a large-size school that was not the right fit for him after leaving football. You are correct in guessing that is was a “big state school” just too large for this kid. This one was in the northern snowy clime. Yep…All the schools you mentioned offer excellent educational opportunities.
FWIW @417WHB I believe you misinterpreted the meaning of “top football college” - not sure why you would even THINK that is in any form intended to infer it is (in your words) “crappy”. You turned it into a projective measure.
In fact the best college football program in the country happens to be at the best college in the country. Go 
Irish !!!
Prediction: Our friend above will take this seriously because he is from Michigan (LOL).
Ha ha not getting into this debate?. I likely overreacted to the ‘top football college’ comment as I have too many friends who truly believe any school that cares about football has to be terrible academically.
There is only ONE top football college. Just sayin’
Go Blue!
@ChoatieMom - Go Army!
@417WHB : Regarding your post suggesting “you need to find academic match first and foremost, and then look for athletic fit within your academic matches”…I agree, but also feel that the undergrad experience is more similar between schools than most people would allow.
I am with @417WHB on this.
I do think a kid needs to pick a school where their stats match as well as the general “academic ethos” and that has the programs they want. (Not all have engineering, for example.) And then there’s the difference between schools where there are very large intro classes and LACs where a “big” intro class is 30.
Within those, I agree that the similarities are usually greater than the differences.
This thread hasn’t been active in a few months, but I did have a comment for future readers I wanted to add regarding the grades that are acceptable for a college athlete to be recruited. Grades are relative based on your HS, whether BS or LPS. However, the grades necessary also are very dependent on the sport. Mabye this got discussed somewhere in the 5 pages and I missed it, but I didn’t see it.
So for example, a 3.4 at a given HS may be just fine for a football player or a lacross player, but a dealbreaker for a golfer or squash player. Generally speaking, the more “country club” the sport, the higher the GPA and especially test scores will need to be. From what I have seen, helmet sports get cut the most slack. Also wrestling, because even though most schools don’t have it as a high priority it is a pretty blue collar sport, so in general they are fishing in a different pool than womens tennis for example.
I think that a CC may be helpful, but if they don’t have a lot of experience with athletes getting recruited in your sport, make sure you are comparing apples to apples. What worked for a football player won’t necessarily work for anyone else. OTOH, if you are a D1 level quarterback applying to D3 schools, just because the CC thinks that based on previously recruited soccer players your grades are marginal for Connecticut College or Trinity doesn’t mean that you aren’t competitive for Amherst and Williams. What sport you are playing is a critical piece of information.
Thanks for your post @dadof4kids - As a parent of a multi-sport athlete, I am very concerned about GPA cut-offs (if true). But, I have a suspicion that talent outweighs the grades for many sports. If golfkiddo has a 94 average at BS, and a 90 average play on the golf course, that will not get golfkiddo an offer for a golf team. But, if golf kiddo had a 75 average at BS and a 70 average play on the golf course, that may very well bring offers. No, I am not encouraging anyone to study less and chip more!
There have been a couple of parents on here in the past who have been very open about challenges with recruitment. Maybe not on this thread, but other ones. Sometimes, not just about sports but about who is applying to where. My nephew had this challenge when applying from Stuyvesant High School to well-know NE colleges.
I had heard from another parent on here that one college had a “XYZ” threshold for swimmers. Not sure if this is true. At prospect camps we generally get information that is consistent and there is always an admissions person present to stress that they look holistically at each prospect.
We heard that last year the coach for one particular team could choose 7 or 8 new players. My hunch is that they were more concerned with excellence of play/ability than GPA. That being said, most of us on CC know that achieving a “XYZ” or above at a rigorous prep school is not easy - and also that many/most boarding schools don’t “weight” for Honors or AP’s. So, if your kiddo’s profile shows a 3.85 GPA that may look good if you’re coming from a NE BS that admissions people know. But, in a pool of kids from other parts of the country where grades are weighted, that looks low. We have spoken to coaches and admissions people who really don’t care what school you played for - and don’t know the names of the schools often mentioned on this thread. As Joe Friday used to say “Just the facts, ma’am”. That can put us in a difficult bind if your kid wants to play for a school outside of the NE bubble and up against kids who have a 4.8 average. If you are reading this post, then you probably understand I am not being nasty - just realistic of how difficult it is to hold a 92-95 average at PEA (for example) compared to the ACME Public High in our particular hometown where A’s are as common as mosquito bites.
For some sports (often individual sports), the rankings, times, standings for your student-athlete will stand out more than the GPA. For example, if your kiddo is ranked within the top 25 juniors for XSport (insert name).
A couple of years ago someone posted the AI rubric used by many Ivies. I have it, somewhere and will try to post. Maybe someone else has it and can post it. It’s a combo of your SAT score, GPA, Etc.
I would like to also hear from parents whose students were “walk ons” in college.
I’m going to break this down into a few posts because I’m going to cover a few different topics.
AI is only at the Ivies. Other high academic schools (Stanford, Duke, Chicago, etc.) I think have similar guidelines. But the AI is part of the Ivy League agreement.
As far as being outside of the NE bubble, I don’t think it probably matters as much as you are thinging @Golfgr8 . First, 99% of schools have low enough academic standards especially for athletes that as long as you hit NCAA requirements no one cares. For the schools in the 1% who care and are not in the NE, if they are in the 1% I am guessing they are very aware of what your grades mean.
So in summary Stanford, the Claremonts, Chicago, Carleton, etc. (I’m struggling trying to think of schools, most that are high academic are in the NE bubble already) are going to be very familiar with the acronym schools. Nebraska, Arizona State, etc. flat out don’t care. Maybe a couple of selective state schools (Michigan, UNC, Florida, just guessing here) won’t be super familiar. But still even at schools like that you are probably fine with a B GPA if you are a recruitable athlete with a good test score.
A couple things about the AI at the Ivies:
First, it is technically a combination of grades and test scores. However, test scores are 2/3 of the formula. Also, IIRC the grading scale is probably outdated by 50 years. Meaning that a 3.7 is almost identical to a 4.0. You need to have sub 3.0 GPA for it to really have much of a negative effect. I’m guessing that even at the acronym schools not many kids have a low enough GPA for it to hurt them. And if you do, honestly you may want to at least consider if you really want to put yourself though the pain of 4 more years of hypercompetitive academics. It isn’t the only long term path to success.
Second, the schools need to hit an AVERAGE AI for ALL of their athletes (except football, which is a completely separate pool). They do not need every team to make the average. My understanding is that coaches are given a target. That target will vary from sport to sport, based primarily on 2 things.
First, the priority of the university. Harvard basketball or Cornell wrestling are not hitting the university average. Those schools have chosen to prioritize those sports, so they get to recruit lower academic players. Some other coach gets the short end of the stick in that transaction, and must recruit higher academic players to compensate for a different team getting a lower standard.
Second, broadly speaking the schools make adjustments for scores realistically required to field a competitive team. If you want to put together a competitive team of wrestlers, you need to dip lower because on average they are going to be lower (I will pick on them because we are a wrestling family). There is talent coming out of BS, Blair and Wyoming Seminary are the 2 best wrestling schools in the country. But the bulk of the talent is coming from PS, and frankly a decent amount of that is coming from the trailer park. When a high percentage of the recruitable athletes come from families without an elite educaton background, then the expectations are lower for the academic resume of the athlete. Compare that with fencing or squash or crew. Odds are good that one parent already has an Ivy degree and education has been prioritized since the athlete was in pre-school. So you can still put together a competitive squash or fencing team with a 34 ACT average. I don’t know all sports, but if you look around the stands at the other parents I’m guessing that gives you a good idea of how competitive the academics must be.
I found most coaches to be fairly upfront with what they need. I also found that because of the way the AI works, those conversations tended to be more about ACT (or SAT) and not AI or grades. If you kid won’t qualify, they will be upfront because they don’t want to waste your or their time.
Also you are completely correct that athletic ability changes the goalposts. It doesn’t matter if you are coaching at Alabama or Harvard, your job is to win. If you can’t do that, you won’t last long and better opportunities won’t come knocking either. So by and large, coaches are trying to get the best athletes they can that meet whatever academic minimum is set by the U., not just at Ivies but everywhere. If the Princeton wrestling coach can recruit a team full of Rhodes scholars, that’s great. He’s still getting fired if they lose to Brown and Columbia.
Early in the process before they really knew where S would fall athletically, one coach explained it to me this way. If your son is a freshman impact player on varsity, 27 is fine. If he is a developmental recruit who may or may not ever see the starting lineup, I probably need at least a 34. Everyone else slots somewhere in the middle. Once S got a bit further in the process coaches started giving him targets (generally we asked but some were just volunteered). He was given different numbers by different coaches, but 28-30 seemed to be the baseline for him for high academic schools, based on his sport and his abilities. Again this is wrestling, so unless you are a helmet sport player your numbers are probably higher. After he got a 26 the first time, almost everyone said that was fine. A couple coaches said that it would make it easier to get past admissions if he could get at least one more point. No one held to the original target.
The big thing that changed was where he was competitively. During the time between when he was given the target and when he tested, he won a national championship and knocked off a few pretty good D1 committed athletes that were older. In about a year he went from being a talented kid who couldn’t quite compete with the top tier talent to a highly ranked D1 prospect, not just at academic schools but at the athletic powerhouses too. Miraculously hard cut-offs became squishy and targets were moved. Conversely I think if he had performed poorly that year, his 28 might have turned into 33 or even “thanks but no thanks” to a 36.
FYI I think given his sport and the success he was having at national tournaments at exactly the right time his targets are unrealistically low for 99% of the athletes out there. So please don’t take from this story that a 26 or even a 30 is good enough. For most athletes at Ivy or equivalent schools it isn’t. The point of my story is not the actual numbers, you need to get those for your sport and ability. The point is that as ability changes, the academic credentials required also change. For him it got easier, I have seen other kids have it go the other way, where they struggled a bit their junior year and then suddenly coaches either dropped them or needed better scores.
Separate from the AI, your kid will have to get by admissions. The requirements may vary there, and you probably need to get that info from a particular coach at a particular school.
S had a C in AP Lit. No one was really happy when he told them, but most said as long as he didn’t do it again he was fine. I got the impresssion that more than 1-2 C’s depending on the school, or a D pretty much everywhere, were a bigger problem. Not necessarily a dealbreaker, but you were going to need to explain why, and then the coach was probably going to have to beg a bit to get you by admissions. He can probably do that for a kid or 2, but he can’t do that for the whole team. So if you have a transcript worse than one lonely C you might need to be one of his top recruits.
IDK how much this changes depending on school. Because a C at our LPS frankly means you either didn’t try very hard or are just pretty bad at that subject (in his case, both). I am guessing a C at Andover or Groton has a completely different meaning. I don’t know what exactly it means. But an adcom at Harvard or Dartmouth or Stanford will be very familiar with your transcript and know how big of a deal it really is.
My feeling is that for the athletes, mostly they want to make sure you can handle the work. It hurts everyone to recruit a kid who fails out or struggles for 4 years. Once you get past that point it doesn’t matter. If you can handle the classes and muddle through with a 3.0, that’s fine. They don’t need you to be Fullbright or Rhodes scholar. They get those kids from a different pool.