The reality, in lax anyway, is that coaches can absorb fizzled recruits and the upside more than covers the risk. From a class of 8, coaches can live with 1 exceptional, 4-5 solid, and 2-3 bust players (worst case). If you recruit early, your chances of players being at either end increase, but getting 2 )or more) exceptional players in a class is worth the risk. So the scouting continues at the same pace, even if the verbal opportunities are not there until Junior year.
@Flinnt12 Exactly right. While my D reached L10 on the earlier side and has been able to maintain her very strong rankings, I have seen many others end up not competing well but keeping their coveted spot over a gymnast who came on strong at the end. IMO, the new rule will help both colleges and families get a better sense of where they really should try to land. They will have 2 years of grades and more time to show they are a consistent, very good (or average or A-mazing) gymnast. Though as one poster above noted, parents will still lean towards the crazy, just later. I suspect camps, which are already filled for the 2 sessions most programs hold, will become even more numerous. We will possibly see 3 summer camps along with a winter camp. Money, money, money. I have probably spent 2 years of my kid’s scholarship on her sport already.
I told both my children to work as hard as they could academically to give them the broadest list of opportunities. And even still it is no guarantee. We’ve been incredibly lucky that the S landed at an Ivy to play his sport and D18s school is a highly selective public university.
Glad my DD that’s going to be a student athlete found that running was her thing as the only cost is shoes every 6 weeks; her identical twin played VB in HS and did the travel club and showcase route, but decided that she’s going to be a IM player in college - that said both are attending a highly selective LAC so all good.
My daughter was a scrawny 5’0" freshman, and only 5’2" as a 16 year old senior being recruited. The coaches could tell she wasn’t going to suddenly spurt to 5’10" (although she is now 5’4" - almost). I was as tall as I am now at age 12. Many girls are and that’s why recruiting in lax and soccer wasn’t such a gamble as it might be in other sport.
Lacrosse isn’t such a country club sport anymore. My daughter couldn’t go to all the camps and tournaments she wanted to, and I really wish she’d done more. She played on a very reasonably priced club team and not on the super-mega team in our city. I don’t regret one dime I spent as she was having a good time and that’s what I really wanted for her experience. She also had some really nice experiences paid for by sponsors. When the new club team started I asked if she wanted to play on the mega team (it really was about 4x the cost) and she said no, she wanted to play with her friends. Five of them are now her college teammates so you don’t HAVE to spend a fortune to get a college scholarship. We never even considered college play or scholarships at the time, and my daughter didn’t decide she wanted to play in college until late in her junior year. We found there were plenty of opportunities at all levels, even with early recruiting. She had pretty good grades but not outstanding. She could not just announce that she wanted to play at Maryland or Yale (because really, size DOES matter), but had choices at D1, D2, and many D3 schools (schools the CCer’s are impressed with), and picked the one she wanted.
She’s one who has received much more in athletic scholarship money than I ever paid for clubs, tournaments, or travel. I’m okay with that too.
Gymnastics is definitely much more of a sport that can not be done inexpensively. Reasonably priced programs are still expensive (the cheapest one I know is $500/mo for just tuition). Once you add in the costs of private lessons the vast majority of girls need, the cost of meets and traveling to them, the cost of the leotard (if I told you how much money that sucker cost, you’d think I was insane for paying it) and attending college camps required for recruiting, most families aren’t able to do it. There is no way a gymnast could decide late in her junior year she wanted to compete in college. It is not completely unheard of but that athlete is an outlier for sure and I would never advise it. In my daughter’s case, the relatively late offers worked in her favor. Coaches were able to see that her growth spurt (4 inches in 2 years to 5’5!) did not affect her performance and look at almost 2 years of high school transcripts which provided opportunities from Ivies to major and mid-level D1 programs. Super all good.
But boy would I have been very okay with spending less money too! One more year to go!! LOL
@crimsonmom2019, I am not familiar with the sport as my twin DD’s chose running and VB, although at 5-2 out VB Libero recently said that we should have put her on a gymnastics floor years ago; question is do any of the ES-HS clubs provide scholarships for kids that couldn’t participate in the sport otherwise?
@Chembiodad, most states have few high school programs so the only way you can train as a gymnast with college aspirations is through club. I’ve heard of a family here or there getting a break in tuition but that’s it. Full scholarships or even half, I have not heard of happening.* At least not here in CA.
*Unless a gym finds a gem of an athlete a la a “Gabby Douglas”, but we all know how rare that is.
@crimsonmom2019, that’s what I thought. Its a shame that we can’t have a more level playing field as kids can’t pick where they get to start from, but they can certainly be a part of where they get to - if we can help them get there.