Does anyone know from experience how long the Ivy League gives their recruits to consider an offer if they receive a spot on a team after an official visit? Official visit are coming up this fall and I’m not sure what my child can expect for timing. She is being recruiting for XC/T&F distance team and has 3 official visits all within the same league. Thank you!
Coaches will know that she is taking multiple visits. It’s best to be up front during the visit about her decision making process and timeline. “Coach, I really love it here, but I have a few more visits to make before I can make a commitment.” If they are pressuring her to make a decision on the spot, I’d be cautious about that situation. Obviously, the ED/REA deadline is Nov 1 and the earlier she does decide after making all the visits would be preferred as she can get her application in and get the likely letter sooner rather than later. Good luck to her!
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Thank you! All her official visits are in September, so hopefully it will be reasonable for her to finish them all before deciding. Of course, an official visit doesn’t mean she will be offered a spot on the team either, so I guess it might get narrowed down for her.
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Based on our experiences the coaches are willing to wait if OVs are completed fairly early as yours will be. If one of them wants a reply sooner they’ll say so, but I’d be surprised if that’s earlier than Oct.
Obviously, good communication is important so both parties are clear. Make sure your daughter leaves the impression that she likes the school and program and is excited about the opportunity but that she feels she should take the remaining visits to get a full picture. If an offer is made, will it be held for her through the visits. If an offer isn’t made, what is the timeline for those decisions, etc.
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Off topic: Will she get a chance to see any meets during her visits? Meets are different than practice, and are the best places to get a true sense of team culture, which may inform her decision to ED one place versus another. It may be that one team may have better athletes, but another has better/more supportive team chemistry. One may be “star system” versus “all for one,” so useful to see how the girl who comes in last or has a disappointing result is treated. Coaches can be very different in meets than practice as well. How they engage with athletes during the meet is an important tell.
Anyway, another item for your checklist (which you have probably already considered). She’s going to spend a lot of time with the team, so culture may be a more important consideration than school brand name or whether they’re defending Heps Champs.
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Three visits is a good number. Our son had three visits in the span of five weeks. He wanted to enjoy his cross country season, but also have something in his pocket if his first three choices didn’t pan out.
We told our son to blame us is he was pressured to make a decision on the spot–our official story was that we made him promise we would have a family discussion before he committed. Fortunately, he was not pressured for quick turnarounds on his decision. He was also fortunate that he was offered a slot after all three visits.
He felt pretty sure his first visit was the one, but also wanted to take all his visits with an open mind. After the first visit he told the coach exactly that. The coach understood, and said he would let son know if the available spots started to get taken so son could jump if he needed to (he didn’t need to jump).
The third school seemed to be a little worried that he would be pressured to make a decision by another school before his visit, so they made sure to let him know they would arrange something mid-week at the last minute, if needed (it wasn’t).
Our son was very aware that when he told the other two coaches “no” that would allow them to tell someone else “yes” so he let them know as soon as he was sure what his decision was. Ultimately, our entire family felt that son was treated fairly and well by all of the coaches. I would have been comfortable with him running for any of them.
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We took the same approach, including using parents as an excuse (“if needed just tell the coach we’re pressuring you to keep an open mind through all the visits, so you’d like to at least chat with us before committing”). Never needed an excuse as all the coaches were very flexible with waiting for the process to play out.
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I don’t think attending XC meets is typical for an Ivy OV. It hasn’t been the case in any of my experiences but maybe others have different experiences with this.
Learning about the team culture is definitely important and I agree that should be a priority for recruits, but I think that can be picked up during runs and from socializing with the team.
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Nearly all XC meets are big, multi-team races, and nearly all happen off campus. Most coaches avoid bringing recruits in when there is a meet. Coach and athletes should be concentrating on the meet, not recruits.
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I have a runner at a NESCAC and I’m not sure what being at a meet would really tell you about the team culture, unless it was just a really toxic atmosphere.
One thing to be aware of: no matter how hard you try to keep the recruiting process private, you have to assume that any official visits will become public knowledge.