@Swimkidsdad, I think this is the disconnect. The point I was struggling with was the statement that recruiting classes were “completed” by the end of sophomore year. Sure, I can see that a coach will have both a range of slots available and a target AI (within a point or three lets say) two years out. I just do not believe that the coach will have the specificity necessary to fill out his class that early. I have no trouble believing that a very strong student with excellent athletic skills could be offered conditional support by an Ivy as a sophomore. I think this is especially true for girls, since as someone said up the thread the physical development timeline is different than with boys.
The overarching point @superdomestique and I were trying to make was that a conditional offer should be viewed as exactly that. Conditional, and not at all settled. Until the kid hits the targets set out, they should not, in my opinion, assume themselves “committed”. Is that a semantic quibble? Maybe. I appreciate the point that an honors student from Country Day is going to do well on the ACT. And yes, if a coach told my kid as a sophomore that he would support him if he kept a 3.5 and scored a 30 on the ACT, I would have privately felt confident he would do so (probably because his mother wold have killed him if he let his grades slip, and football would have thus become less of a concern). But it is not always such an easily surmountable hurdle, and that is the point of urging caution.
Generally I agree, although I think you will find that over the last several years the AI has been creeping up steadily at most schools, although it fell slightly at a couple two years ago. Again, these changes shouldn’t effect a specific recruit except at the very bottom, where I doubt most lax and soccer players are being recruited, but I would think make it impossible to fill out a class too far in advance of the last part of junior year.