If a student is a very very strong (think lower half P5), but not truly elite athlete for a big NCAA sport (hundreds of D1 teams), will a high test score (1530-1560 SAT, 35 ACT) make a significant difference for recruitment? Specifically referring to level of Cal/Duke/Stanford/Northwestern/Notre Dame/Vanderbilt, which seem to have lower academic standards for their recruits than Ivy?
Assume very good GPA (high 90s weighted) and strong course rigor (almost entirely Honors and AP classes when possible) at an independent school in an affluent zip code with history of sending lots of recruits to highly competitive schools (typically 20-25% of graduating class to Ivy+, many legacies and recruits) - i.e. coach might assume full-pay, minimal to 0 athletic scholarship $ needed to land the recruit.
Does the “proof” of being college-ready academically move the needle for a coach?
I don’t think that high of a score even matters at Ivys, if the coach wants your kid. I think a 1400 would be fine. We had a recruited athlete go to Princeton from our school last year with a 1280 and average rigor.
But speaking to others, it sounds like decreasing academic risk + being able to reallocate scholarship $ (limited if not a headcount sport) can make a big difference?
I don’t think so once the hurdle is met (but not at Cal which is test blind.)
BUT, I do think having a relatively strong score can often be helpful in getting a coach’s attention (and is required by some coaches even at Test Optional schools). High test scores should be in the subject line of any recruiting emails sent to coaches, as well as on your kid’s Twitter profile
As a general statement, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with this.
Being full pay can be an advantage. IME most coaches will directly ask questions about financials and any need for scholarship money (they aren’t going to assume anything.) I wouldn’t mention full pay in an introductory recruiting email though.
Sorry, didn’t understand the nuance of your initial question. I’m not certain of the answer but I’m guessing not. The coach likely has only a limited number of kids they can support, and if you are one of them, a super-high score doesn’t matter.
Do coaches at these schools actually have a limited number of kids they can support?
There’s an ACC team we follow with a low out of state acceptance rate that recruits from private schools, and especially legacy applicants - we noticed that those recruits (signed NLI) are far below the athletic standard of the typical ones you would expect.
Short answer no. The process is generally the coaches recruit on ability and then academics. If the coach likes what he/she sees then they will offer a pre-read to see if the academics match up. They will offer far more pre-reads than available spots. After pre-reads, coaches will then work down a list of potential recruits to offer official visits. These tend to be a formality that allows a coach to showcase the school and try to get a commit. It can happen that they fall short of their needed commitments during ED and move to lower level recruits with support in RD. But at the level of school you are talking about that almost never happens.
Here is one glimmer of hope. Our college advisor told us of a lacrosse recruit for Princeton who was recruited because he could bring up the academic credentials of the team. He was an incredibly bright kid but a mediocre lacrosse player. He sat on the bench his whole tenure at Princeton. One might say he’s the exception that proves the rule.
Clarification - putting aside Title IX (which could actually work in the school’s favor if it’s a women’s team) is there an actual hard cap on number of recruits that can sign an NLI for an equivalency sport?
Is there a hard cap from NCAA when scholarships aren’t in the equation? No. Is there a hard cap by the university? Depends on the university, and the answer is generally yes. The number may vary by year, but the coach doesn’t arbitrarily pick a number. The total number for all sports is set from in high, with the AD breaking it out by sport
Yes, coaches at any given school only have only so many athletes they can support, men and women. That number is sport dependent and also dependent on how much the sport is valued at any given school.
Unless they are true a first class athlete (and even then) that party is likely over since Ivys are back to requiring test scores for pre-reads. And we do know of an impact athlete who did not pass the pre read based on test scores.
I think AIs are coming back into play. This means that to get the athlete above the coaches need to make up the scores somewhere else and will recruit an ok athlete with great academic stats to do that. During the post COVID years AIs got very fuzzy and coaches were able to get around it.
Schools like the ones on OP lists will have a lower floor. In part bc they tend to have a lot of support in place for athletes, which Ivys don’t (aside from what’s available to every student). Still, it doesn’t mean they don’t care at all about academics. We know an impact athlete at Stanford who had to add a couple of APs back into his Sr schedule to cover rigor across all 5 core subjects.
Right - so it’s not clear to me that there is an actual limit on coach support at the aforementioned high academic P5 schools, if the recruits are signing a NLI? They could be getting (as is the case from one family we have spoken to) book $ that de minimis, thereby giving the coach plenty of scholarship $ to pursue an elite recruit.
We are also talking about 99% test score, not students barely meeting the min requirement.
Yes. For example D1 baseball max is 11.7 scholarships divided amongst 27 athletes, you can look up the rest. Note only athletes getting scholarship $ sign NLIs.
Don’t conflate these things. Only those getting scholarships sign NLIs. I did say for D1 baseball that 11.7 scholarship number (if fully funded and plenty of programs aren’t) can be divided amongst only 27 athletes (minimum scholarship for baseball is 25% tuition). (Note I do think that 27 minimum went up to 32 during covid because roster sizes got so huge)