Yes! My athlete was asked by a coach to send her school profile in April or May- coach said it wouldn’t hurt to start gathering the info. D then “officially” submitted all of her pre-read info. via a link in late June, once she had her transcript.
2 Likes
Our experience at Williams: if the coach expresses interest, asks for a pre-read, tells your kid they cleared the pre-read, and then clearly commits to support your kid (on the understanding that they will apply ED), you can assume a very high certainty of admission. In our view that is the only appropriate time for a parent to speak with the coach (in our experience coaches want the athletes to drive the process). Confirm the support and ask the coach how many times one of their pre-read supported athletes were denied admission ED (in our case it was zero). In these circumstances, your kid shouldn’t accept the offer unless they are prepared to commit to apply ED (it’s ok to ask for some time to think about it). Once they accept, they should promptly decline any other offers (painful but a good life lesson). After accepting, it’s not uncommon for the coach to introduce your kid to other incoming recruited athletes on the team, which gives additional comfort the support is real!
9 Likes
9 posts were split to a new thread: Pre Read for Williams
I’ve never heard of submitting the pre-read info via a link. May I ask what sport and/or school? (would appreciate any others who’ve been asked to do this chiming in as well)
Fingers crossed that some are hearing on their pre-reads and/or getting offers?
She was sent a link to a Google form. Asked to submit much of the info. that way- this was for one NESCAC. She had already sent the school profile ahead of time. Another NESCAC just asked for all the info. in an email. It varies. Daughter was asked to submit the info. late June and received 1st offer on 7/1, but from what I understand that varies, depending on sport, coach, and where athlete is on coach’s list.
1 Like
I vaguely remember doing that for a school… I think it was more than one. It was no big deal. The link was just an intake form, very similar to recruiting questionnaires or what you fill out signing up for a tour, with the addition of the ocasional short statement about what you want to study or about yourself and fields to upload relevant docs like score reports and transcripts.
This year we have seen several NESCACs requiring submission of transcript, test scores, essay (or writing sample in some cases), school profile, senior courses, and a ton of biographical data via link or portal. Some schools or sports are still old school and merely require emailing grades, school profile, and test scores to the coach.
More diversity focus via essay question with a few schools.
Some NESCAC coaches making soft offers before July 1 (conditional on preread), while others are waiting until this week to make offers for top recruits (ED1/full coach support). Process will continue playing out throughout Summer and Fall.
2 Likes
I have heard about some negative pre read results for quite a few kids I know coming out of Williams/ Middlebury/ colby/ bates - A- average type kids. Is this normal ? I thought it was easier to pass a pre read than this if the coach wants you. Confused
Conventional wisdom says that a NESCAC recruit is “an excellent student who is a good athlete.”
An A- average (3.7 gpa) in a time where 4.0s are abundant, may be underwhelming. I don’t think it’s the A- that is the issue necessarily, but IME a lot of those kids are not taking the expected rigor. Do you know what the course load looked like? While pre-reads are somewhat objective, they are not done in a vacuum and rigor is most definitely considered. Combine that with a so-so test score, yeah…. I can see it being an issue.
6 Likes
Passing a pre-read has nothing to do with how much the coach wants you. Where that comes into play is if you get B-banded by admissions and the coach only gets to select a couple of those athletes.
2 Likes
Your information may be based on D1 revenue sports like football and basketball - that is an entirely different game - pun intended 
for recruitment.
1 Like
For many kids passing is relative and very much dependent on where they are on the coaches list. Coaches get limited slots (generally 1 or 2) in bands B/C and this can affect a kids position in the process. Not as confident with Colby but your typical A- student would be band B at best at Williams and probably band B at Midd (maybe A with a good test score to back things up). For kids further down the coaches list a B band read might not be enough for the coach to move forward which could result in a ‘negative’ pre-read response. I know of this happening at other NESCACs and the coaches sometimes respond with “I’d love to have you and can write an email but you’ll need to get in on your own.”
2 Likes
In our experience, even with the coaches who weren’t as careful with their wording as most, they won’t give a yes / no answer. The most we got, which incidentally was from the Williams coach, was “There are no guarantees, but with her profile I would personally be very surprised and disappointed if she were not admitted.” Almost everyone else leaned on the positive pre-read and suggested she should be admitted but that there are no guarantees.
I think the question to ask is, will my kid get the most admissions support that you are allowed to give? That tells you where you fall in the pecking order.
Assuming there is not and won’t be a compelling test score, then I’d say you’re rowing upstream with Williams. Without a top test score and priority recruit status, I myself would assume a 3.7 (even with rigor) would make Williams a pretty tough get. Middlebury may be different.
1 Like
This. The point of the pre-read is to get the hard take from Admissions, who runs the show in NESCAC recruiting. I don’t know how limited pre-read slots are for coaches (I assume Admissions gives them a budget of submissions), but coaches submit pre-reads for kids they want. Among that population, they’ll allocate the slots and tips, and then they cross their fingers and hope for the best. They are not infrequently disappointed, according to my sources. There are always pre-reads that don’t go the coach’s way (or the way they thought or more likely hoped they’d go).
1 Like
We passed Williams and didn’t pass Amherst. I am completely flummoxed at this point.
I am sorry. I know it’s frustrating. Did they offer any feedback? We hit a snag at MIT but the coach was pretty transparent. The general reaction to the issue was “that’s ridiculous!” but that was that. I think it would not have been a problem if he was higher on the list.
I have occasionally wondered if sometimes coaches use the pre read as a way to shift blame on why they are not making an offer. I also think pre reads at some of these schools take into consideration the buckets and institutional priorities the school is trying to meet. This thought makes sense to me if considering Amherst and its commitment to diversity. If this were not true there would have been absolutely zero need to wait on the SCOTUS decision for pre-reads last year.
Out of curiosity, would you share her grades/courses/tests?
4 Likes
@GimmeSomeCoffee, at first the reason for the diverging results in pre-reads may not make sense. If you could pull back the curtain, however, there could be circumstances that would explain it. For example, if you were the number 2 recruit at Williams, but number 10-15 at Amherst, admissions would know that and might give you the thumbs down. Or, maybe admissions gave a positive pre-read, but the coach in reporting the result wanted shelter from his/her recruiting decision. Perhaps the pre-read result was based on geography (e.g., too many kids from Boston), although I’ve never heard of this happening on a pre-read. I do know of one kid who was an Amherst double legacy who didn’t get coach support reportedly because “he could get in on his own,” who ended up at Williams.
@cquin85, there is no one correct way to get through the recruiting process and certainly others will disagree with our approach. With our three, I had no problem directly asking whether they would get in. I had coaches say, “he’ll get in” and others say “well, he’s on the cusp.” I do encourage recruits to ask directly because it is a stressful time and the coach provides the most accurate, albeit imperfect, information that a recruit will get short of a pre-read. Many recruits are afraid of the question and instead of asking the coach end up asking others on this forum. Even the answers you received from coaches were very informative and much better information than a high school student otherwise would get. I had a college counselor straight up tell me my kid wouldn’t get into XXX school who of course was admitted with coach support.
3 Likes
A few years back, there was a kid who didn’t pass the pre-read at Colby. Bates snatched him up. Based on what I knew of this kid, my hunch is that Colby - which had many more general requirements for graduation (Calculus, FL, etc) may have been more concerned about where some of the softer spots in the record were and whether this kid would thrive. In an environment that gave more room to academically play to your strengths and avoid what were likely to be challenges, there may have been no concerns.
I bring this up as an example because different schools may be looking for different things in the pre-read. It’s not just a GPA and scores - it’s what the components of those say about a kid’s likelihood of thriving, especially when they will have other demands on their time.
4 Likes
I think this answer has become a lot more difficult in the last few years and coaches are hesitant to state that, unless you mean with coach support but then there would be no cusp about it?
1 Like
To further explain the “on the cusp” comment, it helps to understand NESCAC bands. The “cusp” referred to being on the cusp of an A band vs. a B band. As you know, an A band recruit could get a tip in athletic support, where a B bander might need a slot. I do not think that NESCAC recruiting has changed much in the last few years and, in my view, the general principles remain the same: Work hard, be as assertive as you would be in searching for a job, and above all maintain your sanity.