Do most athletes wait until after going on an official visit to commit to a school? We think our son should attend official visits before making a decision, as so much can be determined during a visit. Thoughts?
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Can’t speak to your sport specifically, but in my son’s sport, we did unofficial visits to schools to keep the process moving forward. Didn’t want to slow things down.
Yes, definitely wait until after the visits. Fit is extremely important. How your son feels the team interacts with each other and the vibe can make a world of difference
Best of luck
depends on the sport. official visits are a show. the same can be learned on an unofficial visit depending on the school and the nature of the visits.
Yes, many in some sports commit after sophomore or junior year, after a junior day, after a camp, after an unofficial visit. Of course nothing is official until it is official (ED acceptance, NLI signing). Many schools and many sports don’t really do OV as the school isn’t paying for them so the recruits commit when they commit.
I think it’s a family decision, and you do what you see fit for your situation. I personally think the kids should wait until they visit, but many don’t. Call me crazy - I like to test drive a car before I buy it…but, that’s just me - haha. You’re the skippers of the ship 
Good luck!!!
I’ve heard of it going both ways…but I’d say that many of even the tippy-top recruits we know recommended going on OVs before committing. My daughter waited until after her visits to make a choice.
While we’re just going through this process now for our own kid, we’ve watched kids on our team go through the process in the last couple of years. What we’ve seen mimics what SevenDad has said -even tippy top recruits are waiting until after official visits -and this is for swim, which I’m presuming you are talking about based on your user ID. We’re talking about students who went on OV’s to tippy top schools for their sport (Stanford and TAMU for swim) and Ivy League recruits (Harvard, Columbia, Cornell for swim). Some were deciding between the two (top for sport or Ivy League).
But to be honest, the game seems to be changing this year. There are more verbal commitments announced on collegeswimming.com than I remember at this time last year. If you look at collegeswimming.com right now for 2019 recruits, 12 of the top 15 girls and 10 of the top 15 guys have made verbal commitments already.
Have you visited the school? Met the coach? Seen the facilities? Is the coach putting the pressure on to commit already? Is there concern about losing his spot if he waits?
No answers from me unfortunately, but I understand both your sons desire to commit and be done with it and your desire to get a look (or one more look) before pulling the trigger.
S got an offer from what we both thought was his #1 option in January of his junior year. We hopped on a plane to do an unofficial just to be sure, but both of us felt like waiting until October was too long. He had already had unofficials at several other schools. I don’t think anyone else could have gotten him to commit early, but this was too tempting to pass up. He committed in April without a chance to do any official visits.
Fwiw, the timetable on wrestling has stepped up the last few years too. Many of the top guys go early now, and I’m even seeing lots of D2 and NAIA commits in the fall, when only a few years ago most of those kids didn’t commit until spring senior year.
just as a side note, saw a news article about a 10 yr old kid getting looked at and a football offer by nevada. WTH? so so young.
good luck to your kiddo
My son did an unofficial visit to his first choice, and he’d already spent 2 weeks on campus for an academic program unrelated to his sport, so he was ready to commit as soon as he got the offer he wanted, without doing any OVs. Under the new rules, kids can do OVs beginning September 1st of junior year, so they’ll no longer have to choose between taking OVs and committing early.
@Corraleno Good point that D1 OVs can now start on Sept 1 of jr yr (which is also when Unofficial visits can start too, no more UVs before junior year, meaning no access to coach/players on visits). The other requirement to take an OV now is that the student-athlete has to have the results of least one official SAT or ACT, which if your student wants to visit 9/1 of junior year is early and requires planning. As always do your research as football, basketball, lacrosse and softball all have different rules.
@Mwfan1921 that’s a good point about having the SAT’s done. My son who is a junior right now was asked a few months back to supply sat scores, transcript, and I think he needed an NCAA ID # to be considered for an overnight. The school athletics department has to do a eligibility check first to make sure your kid is OK to visit. That was my experience with a state flagship kind of school. We were told that overnights would be held in the Fall sometime.
So , check to see if you need an NCAA ID # ( only needed for D1/D2 sports)
OP, assuming we are talking D1, you might consider visiting schools prior to OVs, which as discussed above start 9/1 junior year. Your student only gets 5 OVs, and should have a prioritized list of schools by junior year, so the more schools you can visit prior to then, the better. Your son should also setup a NCAA clearinghouse account, another type of recruiting profile (berecruited.com, NCSA, etc.) and complete online recruiting questionnaires for the schools he is interested in. He can also still call coaches anytime, the only rub is that the coach has to pick up the phone (meaning the call was pre-organized thru a 3rd party like a coach or recruiting consultant).
Only thoughts to add here are what would your son be committing to? Has he had a positive pre-read? Has he received a likely letter? While I like the idea of recruits taking OVs before committing, I agree that it is a family decision based on all sorts of variables. More important, is that your son shouldn’t commit before receiving some sort of confirmation that he has a very good shot of being admitted, along the lines of a likely letter or positive pre-read.
Take the time to visit and get a good feel for things. Jumping out there too early just to get a spot just increases the likelihood you’ll be reconsidering the choice later. It’s not the end of the world, but being deliberate and thoughtful can reduce the risk.
My cousin committed for D1 men’s hockey just before Soph year. They had done the unofficial visit, they knew one of the coaches, and it was Big Ten so there was a reputation that played into it as well. Years pass, with a detour away from a top high school program to USHL and junior hockey and a lot of other experiences, and he eventually dropped his commitment to the program. There had been some coaching changes (not his guy) and (more importantly) he had grown up a lot. It was cool to be an early commit and get retweeted by everyone and all that, but it was not the right move. This fall he’s going to another top 10 program that’s at a much smaller school that he’s far better suited for. He still got a scholarship, but it will likely work out better for everyone this way.
Anyway, the point is take your time and do it right. It’s a big choice, a hard choice, and sometimes even if you do everything right: visit and check that the fit is good, location, etc, there’s still a risk that early commitments are not accurate. So remember you’re only making a Verbal commitment until they print the NLI and hand you a pen. That means you can change your mind at any point, and as long as you’re doing it thoughtfully, openly and for the right reasons (“Dude told me I’m his top recruit” is not a great reason) many coaches will understand. This varies by sport, of course, but honestly reconsidering your choice is OK. (What was the question again? )
Our son has visited and met with the coaches at most of the schools and has continued to be in touch through email and phone calls. As a result, he has already been invited on official visits and has turned in all his academics (ACT/Subject Tests/GPA/Senior Class Schedule) and registered with NCAA Clearinghouse - coaches have informed us he is above the academic index and I believe he is in the process of getting pre-reads. I thought the student had to get a green light from admissions before getting invited to official visits, so perhaps the coaches believe he has the green light? At some of the schools, he was told that if he verbally commits, then he has a spot on the team and in the school. The Ivys, I believe, would come after October 1 and only if son commits to the school and they commit to supporting him with a likely letter. We really feel that he should do the officials to make sure the school/team/coach is the right fit. Just hoping he doesn’t forego opportunities by waiting. What about merit money at some schools? I know the Ivys don’t give merit, but what about some others? Can kids get that even if committing early or do they need to apply regular?
In our kid’s sport, the coach (in particular the Ivy coaches), depending how high up on the rank the athlete is, the sooner they wanted a commitment. It was in Feb of junior year when they wanted a verbal commitment. As soon as the commitment was turned down by the “top” athlete, they offered the recruitment slot to the next person down the list. The commitments are made way before Oct 1 of the senior year. Oct 1 is when the first wave of Likely Letters are sent by the Ivy schools. We had to submit a completed application by Sept 15, including all LoR, essays, test scores. Then on Oct 1st received the Likely Letter, and have been on cloud nine every since. Therefore, I wouldn’t wait until the Fall of senior year to make the commitment. If your son is good enough for the coach to ask him to commit in the Spring of his junior year, and it’s from his top choice school, I would commit, or else the slot will be offered to someone else.
As others have said, so much is going to depend on the recruit’s athletic desirability at each school in the mix. There are kids out there in all sports at all levels who can wait until after signing day and have their pick of schools, there are others who will be given very short windows in which to respond to an offer (what is commonly called an “exploding offer”). The question of whether to wait to commit until after an OV will depend in large part on where your son fits on that continuum at each particular school he is considering. So personally, I would let that timeline drive the commitment decision rather than the OV calendar.
This is a very helpful thread. My question is, with all the recent changes to D1 recruiting timetables, are OV invitations still coming around July 1? And are visits still mainly happening in September? @Ohiodad51 and others
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