The issue though, as I said on page 1, is that what the coach says and what the student/parent hears is not always aligned…
Agree! That was the crux of a lot of my comments.
From my own experience with one child as a strong D1 recruit including at a top Ivy Recruit, and the parent of other good athletes/recruits, but not not nearly as strong, what we heard from coaches was typically per the school and NCAA policy, and not what the typical parent hearsay was. Which makes me take many early verbal commits with a grain of salt as to how solid of an “offer” they really are, especially when talking about Fresh/Soph & even Jrs. as having solid offers from top Ivys. The early verbal commits I feel are sometimes part parents bragging a bit (or travel teams/coaches bragging-advertising) especially in a sport where they put a lot of time and money in with travel teams like women’s soccer.
I am not disputing the high talent level of athlete the Ivy’s go after, or how wide of a net many coaches like to cast when recruiting, just questioning in my opinion how solid or real the “offer” is from the schools end for the very early athlete verbal commits.