When are most official visits?

I am a Senior in high school. I committed to a D1 school earlier this month. I had my first official visit in October (of my senior year) and took 1 in late November. The next week I went on another official...and I committed there.

I went on a few unofficial visits during the summer before my Senior year. I found they were very helpful. I also went on quite a few the summer before my junior year. It helped narrow my options of official visits down more quickly since you are only allowed 5 official visits.

I didn't talk on the phone with any coaches until junior year. (I had to initiate the phone calls, obviously.) I only spoke with 1 though, and it was a D3 school. I ended up going on an unofficial visit over the summer before Senior year and sorta liked it, but not enough to go there.

The coaches started calling about a week after July 1st. I got quite a few in August as well. I didn't really talk to coaches (other than emails back and forth) until late junior year. Emails started around the middle of sophomore year though.

Hope this helps.

I think most recruiting and signing takes place between September to January of the Senior year.

Goeey, what percentage on the athletic side were you able to get?

Coaches are not allowed to contact kids until July 1st before senior year, but athletes can contact the coaches anytime. The official signing day is in early february through the summer of senoir year. Official visits usually are during the fall or winter of senoir year, and then the athlete makes up their mind.

There are also the kids that wait a really long time to make a decision, and a really fast senior track season usually plays some part with better oppurtunities becoming available because of their faster times.

Start contacting coaches during your junior year. My oldest started in Spring of that year, while my younger did it in the Fall. We learned that it is best to do it fairly early. Doing it now, between seasons, can help because they are focussed on recruiting.

As for visits, my oldest did most of his late Fall/early Winter. I think Fall is ideal, but difficult because you have to sync up weekends when both the high school and college schedules are off.

Good luck!

...and to answer Wondring's question (which wasn't directed at me), he got 5 offers from 10% to 50% and he's a sub 9:10 3200 runner.

My kid did 2 official visits in Sept and will do 2 in Jan. (sr year). Scheduling can be hard. I think it's better to do at least one fairly early in the sr year just to get a feel for how the visits work. If there's a lot of travel involved, late xc season is a problem as you are trying to prepare for state, national meets etc. Some colleges are definitely more accomodating with scheduling than others. My child didn't do any visits prior to sr year.

My kid sent online recruiting forms after jr year xc season, then followed up with email after jr track season. It seemed to work well.

We found recruiting to be very erratic. Some programs called July 1, others we've just heard from. Some replied to emails and seemed interested but never initiated any contact afterwards, despite interest in their program. Odd. There didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it - some very high ranked programs recruited aggressively, and some very mediocre programs never answered emails or followed up on phone calls. My kid is a pretty good distance runner, 2 time Nike and FL qualifier.

To hsdistance fan as well as anybody else with experience being recruited on this thread:

1. What did you consider aggressive, recruiting-wise?

2. Did your son's interest seem to follow the recruiters? Or was he interested in any of the programs that didn't seem to show much interest in him?

3. What seemed effective (i.e. what got you or your son to like the school?)

Thank you.

1. Reached out to coaches post Jul 1.

2. Arranged unofficial visits with my daughter in July to 3 schools.

3. Daughter spoke by phone to a few more of her favorites over the summer.

4. In each conversation she asked 2 questions: "am I what you are looking for on your team" and "will I get accepted" (all her schools were top academic/Ivy types.

5. 3 official visits in Sep/Oct.

6. Applied early admission by Nov 1 to one school; told other coaches "thank you".

7. Acceptance letter by Christmas.

My advice to any parent of any kid of any ability is that the more focused you are on your top choices, the better you do and do not expect any coach to reach out, not many can wait for the phone to ring.

Dad, o appreciate your reply. More parents need to open up about what were getting..it will only help the kids that follow. My kid is a senior, didn't Do much until Jr. Track season . Put up some pretty impressive times, got some nice hand written letters and they called the us coach. On July 1st the phone started ringing. Took 4 unofficial visits to some bcs schools. The coaches took us around the campus, had some meetings with academic counselors. Pretty much a condensed official except no overbite stay and didn't meet the team. In the fall coaches ( head ) came to our house and we made plans for official visits. We visited our # 1 first and liked everything the school had to offer. The team ( kids) really made it a positive experience. While all of them were state champs or allstaters, running in my opinion was not the reason they chose this school. They were all great students and picked this school because of it's national academic reputation, running was second to them. The other bcs schools while very nice, just didn't hammer home the academics as much as the first school. The kids were there to run first and learn second. We committed soon after our 3rd visit. Another major, major bcs school in the Midwest that is home to a lot of auto plants came on strong the month before we committed especially the last 10 days..we really wanted to visit there before we committed but we needed to give our # 1.an answer before we could make another visit. A bird in hand is worth 2 in the bush. Our School is slightly less prestigious than the last one we wanted to visit but is still top 40 over all in the country, top 5 engineering and top 10 for business. And it's 3 hours closer. We would probably make the same decision but it would of been nice to know for sure. We could of gotten over 70% at some d1 schools combined with academic aid but settled for a little over half of that with no academic help, just athletic.

Be very honest with the coaches, this isn't football where you can play hardball. I not saying to lay down but it's apples and oranges comparing recruiting to football. The coaching fraternity is very small world and if you act like schools are dyeing to have your kid, when really they have just made some phone calls you can bet that the coaches will already know! It's a very small world, trust mexon that. Thankfully we were just being ourselves and being very honest and not trying to put a larger spin on things.

More important though is getting other parents on here to ask questions or tell their storys about the experience they have had. The percentage we get shouldn't be a dirty word. Just don't brag about it.

havinganinterestedparty wrote:

To hsdistance fan as well as anybody else with experience being recruited on this thread:

1. What did you consider aggressive, recruiting-wise?

2. Did your son's interest seem to follow the recruiters? Or was he interested in any of the programs that didn't seem to show much interest in him?

3. What seemed effective (i.e. what got you or your son to like the school?)

Thank you.

Aggressive recruiting - (not necessarily intended pejoratively): weekly phone calls, calling very soon after July 1, offers of home visits, clear evidence of following athlete's progress through season. These were all received well. Pressure to visit on a certain date and pressure to commit by a certain date - received negatively.

Interest following recruiters - My kid is probably an exception - turned down many good running programs. Primary interest academic. Impressed by coaches and team members who were not obsessed with running and could talk about other interests, academic side of school. Was disappointed that some top academic school coaches from schools without top tier running programs didn't pursue contact despite top grades, test scores etc.

Liking the program - friendly coach and team who had easy laughs and interests outside of running, but who still strove to be very good athletes. Parents were impressed with coaches who asked to speak parents about their take on the school and the whole process. Scholarship money was specifically a non factor, not because we are wealthy, but because we as parents don't want the decision to be about money.

Wondring wrote:

Goeey, what percentage on the athletic side were you able to get?

I got a full-tuition scholarship. I have to pay for room and board, and also I have to pay fees...but my education and books are all paid for.

Good grades are the key to the whole equation. If you have good grades you are attractive to a ton more college coaches.

1) As mentioned before, "agressive recruiting" can be good or bad. Certain coaches called as often and as early as they were allowed, which isn't a bad thing. However, one in particular continued to follow up as my son took his other visits which added a lot of pressure to the situation. We ended up not choosing that school, largely because of the coach's overbearing nature.

2) As things went on, my son's interest synced with the recruiters, but not at first. Some schools that would be lucky to get my son ignored him, while other top ranked schools pursued him. It becomes clear that many programs are poor because they don't even attempt to recruit - it's not really about dollars.

3) My son took all 5 visits and he made the initial contact for 4 of those 5, so don't be shy! Coaches like kids that are ambitious. Also, my son did all the communication (with my advising) which I think coaches also like. I would edit the emails, but he had the final say (don't want dad to be lame!). They want to know the kid, not a father brokering his goods.

JoeCoach wrote:

Good grades are the key to the whole equation. If you have good grades you are attractive to a ton more college coaches.

I strongly agree on this point! Letting coaches know you are a serious student first is important. They love that!

What schools offer athletic scholarship? I know D3 and Ivy League doesn't, so which ones do? (And I'm assuming you have to be like 4:15 miler or 9:10 2 miler to get decent athletic money right?)

tanto wrote:

What schools offer athletic scholarship? I know D3 and Ivy League doesn't, so which ones do? (And I'm assuming you have to be like 4:15 miler or 9:10 2 miler to get decent athletic money right?)

It's very hard to get good information on this. It's true that Ivies and D3 programs don't give scholarships. Beyond this, the availability of money it isn't very clear. There are limits, but most schools are not at the limits.

As for time, it really depends. A 9:10 kid won't get money at Stanford, but many tier 2 schools will really want him. And a 9:30 kid will get interest from a lot of lower D1 and D2 schools. The best thing to do is go to the team website and see how fast the current freshmen were in high school. You can search the results on Milesplit.

DadOf2FastOnes wrote:

I know D3 and Ivy League doesn't, so which ones do?

D3 schools aren't technically allowed to give athletic scholarships but they can pull a few strings. I played basketball for a D3 school on a "leadership" scholarship. Of course, this was back in the 80's, so they may be stricter about these kinds of things nowadays.

Which one's do? D1 and D2 schools, as funds are available.