College Sports Recruiting - CaptainU, NCSA, Others?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rowing lol

lol? You do realize what schools have competitive rowing, right? Rowing is a great way in to top schools.

Another sports parent here. Posts like yours are so cringe to me. Any true athlete isn’t just competing as an admission hinge.

If they’re doing rowing you think they’re doing it because they love it? GTFOH

There is no other reason to row other than you love it. It is grueling and to succeed you have to love it. Is it that you find it so hard that you can’t imagine anyone loves it? Many of us do, just like many people love cross country even though I hate to run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rowing lol

lol? You do realize what schools have competitive rowing, right? Rowing is a great way in to top schools.

Another sports parent here. Posts like yours are so cringe to me. Any true athlete isn’t just competing as an admission hinge.

The kids who row for an admissions bump wash put pretty quickly. It’s too hard to do for any other reason than you love it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rowing lol

lol? You do realize what schools have competitive rowing, right? Rowing is a great way in to top schools.

Another sports parent here. Posts like yours are so cringe to me. Any true athlete isn’t just competing as an admission hinge.

If they’re doing rowing you think they’re doing it because they love it? GTFOH

Tell me you know nothing about crew without coming out and saying it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We paid for a couple of recruiting services - the basic NCSA so we could easily look at schools, coach names and contact into, skills and academic match without a lot of time on our side. That is all public info, so it was just convenience. We also paid for a sport-specific recruiting service, and that may or may not have been necessary or helpful.

In the end kid’s club coach called a college coach he has a relationship with, said “you want this kid” and then told my kid “go visit and I bet you get an offer. Kid went, loved school, got an offer, and committed.

So much angst and gnashing of teeth, and in the end it was a coach’s phone call that did it.

Its all about the work you are willing to put into it. If your DC does the work and makes a list of schools, fills out the recruiting forms, sends emails and video where applicable, then you really don't need a service. If you need someone to help you understand the recruiting process and you aren't getting it from the team/club you play for, then the idea of using a service for short period of time may not be a bad idea.

Club coaches can have a big impact as well, but you are limited by the coaches network.

[Anonymous]

OP here, thanks to those who offered constructive comments.

I would like to add that my child has a good gpa and has a specific major in mind that will reduce the pool of schools quite a bit. We are not using rowing as a vehicle to cheat our way through admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks to those who offered constructive comments.

I would like to add that my child has a good gpa and has a specific major in mind that will reduce the pool of schools quite a bit. We are not using rowing as a vehicle to cheat our way through admissions.

Sure jann

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks to those who offered constructive comments.

I would like to add that my child has a good gpa and has a specific major in mind that will reduce the pool of schools quite a bit. We are not using rowing as a vehicle to cheat our way through admissions.

Parent of an athlete in a different sport. The recruitment process is not cheating your way through admissions. To be recruitable in any sport takes an immense level of talent and hard work, and your child has accomplished that while maintaining grades in the recruitable range for whatever school they attend. If your child does end up rowing in college, people will repeat this nonsense to you over and over again, as though students cannot be both smart and athletic, and as if being recruited means the student isn’t an academic fit for the school. Don’t entertain that idea by implying anyone is cheating others out of a spot in college.

For the process, your child can contact the coaches now, so start emailing them with erg times, grades, etc, fill out the recruiting questionnaires on the websites. The coaches are allowed to contact your child about camps. Lots of these will be mass emails, but they can invite you personally as well. They can’t talk about recruiting yet as a sophomore, but the camps still give the athlete and coaches a chance to evaluate each other. You can go to a handful of those and then be ready to get on the phone on the junior year communication date, hopefully with a few favorites in mind since your child will already have visited schools and met coaches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks to those who offered constructive comments.

I would like to add that my child has a good gpa and has a specific major in mind that will reduce the pool of schools quite a bit. We are not using rowing as a vehicle to cheat our way through admissions.

Parent of an athlete in a different sport. The recruitment process is not cheating your way through admissions. To be recruitable in any sport takes an immense level of talent and hard work, and your child has accomplished that while maintaining grades in the recruitable range for whatever school they attend. If your child does end up rowing in college, people will repeat this nonsense to you over and over again, as though students cannot be both smart and athletic, and as if being recruited means the student isn’t an academic fit for the school. Don’t entertain that idea by implying anyone is cheating others out of a spot in college.

For the process, your child can contact the coaches now, so start emailing them with erg times, grades, etc, fill out the recruiting questionnaires on the websites. The coaches are allowed to contact your child about camps. Lots of these will be mass emails, but they can invite you personally as well. They can’t talk about recruiting yet as a sophomore, but the camps still give the athlete and coaches a chance to evaluate each other. You can go to a handful of those and then be ready to get on the phone on the junior year communication date, hopefully with a few favorites in mind since your child will already have visited schools and met coaches.

+1 The old trope of the "dumb jock" is taking a long time to die. Any NCAA university now has minimum GPA standards and graduation rates for their teams. In the vast majority of sports, that means coaches won't consider recruiting players that don't meet the schools academic standards. Sure, it does still happen but its a lot rarer than it was even 10 years ago. Plus, the pool of smart students is much larger than it was 10 years ago as well. In our DD's sport every single player on her club team has a 3.8+ GPA at strong academic HS. At travel tournaments its not unusual to see every player studying in between games/at the hotel at night.

The one real difference is the coach in an athletic program can usually either a) get admissions to review and admit you before the standard admissions timeframe -- a process that is required by the NCAA and their letter of intent program or b) do a pre-read with admissions to tell you whether you have a good chance of admission when the admission window opens. In the latter case using athletics to differentiate yourself is no different than using other avenues like great standardized test scores (and standardized test classes), essay consultants, or even tutors to make sure your DCs grades are good.