How do you get recruited as an athlete to an Ivy League?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://gocrimson.com/sports/womens-tennis/roster/

OP. You said your DD is intrested tennis and Harvard is on her dream school list. Here’s the roster. Multiple state champions, five star recruits, blue chip recruits. I think you can see the quality here.

Here’s UVA for a top tennis team not Ivy. Same thing, five star recruits, international level tournaments. Can we please stop with the delusion that if your kid is a top high school player that they are going to one of these schools for tennis? https://virginiasports.com/sports/wten/roster/

D1, ok you are correct. But there are D3 top 30 schools that will recruit non international, not blue chip level players.

Well...the topic of this thread is Ivy League recruiting which is a D1 athletic league. Start a different D3 thread if you want.

+1

If OPs kid wants to go to a third rate college and play tennis, we can surely advise her. She is asking about Ivy League tennis.

So Williams, University of Chicago, Bowdoin, Amherst are third rate colleges? If OPs daughter wants to play tennis, while IVY may be out, there is still opportunity to play at other top schools and maybe that would be ok for her too.

[Anonymous]

Why do highly academic schools recruit athletes for unprofitable sports? Is it essentially "paying" a student to provide a winning team for the academic students to play in (or just be proud to wear the same colors as?), to indirectly recruit academic students?

I'm sure people get excited to go to Duke or Bama for their champion teams in premier sports, but not one cares who the Ivy League Lax champs are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do highly academic schools recruit athletes for unprofitable sports? Is it essentially "paying" a student to provide a winning team for the academic students to play in (or just be proud to wear the same colors as?), to indirectly recruit academic students?

I'm sure people get excited to go to Duke or Bama for their champion teams in premier sports, but not one cares who the Ivy League Lax champs are.

You actually picked a bad example...usually the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion. Those games are fairly well-attended in the scheme of things.

Perhaps more accurately, nobody cares who the Ivy League XCountry, fencing, squash, sailing champs may be. Honestly, nobody cares who even are the national champions in fencing, squash, sailing and other multiple niche sports.

Yes, it is a backdoor way to recruit wealthy kids for sports like squash or sailing or fencing. At least for squash, it is also a backdoor way to recruit wealthy international kids since they dominate the sport internationally.

[Anonymous]

I have a DC going through this right now. Interested in a few Ivys (as well as other non-Ivys) and getting traction from their coaches. There is a lot of accurate information and a lot of inaccurate information on this thread. And my DC is not through the process (2025), so I can only share their experience up to a point.

There are some differences depending on whether it's a team vs. individual sport, but for either, it starts like a good old fashioned job search. If you're interested, you email the coach. (Before doing this, fill in the online interest questionnaires, just because they like to have that done - it's okay if DC doesn't have all the information yet, but it puts them onto a mailing list of sorts.) Ideally this email will include video footage or a link to it online. Email should be comprehensive introduction but not so long that it's unreadable. The goal is to get the coach to respond. For D1 (which includes Ivys), early summer 10th is a good time to do this, because coaches can't contact until Jun. 15 that year.

Then, you wait for responses. If you don't get responses to some, follow up a few weeks later.

See where you are. Positive responses should hopefully lead to phone/zoom calls. That is the start of a relationship of checking in every few weeks/months. If relationship progresses, you may have visits (unofficial or official). After visits, conversation continues or not. If conversation continues, you may get an offer, which is an offer to be on the team if you get in to school. Coach helps facilitate this. The coach can't "get you in," but can sort of guide your application if that makes sense. So, while you aren't guaranteed admission, you get an edge. This is a result of:

1) They have a team roster spot to fill. So you get an edge over identical candidate who can't fill that spot.
2) You're looked at for grades and rigor and test scores, BUT you are not looked at for those things in the context of others from your school. For some, this can be a big boost.
3) While they may love for the athlete to be something else too (URM, for example), that is also not the context they're looking for. You're looked at individually vs. within a larger applicant base.

Basically, you need to be in the zone, but you benefit from not being compared to the entire pool of people applying.

Key is - you do have to sell yourself in the way you do for a job. You make the contact, you keep up with the coach. If you're an absolute stand out this will be easy, because the coach will chase you. But for most (like my DC), you're a contender, not a stand out, so you have to market yourself.

On that note. Lots of kids are great athletes and lots are great students, and a fair amount are both. These are the kids IVY+ coaches talk to. So, what sets kids apart is not actually either of these qualities. It's sportsmanship, character, kindness, maturity. Do not overlook the value of these qualities in this process. We have had more than one coach explain this. Also, they want kids who want to continue to progress and improve in college, rather than seeing college as where they land after having done so well in high school. In other words, college isn't the "prize" - it's the next level. Athletes need to show that they understand that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send emails to coaches with video and attend their camps. Still need top academics. Went to a recent ivy camp. The head coach said the first question the admissions office asks is what is the course rigor. He said this it is incredibly important that the student is taking the most rigorous courseload to show he can play a sport and enroll in ivy classes. He said SAT/ACTs are also very important. (He seemed to imply that they are even more important than GPAs given the inability to compare among schools). A student not submitting a score is considered a negative as he has to submit an average score for the collective team.

Listen to the Yale lacrosse coach on Youtube (go search for it). He is taped giving a talk to LAX recruits and mentions that half the team has sub-1500 SAT scores, with a bunch in the 1200s, more in the 1300s and more in the 1400s...and then 50% above 1500. I believe this is Summer 2022. Said transcript is most important in terms of grades and rigor.

The specific school above is relevant. Obviously, now Dartmouth requires scores from everyone and Yale seems to be leaning that way as well.

To reiterate, the specific sport matters a ton. Also, not sure what sport you are referring, but all college camps are for the most part a way for the assistant coaches to make extra money since they are poorly paid. They need lots of kids with no hope of getting recruited to attend.

There is no point in attending any camps unless you have been specifically invited and/or will hit certain athletic marks that will get a coach's attention (and it's usually both).

1 was in the 1200s, not a bunch. 2 in the 1300s. 3 in the 1400s and the remaining 5 above a 1500.

That is 6 spots that didn't go to academic superstars, as if sports are important to Yale's reputation. So weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do highly academic schools recruit athletes for unprofitable sports? Is it essentially "paying" a student to provide a winning team for the academic students to play in (or just be proud to wear the same colors as?), to indirectly recruit academic students?

I'm sure people get excited to go to Duke or Bama for their champion teams in premier sports, but not one cares who the Ivy League Lax champs are.

You actually picked a bad example...usually the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion. Those games are fairly well-attended in the scheme of things.

Perhaps more accurately, nobody cares who the Ivy League XCountry, fencing, squash, sailing champs may be. Honestly, nobody cares who even are the national champions in fencing, squash, sailing and other multiple niche sports.

Yes, it is a backdoor way to recruit wealthy kids for sports like squash or sailing or fencing. At least for squash, it is also a backdoor way to recruit wealthy international kids since they dominate the sport internationally.

But who really cares if the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a DC going through this right now. Interested in a few Ivys (as well as other non-Ivys) and getting traction from their coaches. There is a lot of accurate information and a lot of inaccurate information on this thread. And my DC is not through the process (2025), so I can only share their experience up to a point.

There are some differences depending on whether it's a team vs. individual sport, but for either, it starts like a good old fashioned job search. If you're interested, you email the coach. (Before doing this, fill in the online interest questionnaires, just because they like to have that done - it's okay if DC doesn't have all the information yet, but it puts them onto a mailing list of sorts.) Ideally this email will include video footage or a link to it online. Email should be comprehensive introduction but not so long that it's unreadable. The goal is to get the coach to respond. For D1 (which includes Ivys), early summer 10th is a good time to do this, because coaches can't contact until Jun. 15 that year.

Then, you wait for responses. If you don't get responses to some, follow up a few weeks later.

See where you are. Positive responses should hopefully lead to phone/zoom calls. That is the start of a relationship of checking in every few weeks/months. If relationship progresses, you may have visits (unofficial or official). After visits, conversation continues or not. If conversation continues, you may get an offer, which is an offer to be on the team if you get in to school. Coach helps facilitate this. The coach can't "get you in," but can sort of guide your application if that makes sense. So, while you aren't guaranteed admission, you get an edge. This is a result of:

1) They have a team roster spot to fill. So you get an edge over identical candidate who can't fill that spot.
2) You're looked at for grades and rigor and test scores, BUT you are not looked at for those things in the context of others from your school. For some, this can be a big boost.
3) While they may love for the athlete to be something else too (URM, for example), that is also not the context they're looking for. You're looked at individually vs. within a larger applicant base.

Basically, you need to be in the zone, but you benefit from not being compared to the entire pool of people applying.

Key is - you do have to sell yourself in the way you do for a job. You make the contact, you keep up with the coach. If you're an absolute stand out this will be easy, because the coach will chase you. But for most (like my DC), you're a contender, not a stand out, so you have to market yourself.

On that note. Lots of kids are great athletes and lots are great students, and a fair amount are both. These are the kids IVY+ coaches talk to. So, what sets kids apart is not actually either of these qualities. It's sportsmanship, character, kindness, maturity. Do not overlook the value of these qualities in this process. We have had more than one coach explain this. Also, they want kids who want to continue to progress and improve in college, rather than seeing college as where they land after having done so well in high school. In other words, college isn't the "prize" - it's the next level. Athletes need to show that they understand that.

IME, and everyone is going to have a bit of a different experience, this is a bit of a rose-colored summary. This makes it sound a bit easier than it is. And I also agree it does depend on the sport. In our DC's there is a LOT of international recruiting so only about half are US Players.

In our experience, also, there are absolutely a fair number who are excellent players + excellent students. So it is still extremely competitive. And the ones that I know who went on to Ivies had SIGNIFICANT help from club coaches and directors. And were highly promoted by their clubs/coaches. The ones that didn't . . . went elsewhere. (Other factors such as "First gen" also helped).

You still have a fairly large pool of "applicants" for about half the roster spots in a given year (in our sport). So it's still really difficult. Not impossible if you are truly the BEST at your position and a good student. But most kids are "only" really good and really smart and they need a bit of luck, timing, and help to make an ivy happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do highly academic schools recruit athletes for unprofitable sports? Is it essentially "paying" a student to provide a winning team for the academic students to play in (or just be proud to wear the same colors as?), to indirectly recruit academic students?

I'm sure people get excited to go to Duke or Bama for their champion teams in premier sports, but not one cares who the Ivy League Lax champs are.

You actually picked a bad example...usually the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion. Those games are fairly well-attended in the scheme of things.

Perhaps more accurately, nobody cares who the Ivy League XCountry, fencing, squash, sailing champs may be. Honestly, nobody cares who even are the national champions in fencing, squash, sailing and other multiple niche sports.

Yes, it is a backdoor way to recruit wealthy kids for sports like squash or sailing or fencing. At least for squash, it is also a backdoor way to recruit wealthy international kids since they dominate the sport internationally.

But who really cares if the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion?

Well...the NCAA LAX tournament and championships are popular enough that the NCAA can sell the TV rights to ESPN. Also, the stands are full for those games.

My only point is that LAX may be a B/E sport financially. It is not as obscure as you make it out to be.

The only reason to point out that an Ivy league school is often the national champion is to contrast that to basketball, football, baseball and other team sports where they are never in the hunt. For LAX, the Ivy League probably has the most teams ranked Top 20 of all colleges with respect to specific athletic leagues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do highly academic schools recruit athletes for unprofitable sports? Is it essentially "paying" a student to provide a winning team for the academic students to play in (or just be proud to wear the same colors as?), to indirectly recruit academic students?

I'm sure people get excited to go to Duke or Bama for their champion teams in premier sports, but not one cares who the Ivy League Lax champs are.

There are several Ivy League lax teams currently ranked in the T20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a DC going through this right now. Interested in a few Ivys (as well as other non-Ivys) and getting traction from their coaches. There is a lot of accurate information and a lot of inaccurate information on this thread. And my DC is not through the process (2025), so I can only share their experience up to a point.

There are some differences depending on whether it's a team vs. individual sport, but for either, it starts like a good old fashioned job search. If you're interested, you email the coach. (Before doing this, fill in the online interest questionnaires, just because they like to have that done - it's okay if DC doesn't have all the information yet, but it puts them onto a mailing list of sorts.) Ideally this email will include video footage or a link to it online. Email should be comprehensive introduction but not so long that it's unreadable. The goal is to get the coach to respond. For D1 (which includes Ivys), early summer 10th is a good time to do this, because coaches can't contact until Jun. 15 that year.

Then, you wait for responses. If you don't get responses to some, follow up a few weeks later.

See where you are. Positive responses should hopefully lead to phone/zoom calls. That is the start of a relationship of checking in every few weeks/months. If relationship progresses, you may have visits (unofficial or official). After visits, conversation continues or not. If conversation continues, you may get an offer, which is an offer to be on the team if you get in to school. Coach helps facilitate this. The coach can't "get you in," but can sort of guide your application if that makes sense. So, while you aren't guaranteed admission, you get an edge. This is a result of:

1) They have a team roster spot to fill. So you get an edge over identical candidate who can't fill that spot.
2) You're looked at for grades and rigor and test scores, BUT you are not looked at for those things in the context of others from your school. For some, this can be a big boost.
3) While they may love for the athlete to be something else too (URM, for example), that is also not the context they're looking for. You're looked at individually vs. within a larger applicant base.

Basically, you need to be in the zone, but you benefit from not being compared to the entire pool of people applying.

Key is - you do have to sell yourself in the way you do for a job. You make the contact, you keep up with the coach. If you're an absolute stand out this will be easy, because the coach will chase you. But for most (like my DC), you're a contender, not a stand out, so you have to market yourself.

On that note. Lots of kids are great athletes and lots are great students, and a fair amount are both. These are the kids IVY+ coaches talk to. So, what sets kids apart is not actually either of these qualities. It's sportsmanship, character, kindness, maturity. Do not overlook the value of these qualities in this process. We have had more than one coach explain this. Also, they want kids who want to continue to progress and improve in college, rather than seeing college as where they land after having done so well in high school. In other words, college isn't the "prize" - it's the next level. Athletes need to show that they understand that.

This is good...but everyone needs to understand the calendar for each sport as they differ. D1 has all kinds of rules based on the sport with respect to quiet periods, when schools can offer verbal commitments to athletes, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do highly academic schools recruit athletes for unprofitable sports? Is it essentially "paying" a student to provide a winning team for the academic students to play in (or just be proud to wear the same colors as?), to indirectly recruit academic students?

I'm sure people get excited to go to Duke or Bama for their champion teams in premier sports, but not one cares who the Ivy League Lax champs are.

You actually picked a bad example...usually the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion. Those games are fairly well-attended in the scheme of things.

Perhaps more accurately, nobody cares who the Ivy League XCountry, fencing, squash, sailing champs may be. Honestly, nobody cares who even are the national champions in fencing, squash, sailing and other multiple niche sports.

Yes, it is a backdoor way to recruit wealthy kids for sports like squash or sailing or fencing. At least for squash, it is also a backdoor way to recruit wealthy international kids since they dominate the sport internationally.

But who really cares if the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion?

Lacrosse is a pretty popular sport and you seem completely clueless about it. Maybe pick a different example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do highly academic schools recruit athletes for unprofitable sports? Is it essentially "paying" a student to provide a winning team for the academic students to play in (or just be proud to wear the same colors as?), to indirectly recruit academic students?

I'm sure people get excited to go to Duke or Bama for their champion teams in premier sports, but not one cares who the Ivy League Lax champs are.

.

Cornell!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many moons ago, I was recruited to play baseball at a couple Ivy League schools. I played in a summer league in between my junior and senior year and met a couple coaches with connections to the Ivy League. I ended up passing because the competition level was not up to snuff. I wanted to challenge myself at the highest levels of D1. I found out that I was never going to be the best player on the team. No regrets.

I have no clue how to get recruited today. However, the first requirement is to have talent in whatever sport you are playing.

This, the post about character being a differentiator is complete bs. For the non obscure sports, you need to be high up in the national rankings for the sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do highly academic schools recruit athletes for unprofitable sports? Is it essentially "paying" a student to provide a winning team for the academic students to play in (or just be proud to wear the same colors as?), to indirectly recruit academic students?

I'm sure people get excited to go to Duke or Bama for their champion teams in premier sports, but not one cares who the Ivy League Lax champs are.

You actually picked a bad example...usually the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion. Those games are fairly well-attended in the scheme of things.

Perhaps more accurately, nobody cares who the Ivy League XCountry, fencing, squash, sailing champs may be. Honestly, nobody cares who even are the national champions in fencing, squash, sailing and other multiple niche sports.

Yes, it is a backdoor way to recruit wealthy kids for sports like squash or sailing or fencing. At least for squash, it is also a backdoor way to recruit wealthy international kids since they dominate the sport internationally.

But who really cares if the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion?

Lacrosse is a pretty popular sport and you seem completely clueless about it. Maybe pick a different example.

Yet somehow I know what college football is and how to find it on my television.

Maybe look up what "popular" means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do highly academic schools recruit athletes for unprofitable sports? Is it essentially "paying" a student to provide a winning team for the academic students to play in (or just be proud to wear the same colors as?), to indirectly recruit academic students?

I'm sure people get excited to go to Duke or Bama for their champion teams in premier sports, but not one cares who the Ivy League Lax champs are.

You actually picked a bad example...usually the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion. Those games are fairly well-attended in the scheme of things.

Perhaps more accurately, nobody cares who the Ivy League XCountry, fencing, squash, sailing champs may be. Honestly, nobody cares who even are the national champions in fencing, squash, sailing and other multiple niche sports.

Yes, it is a backdoor way to recruit wealthy kids for sports like squash or sailing or fencing. At least for squash, it is also a backdoor way to recruit wealthy international kids since they dominate the sport internationally.

But who really cares if the Ivy League LAX champ is ranked top 10 nationally and in many years an Ivy team is the national champion?

Well...the NCAA LAX tournament and championships are popular enough that the NCAA can sell the TV rights to ESPN. Also, the stands are full for those games.

My only point is that LAX may be a B/E sport financially. It is not as obscure as you make it out to be.

The only reason to point out that an Ivy league school is often the national champion is to contrast that to basketball, football, baseball and other team sports where they are never in the hunt. For LAX, the Ivy League probably has the most teams ranked Top 20 of all colleges with respect to specific athletic leagues.

ESPN paid $115M/yr for 21+19 sports' championships (21 men's, 19 women's) including football, basketball, baseball, and soccer.

Hard to say the relative contribution of each of the 20 sports. Even if you assume it's equal (doubtful), that's $6M/year per sport (not per sport per school).

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-04/espn-to-pay-ncaa-nearly-1-billion-for-eight-year-broadcast-deal