Coaches will drop you in a minute if they find someone more desirable later in high school.

all four of the kids are current sophomores - not freshman so they have taken the PSAT and could have taken an AP course.

My son doesn't play lacrosse but knows two of the boys who made commitments - be happy for all the boys involved.

95% of D1 schools who make verbals, keep their promise. The boys who made the verbals need to maintain their current grades / GPA average and board scores in order to be accepted. So if these kids think they can slack off, think again.

Personally, I think its a good thing. These boys know now when they are sophomores, if they maintain their current GPA and scores they will be accepted into one of the top schools in the country.

Not too shabby.

I'm not the PP but did have a son go through this process for soccer at an Ivy. I'd say what 11:16 wrote is accurate. In the late summer or early fall we got am email from the coach that he'd submitted our son's file to admissions. About a month later my son got a likely letter, which is something like an early unofficial acceptance letter. Then he got his official letter in December. I do recall our son feeling a lot of stress over it before the likely letter. He had the grades: 3.9 GPA and 4.5 WGPA. I did get the impression those types of grades were really needed. His soccer coach was very honest and realistic. I find it a little disturbing and unsettling anyone would go on thinking they were offered and committed years before that likely letter. Before then there literally was zero assurances given to our son. I doubt lacrosse recruits have it any different.

To 11:16 - is this equally true WRT Crew, Squash, and all the other niche sports you hear that the Ivies look for?

Also, what IS the real way a kid gets "committed" to an Ivy for lacrosse or any sport? Can you give us a simple guideline on how it really plays out for a kid?

And is there a difference if the kids goes to a top academic prep school like STA, GP, Holton-Arms, Potomac, or NCS OR to a more lacrosse-specific school with an established pipeline to lacrosse in the Ivies like Landon, SSSAS, McDonough, or Boys Latin AND is playing for a top level club team, say Capitals or Black Wolf, M&D or Crabs? TIA!

Look honey, I'm no former college player or coach but I think you're really reaching there. Kids who have only 9th grade transcripts and haven't taken the PSAT yet? Is there such a thing as a 9th grader already having AP course scores? It's looking a lot more like kids and parents being confused about the process they are in the middle of. Sounds a lot more like these parents and their kids are frauds. I do think it's pretty sad that anyone gets this wound up in it.

"Sounds like they will need a pipeline to the admissions dean in a couple of years. "

Not true. In order for them to even make an offer to any of these 4 kids, they already have to high extremely high grades and test scores.

Keep Hating!!

Anonymous wrote:Thank you, 11:16. I have a daughter being courted by high schools right now and I have been skeptical of these claims of x, y, z committed to HPY (etc) by sophomore year, and so on. Sounds like, from your explanation, my loudly ringing bs meter is working just fine.

This thread has been pretty focused on the boys side but the girls side is just as crazy.

Agree. These freshmen commitment announcements are the new participation trophy thing when they get to high school.

Thank you, 11:16. I have a daughter being courted by high schools right now and I have been skeptical of these claims of x, y, z committed to HPY (etc) by sophomore year, and so on. Sounds like, from your explanation, my loudly ringing bs meter is working just fine.

This thread has been pretty focused on the boys side but the girls side is just as crazy.

Sounds like they will need a pipeline to the admissions dean in a couple of years. Excellent analysis, thank you PP.

The Dartmouth Head Lacrosse Coach is a Gonzaga Alum and he also has an assistant on his staff who graduated from Georgetown Prep.

It shouldn't shock anyone if they are trying to get a DC pipeline of kids to consider Dartmouth.

I played at Dartmouth in the early 1990s and was also a grad assistant for one year while I got my masters at another Ivy. I have stayed involved in Dartmouth lacrosse ever since as a donor and an alum job network reference for the players over many years. I get sent the twitter commit announcements and links to these chat rooms often and am then asked what I think about it.

I believe a lot of lacrosse parents and their kids are sadly misinformed. When I played there wasn't such a thing as committing to an Ivy. If you were a recruited athlete the coach would advocate your application with the admissions office in the fall of your senior year. The boost was relative to the sport. Back then the pull for ice hockey was a lot more than for lacrosse, at least at Dartmouth. Recruiting for lacrosse back then was mostly responding to student interest from New England boarding school kids and some others from Long Island or Baltimore, a lot more than the coaches going out to find the kids. But almost always the reverse interest in Dartmouth came from strong students who had an interest in what lacrosse could do to help tug them into the college. That was the case with me and nearly everyone else back then.

Today it is a lot different in many ways, but is exactly the same in the most important way. There aren't any Ivy coaches out there looking for 9th graders and only a few are really inclined to look for 10th graders. I know all of these coaches, and with only one exception these guys are responding to the demand from you the lacrosse parents and the kids. One of the problems all of them face now is if they play along and "commit" kids is a communication problem. One of the Yale coaches joked to me last summer that parents and kids have selective hearing. I laughed because this is something more than one Dartmouth lacrosse alum has taken the new staff to task on a few times. Did they really commit a kid from DC who hadn't even started 10th grade yet? Well, sort of.

I have no reason to mislead any of you. The way if a kid and parents are pushing their interest in a school and the coaches see the kid is a promising prospect on film an Ivy coach could state something like this: "We believe you are the type of student athlete we'd like to have here at [Ivy] if you continue a track to progress as a player and as a student. If if we reach a point after your junior year when we as coaches can submit your academic record for an early read with the admissions office, understand that the criteria are these grades, scores and AI index standards. If you don't meet them, we will not be able to continue to recruit you as a student athlete at [Ivy]. Right now we have identified you as a lacrosse recruit we'd like to recruit and sponsor for admissions after your junior year, but please understand that our continued interest in having you join our program at [Ivy] will be contingent on your performance as a student and our continued evaluation of your lacrosse abilities later in the recruiting process". An NCAA coach WOULD NOT email this to a kid or parent, because that would be an NCAA rule violation, but they would say it exactly like that to a 9th grade kid and parent in their office on an unofficial visit. To the kid, parent what they hear is AN OFFER and what they then communicate is they are COMMITTED TO THE ADMISSIONS PROCESS. Technically, any 9th kid at the prep schools you listed is committed to completing an application to a college he or she is interested in, and the veracity of a D1 lacrosse commit to an Ivy is nothing more than just that.

Last year at this time of year it circled around that UPenn's coach was called in and raked over coals by administrators for extending commitments to over half a dozen 9th graders who had not completed a semester of high school. His response to the administrators was he hadn't committed any of them. On face that is laughable because Myers was reviled by competitors for being untruthful since his program did nothing to stop proud kids, clubs and parents from storming social media to announce college pledges. But Myers survived it by sharing his communications which was NOT extending commitments to 9th graders, and technically he was correct. He was then asked to put a lid on the silly side and that is why the UPenn 2019 "commits" out there today have not been appearing in social media circles.

An important thing to note is the only critical thing back from my generation is still the only critical thing now. The student athlete recruitment ends with a commitment from an Ivy league coach in July after junior year. It is at that time that a coach walks his allocated number of student athlete academic portfolios over to the admissions office. Before that happens, the coach will make for sure he's not wasting space in that pile on a kid who isn't qualified for admissions. Outside of Cornell, there are no Ivy lacrosse coaches who can just get your sons in. If a kid misses the grades, scores and AI composite, admissions will decline him. Another point is there is a difference in the conversations I have with coaches I know at Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Penn versus the conversations 9th and 10th grade lacrosse kids and parents have with same. The difference is I am listening. Your sons are being recruited by these Ivies. Half of these kids will wash out in admissions or wash out on the field and be later ranked below other recruits after 11th grade. Coaches drop their #1 guy to #3 and out of the picture after junior year all the time. That happened to me with Brown, and I wound up at Dartmouth. It didn't break my heart that I was not Dom Starsia's #1 or #2 anymore after my junior year, because while I aimed for that I was never promised that. As important I and everyone else back then didn't set ourselves up for humiliation to have touted we were headed to some Ivy for years only to get ranked lower when it counted. This should be something for lacrosse kids and parents to consider.

Anonymous wrote:For all the lacrosse haters or those who believe the word scholar - athlete cant coexist together, think again.

In the past month, 4 lacrosse players in this area have committed to Dartmouth.

2 from Landon
1 from Prep
1 from Gonzaga

If you know anything how the commitment process works at an Ivy League school, a student must currently have very high grades mixed with some AP courses and have a very high PSAT score.

I guess these kids must be stupid, dumb, lacrosse jocks.

If you knew anything, you wouldn't post. Dartmouth has taken some kids who are sophomores who aren't taking AP course. There are among the early Ivies who are willing to take a flier on a kid without a lot of grades to review. Some of the Ivies are in the same boat; some wish to see more of a track record.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

For all the lacrosse haters or those who believe the word scholar - athlete cant coexist together, think again.

In the past month, 4 lacrosse players in this area have committed to Dartmouth.

2 from Landon
1 from Prep
1 from Gonzaga

If you know anything how the commitment process works at an Ivy League school, a student must currently have very high grades mixed with some AP courses and have a very high PSAT score.

I guess these kids must be stupid, dumb, lacrosse jocks.

http://recruitmentkillers.com/get-the-recruitment-roadmap/

Just when you thought the lacrosse pimping scene could go no lower, then comes this. I couldn't make it more than 3 minutes into the video before throwing up in my mouth.

Anonymous wrote:Over 2200 posts in this thread, covering five and a half years?

It's lacrosse dude. Nothing is a close second in the race to the bottom.