Injured during the summer as a Rising Senior?

[The1AndOnly]

Hello!

I am going to be a senior next year (class of 2020) and am obviously heavily dealing with recruitment currently. I broke into the top 115 nationally on TennisRecruiting and had a UTR of 11.36 this June. However, I got injured during the spring high school season this year, and I haven't been able to play a tournament the entire summer. As a result, my ranking has dropped outside of the 200 (around 220) and my UTR has dropped significantly. I have explained to coaches what has happened with my absence from tournaments and my injury, and most coaches didn't respond or just told me to keep updating them.

I have a 1600 SAT and a 4.0 unweighted GPA with a pretty impressive high school resume outside of tennis, so a lot of academically-strong schools have been in communication with me. The main college coaches I've been talking to are from Caltech, MIT, UChicago, and Johns Hopkins. UPenn, Cornell, and Brown's coaches have expressed some interest in me, but not as much as the D3 schools mentioned earlier. My concern would be how much this injury will impact my recruiting and whether or not a coach will continue to be interested in me. My thinking is that the D3 coaches will likely still be interested, as my new lower ranking is still within their recruiting ranges. However, my main concern is with the Ivy coaches and other D1 coaches. My highest rankings were lower than those of their typical recruits, but not significantly. Does this ranking drop take me out of the conversation for these schools? Do coaches tend to be relatively understanding of injuries such as mine?


Thank you all for any feedback in advance!

 

[strike1]

Those are fantastic academic scores. Your best bet will be with D3 schools. Even the weakest ivy teams, generally Brown and Yale, are now looking at players with a UTR above 12.5 and the other ivies are recruiting much stronger players than that (for example, Harvard has an incoming freshman who was a blue chip top 10 recruit on TRN and is currently over 13.1 on UTR). As you already know, there are a lot of phenomenal D3 schools that could be a great fit. Use the UTR fit tool to check out other schools that may work -- it helps you see which schools you would be in the top 6 which is an important marker for recruiting. I would definitely keep up the communication with coaches and let them know as soon as you are training again, start competing, etc. Also, let coaches know if you are applying to their schools this fall and then obviously let them know if you have been accepted. Good luck with your search. College tennis is a wonderful way to round out your college experience!

 

[Mrs.Weasley]

I agree with @strike1 that your best bet will be with D3 schools. As long as your injury won't impact your play in college, your falling ranking should not be an issue.

Have the coaches at Johns Hopkins or UChicago asked you to submit your transcript for a pre-read? If not, I would recommend that you get back in contact with them and ask where you rank of their recruiting lists. Many coaches in D3 are given 2 or 3 slots by admissions. The coaches have their recruits submit their test scores and high school transcript for a pre-read (these pre-reads begin July 1st before the start of senior year of high school). If the admissions office gives the "green light" on the pre-read, the coach will ask his top recruits to apply Early Decision (if ED is an option) in exchange for coach support.

The coaches at MIT and Caltech have very little pull with admissions. Have you taken the SAT Math II Subject Test and an SAT II science test (bio, chem, or physics)? If not, you will want to register to take them this fall. If you have taken them, ideally, you want your scores to be as close to 800 as possible and at least a 760.

Good luck

 

[The1AndOnly]

Thank you for your responses! I am about to film my recruiting video for these coaches and I'm planning to update them about my plans at the same time I send over the footage.

I am aware of the pre-read process (a couple of other D3s have asked me for my info already), but I have one main question: are coaches able to help applicants out at all in admission if they don't apply early decision? I have the academic stats and extracurricular activities that are up to par with the standards of these schools, but having any coach support would be nice even if I don't apply ED.

 

[Mrs.Weasley]

Thank you for your responses! I am about to film my recruiting video for these coaches and I'm planning to update them about my plans at the same time I send over the footage.

I am aware of the pre-read process (a couple of other D3s have asked me for my info already), but I have one main question: are coaches able to help applicants out at all in admission if they don't apply early decision? I have the academic stats and extracurricular activities that are up to par with the standards of these schools, but having any coach support would be nice even if I don't apply ED.

In my experience having gone through this process with my kids, there is no absolute answer to your question and you should definitely pose this question to the coach at each school on your list. My kids' experiences were that the vast majority of the coaches at the highly selective schools in D3 who are given slots by admissions will require their recruits to apply ED in return for that support. Many times, if Recruit A does not want to commit to applying ED, the coach will move on to Recruit B. Recruit A can still apply to the college in the regular decision round, but the coach will typically not have any support to give then. In fact, many times, I would imagine that the odds of Recruit A getting admitted in the regular decision round would be lower than normal since Recruit A had declined a spot in the Early Decision round signaling that the school was not his first choice and would be unlikely to attend.

While your stats are great, many students with perfect SAT scores are denied from the highly selective schools each admission cycle. Having coach support is a huge hook in this process. I have met more than one recruit who decided not to apply to MIT even though, all things being equal, MIT was his first choice, for the sure bet of gaining acceptance to another highly selective D3 school via coach support. I also know other recruits who declined offers of support from other coaches and gambled with applying to MIT EA -while all were academically qualified, not all were admitted.

Since there is no standard recruiting process in D3, you should ask each coach the following questions if you are considering applying ED:
1. Did I get a positive pre-read?
2.Where am I ranked on your list that you send to admissions?
3. Are you going to support my application?
4. If you are going to offer support, what percent of applicants with your support typically are admitted? (When my kids asked this question, the answer was 100%)
5. Does admissions issue Likely Letters? While Likely Letters are more well known in the Ivy League, there are some D3 schools that also issue Likely Letters after a positive pre-read. A Likely Letter definitely eliminates the stress waiting for official decisions to be released.

Good luck with the process!