Next steps for daughter finishing HS freshman year

[bebopdeluxe]

DD was lucky with her team. They didn't travel in the fall since there are enough local events (HTX) and the coach had been doing it long enough to realize the team didn't need to travel to be seen. Summer tourneys-Drive to Colorado for IDT and then it depended on where TCS Nat's, Jo Cup (when it was good) were. Usually 2 flights a year, paid via SW Rapid Reward points. If she was still playing, we'd probably be in Indiana this week for Alliance. Once you get to 16U/18U every tourney seems to be a "Showcase" since coaches were usually there, except for the warm up Round Robin type of events. Enjoy the ride.

Thanks! Again - not trying to yuck anybody's yum here, and I reserve the right to reassess next summer for 18U!

 

[Orange Socks]

Thanks! Again - not trying to yuck anybody's yum here, and I reserve the right to reassess next summer for 18U!

You are doing the right thing for your DD and family. Every season you should absolutely reassess your situation and options making sure your DD is on track based on her goals. Find out who the team's college recruiting liaison is and keep in constant contact with this person. If the team doesn't have one, volunteer!!! You have this site with lots of information and you will find that the other parents on the team have no clue.

 

[benjey]

Definitely not questioning your decision. I think every family needs to make the best decision that aligns with their goals. Just wanted to provide one perspective for families that are facing this decision from someone who has gone through it.

One place I have very specific information is this

and my sense is the demands on an Ivy D1 athlete are less than, say, a Big East D1 program like Georgetown or Villanova (forget the major conferences).

DD is at any Ivy and has good friends from her travel team at every level of D1 including the specific schools you mentioned. It breaks down like this; the athletic demands are the same as practice time is governed by the NCAA for all of D1 and every coach uses every allowable minute(and then some with additional "optional" activities), travel demands are a little greater at major conferences and schools like Villanova due to the greater geographic distribution of the conference schools, and the academic demands are significantly higher at the Ivies as you would expect.

 

[Vertigo]

I am late to this thread - sorry - not sure how I missed it! My dd is currently at a NESCAC school. A few of the schools you mentioned were recruiting dd when she was in HS.

I would say if your dd is seriously considering Tufts she should be reaching out to Coach Ebs (nickname) now and get to their camp. They actually will do joint camps with other NESCAC schools and a few of the Centennial schools, too. Be forewarned - she loves to recruit California and southern kids. You truly have to prove yourself to crack the lineup. However, now that we should be out of the ”extra Covid year” kids soon, your dd won’t have to compete against 5th year seniors or grad school transfers which they had the luxury of having on their roster the past few seasons. Most of the other NESCAC schools don’t have grad programs. Coach Ebs does run a fantastic program and they would give a lot of lower level D1’s a run for their money. Unfortunately dd only looked at one NESCAC when she was in HS - but definitely would have considered Tufts (as well as other NESCACs) now if she was going through the process again.

I would highly encourage your dd to take AP courses that interest her as well as study up hard for the SAT/ACT. Some schools still don’t require them but a great score can really boost an application. Also, most of the NESCACs, if not all, do not offer any merit money - so definitely something to keep in mind if you will be seeking financial aid.

ETA: I also do agree with others who mentioned Pennsbury and NE Finest. Those schools go to those showcases every year. Team NJ is also another good one for those particular schools. Playing on a top team only helps but playing on a very good regional team who gets on the prime fields at those particular showcases is just as good.

 

[bebopdeluxe]

I am late to this thread - sorry - not sure how I missed it! My dd is currently at a NESCAC school. A few of the schools you mentioned were recruiting dd when she was in HS.

I would say if your dd is seriously considering Tufts she should be reaching out to Coach Ebs (nickname) now and get to their camp. They actually will do joint camps with other NESCAC schools and a few of the Centennial schools, too. Be forewarned - she loves to recruit California and southern kids. You truly have to prove yourself to crack the lineup. However, now that we should be out of the ”extra Covid year” kids soon, your dd won’t have to compete against 5th year seniors or grad school transfers which they had the luxury of having on their roster the past few seasons. Most of the other NESCAC schools don’t have grad programs. Coach Ebs does run a fantastic program and they would give a lot of lower level D1’s a run for their money. Unfortunately dd only looked at one NESCAC when she was in HS - but definitely would have considered Tufts (as well as other NESCACs) now if she was going through the process again.

I would highly encourage your dd to take AP courses that interest her as well as study up hard for the SAT/ACT. Some schools still don’t require them but a great score can really boost an application. Also, most of the NESCACs, if not all, do not offer any merit money - so definitely something to keep in mind if you will be seeking financial aid.

We are fortunate that we can trade off merit aid for a better school, but that is something to think about in 12-18 months.

Tufts is where she wants to go, but I think that is a REALLY big reach - both with softball and academics. She attends a demanding academic school, she had a 3.7 her freshman year, and she is taking advanced math and science next year (our school doesn’t offer AP). I think her game will really have to blow up (and she will have to grind it out in the classroom) to have a shot. But the program she is now playing for has Tufts at their cage at the New England Finest showcase, so she will get looked at.

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, there are other options! For now, I want to enjoy this move and the upcoming season.

 

[bebopdeluxe]

Definitely not questioning your decision. I think every family needs to make the best decision that aligns with their goals. Just wanted to provide one perspective for families that are facing this decision from someone who has gone through it.

One place I have very specific information is this


DD is at any Ivy and has good friends from her travel team at every level of D1 including the specific schools you mentioned. It breaks down like this; the athletic demands are the same as practice time is governed by the NCAA for all of D1 and every coach uses every allowable minute(and then some with additional "optional" activities), travel demands are a little greater at major conferences and schools like Villanova due to the greater geographic distribution of the conference schools, and the academic demands are significantly higher at the Ivies as you would expect.

I appreciate your viewpoint, with your daughter at an Ivy. I was under the impression, given the academic demands and the relatively concentrated geographic region they play in, that D1 at the Ivies isn’t as much of a time demand on the athletic side as it would be at, say, a Villanova. I appreciate you correcting that perception!

 

[bebopdeluxe]

You are doing the right thing for your DD and family. Every season you should absolutely reassess your situation and options making sure your DD is on track based on her goals. Find out who the team's college recruiting liaison is and keep in constant contact with this person. If the team doesn't have one, volunteer!!! You have this site with lots of information and you will find that the other parents on the team have no clue.

These guys have a great college recruiting infrastructure, and her HS also has an NCAA athletic liaison that works to isolate those schools where sports can help move the needle.

 

[bebopdeluxe]

My DD is going to a high academic school in the Centennial Conference. She played on a regional team based in the mid-Atlantic. Been to plenty of good, well-known east coast tournaments, but never played west of the Mississippi River.

The most important thing for getting recruited at a high academic school is your daughter’s course load, grades, and test scores. Softball has the potential to help, but schools like C-M aren’t going to recruit people that don’t academically fit there. This is obvious, but I think it can get lost in all the softball recruitment madness. The stronger she is academically, the more options she will have.

I think playing on a regional travel ball team based where your daughter wants to go to school and that plays competitive tournaments in that region is plenty. Joining a better known program from that region (e.g., PA Chaos, NJ Intensity, Empire State Huskies, etc. if the NE) might be advantageous. You can play for a national team and a national schedule if your DD is capable and wants to, but you can easily burn through a chunk of your college tuition doing so. Also not sure if the coaches you might want to play for are going to those national tournaments in CA, CO, etc. Some might, many won’t or can’t. If you play good tournaments in their backyard (e.g., Pennsbury), they are likely to be there. I’ve been to plenty of tournaments in the south where literally ZERO of the schools we were interested in showed up. We took one for the team, so to speak, but I always said to myself, WTF are we doing here, to the tune of a couple thousand dollars for the week.

More important than the showcase tournaments in our experience is building relationships with coaches at those schools that you are interested in and going to camps they host during the fall and winter. This is the most bang for your buck in softball recruitment, in my opinion. The coaches will definitely see you at these camps. It will also get the coach out to see you at the showcase events.

Now being on the other side of it, I have a theory, at least as it involves higher academic schools. For every Tufts, there are many other high academic schools with perhaps less competitive or ambitious softball programs that struggle to recruit players, let alone higher level players. Not only is it challenging to get into the school academically, it turns out that it is not that easy to get girls and their families to commit to paying tuition at a high academic school where the only aid may be needs-based (that is, no athletic money or even “merit scholarships”). The sticker price for all these small, private, high-academic schools is $75-85K/year. Many of these schools and coaches need you as much or more than you need them. It never feels that way going through it, but I am increasingly convinced it is true.

I wanted to circle back on this post because it is so on point for us. The reality is teams like Tufts and Case Western have EXCELLENT softball teams - probably as good as some low-to-mid-level D1 teams. My guess is playing softball at Tufts is as hard as GETTING INTO Tufts.

We are very lucky that we have the resources to make the tradeoff of getting into a better school versus getting "merit" aid. While it is still early days here, my hope is that the exposure she will get from this new program (a program very much in the category of the ones you mention above) will allow her to focus on really good schools that don't have a Tufts/Case Western-level softball program. As long as she stays in the books, that, along with the exposure that this new team will provide, should hopefully make her an attractive recruit if said school wants to level up their program by bringing kids in from high-profile travel team programs.