The IVY League

[Daddylawman]

I'm interested as well. It seems that the Ivies can reasonably strive to be a more than 1 bid league. Surely there have to be plenty of smart girls who realize the value of an Ivy education. And frankly, with the endowments they have, need based aid often puts them on par with other schools in terms of actual cost.

The biggest "problem" I see is the need to have girls who are willing to wait until later in the process to commit. Ivy coaches simply can not make the promises other schools make. I'm not suggesting this change, but hopefully the current coaches overcome this obstacle.

Given the use of RPI it is in each school's interest for every Ivy League school to get better.

These schools do it in lacrosse, Yale just won the NCAA in hockey and Harvard and Princeton have recent success in basketball. I don't think it's too much to hope softball follows this path.

[jonriv]

The difficulty that the Ivy league(or even the Patriot league) have is that not only do they have no(or little in the case of the Patriot league) athletic money- they also have stricter regulations tha there NCAA bretheren in the number of games they play, practices etc....throw on top of that a GPA/SAT requirement that puts a great percentage of Softball players out of reach. I agree that a concentrated effort would certainly make some improvements. The key for them is to find some really smart(and very talented) Pitchers with financial needs

They have been able to have strong Hockey programs due to the strength of New England Prep School hockey programs feeding them qualified candidates

[softballfan33]

Along these same lines, as DD heads into this process, she has the academics to eventually be considered by an IVY, ND, etc. and the skills to play SB at the next level, however, the showcases we attend are mostly attended by southern colleges. How do you get the interest of a coach from that far away when you won't be playing anywhere near their area?? I know these coaches travel to recruit. However, I haven't ever seen a coach from an IVY or say ND in our area. We do go to Colorado and I assume they send someone that way and we could email them, but for those who have a daughter playing IVY or similar, and don't live on the east coast, how did your DD make her interest known? Also, at what point in their school career are they able to make that committment? Obviously, the freshman/early sophomore verbal is out. Not enough GPA/SAT grades, but when do they start taking a kid seriously...end of sophomore year, through junior year?

[jonriv]

Along these same lines, as DD heads into this process, she has the academics to eventually be considered by an IVY, ND, etc. and the skills to play SB at the next level, however, the showcases we attend are mostly attended by southern colleges. How do you get the interest of a coach from that far away when you won't be playing anywhere near their area?? I know these coaches travel to recruit. However, I haven't ever seen a coach from an IVY or say ND in our area. We do go to Colorado and I assume they send someone that way and we could email them, but for those who have a daughter playing IVY or similar, and don't live on the east coast, how did your DD make her interest known? Also, at what point in their school career are they able to make that committment? Obviously, the freshman/early sophomore verbal is out. Not enough GPA/SAT grades, but when do they start taking a kid seriously...end of sophomore year, through junior year?

Friends daughter plays for Yale- they semi-committed fall of senior year and was fully committed with early decision in December.

Ivy, patriot and other coaches are usually at one or both of the Colorados. Academic Showcase at Pennsbury is well attended by top academic schools as well

[DDG]

In my kid's case, she connected with Ivy coach in Colorado between junior and senior year in HS. We are from the left coast. Her TB recruiter invited the Ivy coach to watch her play. DD was VERY lucky over the next few days and managed to hit the crap out of the ball. That started the relationship.

She has a couple of current teammates that didn't travel to the big showcases. They enrolled in the school's summer camps to get exposure, along with establishing an email/phone call relationship. Parents claimed it was a lot less expensive than traveling all over the place to be seen in showcases.

[hit4power]

Mine was seen at Colorado after her Jr year by several Ivies and the NESCAC school she now attends. In addition, we had good Ivy and Pat League representation the prior fall (during Jr year) at the Ronald McDonald, New Jersey, and Florida showcases. In all cases DD was busy communicating with her list of schools on a regular basis and the TB program chimed in as well. I would say interest definitely went up when she got her SAT score back (take it no later than fall of Jr year and keep taking it). And as others have said, hitting the crap out of the ball helps, too.

At the start of her Sr year, we pretty well knew who was interested and who was not. DD made a final couple of visits and settled on the NESCAC option. Many (perhaps not all) of these schools will push your DD to apply early decision - something to give careful thought to.

Most of these schools hold camps and most are small camps where your DD can really be seen and get to know the coaches. For various reasons, we never did that, but based on others' experiences I would recommend it if you can.

[3'sDad]

The DD will be attending the Pennsbury Academic Recruiting Camp mid-June. She is thrilled!!

Yes - since she is only a sophomore with no standardized testing complete I had to call school and have then provide a transcript and current grades for me to email to the NFCA folks as a 3.5 GPA or 1750 SAT/175 PSAT is required.

DD has a 10 page history term paper due in the morning. Once that is turned in she will put together her coach contact list for Pennsbury. I've already done a softball CV to attach to the email so that's ready to go.

DD is hoping for NESCAC/Patriot/Centennial/Ivy looks . She'll be very close on the required 3.7 GPA. Test scores in the Fall will tell a lot.

[catcherdad]

There is a lot more on this topic on College Recruiting tab, but let me make some observations.

1. Borden (Penn) and Rumley (Dartmouth) could pitch for most D1 teams in the current 64. It is rumored one of them had a transfer opportunity to UCLA. The other had looks from some terrific schools. Pitching is the key and Ivy competitiveness is getting much better.
2. The RPI is somehow producing crazy results. Some Ivy teams go to Cali, others go to Florida, but most focus on getting the team ready rather than racking up a 70% winning percentage. A couple of those top 16 should be ashamed of some of the teams they schedule.
3. Traditionally, Harvard, Yale, Princeton waited until the fall of senior year to commit to a player. Other schools would commit between Junior and Senior year if they had your SAT/ACT scores and solid GPA. Google Ivy index for more detailed information.
4. Colorado is great, most Ivys go. Pennsbury is also terrific. We did the camps at specific schools and had the interest of one school drive the interest of the others.
5. The needs based money is different at all schools so study this and ask questions. It can be very substantial.

The education and the atmosphere has been terrific and my DD could not be happier with her choice to turn down some full offers at smaller D1 state schools.

[hit4power]

DD is hoping for NESCAC/Patriot/Centennial/Ivy looks . She'll be very close on the required 3.7 GPA. Test scores in the Fall will tell a lot.

Don't hope - act (sounds like you are). We found that most of these coaches were pretty open on where DD stood in terms of meeting the academic requirements and all these schools are somewhat different in terms of how they look at academics/SAT's etc. It's a conversation worth having with the coach.

Borden (Penn) and Rumley (Dartmouth) could pitch for most D1 teams in the current 64. It is rumored one of them had a transfer opportunity to UCLA. The other had looks from some terrific schools. Pitching is the key and Ivy competitiveness is getting much better.

Rumley is from around here (Houston) and I would agree. You can add the Tufts pitcher (Fournier) to that list as well.

[jonriv]

Rumley is from around here (Houston) and I would agree. You can add the Tufts pitcher (Fournier) to that list as well.

I would agree with Fournier(Tufts) being on that list- she is dominant at the DIII level and would very effective even at the DI level. She has great speed and an awesome array of pitches- she has also bulked up sustantially from her TB days