In general:
Most recruiting is done for girls by Christmas of junior year. Yes, some kids will "commit" as freshmen. Think kids who are in national team pools. Can the kid or coach change their mind? Yes. Nothing is official until the signed NLI is received by the school. Coaches will generally stick by their commitments even if a kid gets hurt provided the prognosis is good. If a kid gets into trouble or grades become a problem such that they can't qualify to be admitted then the offer can (and likely will) be withdrawn. Will D1 and D2 schools look at a kid and make offers to kids in their senior year? Yes.
Lots of things go on that can mean very good players become available well into their senior year. Coaches leave. Families move. Kid changes their mind about what they want to study. You can come up with many more reasons. The difference is that there may not be any athletic scholarship money left to give out that year.
With D3 schools they do make offers and they do try hard to bring kids in to the school and program early. There are different recruiting rules for D3 and NAIA schools. Most decent D3 teams will have 1 to 3 kids who were considering D1 schools. The best teams will have 7 or 8 of those kids.
What to do freshman year? Start considering college in general. As others have said: go to schools and take the regular prospective student tour whenever you can. Make the time now. You are not making a decision. You are learning about options. Go with a friend to make it more fun. Parents need to get serious about what they can afford and have a real conversation with the kid about how finances need to considered. Be realistic now and save big heartache later.
Keep in mind that substantial athletic scholarships for freshmen are few and far between. A fully funded D1 women's team can give out 14.9 scholarships. Typically those teams will have about 30 kids on the roster. There is a lot of flux between schools and between classes at a given school. A coach who just graduated a big senior class may well have more money to commit to an entering freshman class but they might also have commuted to a couple high school sophomores and need to conserve money for them.
This is where academic money can be a huge benefit to recruiting. A kid who can get say a half ride based on grades means the coach can give a quarter scholarship to start and the parents are then in for a few K. That's a player the coach really wants on the team.
Most recruiting is done for girls by Christmas of junior year. Yes, some kids will "commit" as freshmen. Think kids who are in national team pools. Can the kid or coach change their mind? Yes. Nothing is official until the signed NLI is received by the school. Coaches will generally stick by their commitments even if a kid gets hurt provided the prognosis is good. If a kid gets into trouble or grades become a problem such that they can't qualify to be admitted then the offer can (and likely will) be withdrawn. Will D1 and D2 schools look at a kid and make offers to kids in their senior year? Yes.
Lots of things go on that can mean very good players become available well into their senior year. Coaches leave. Families move. Kid changes their mind about what they want to study. You can come up with many more reasons. The difference is that there may not be any athletic scholarship money left to give out that year.
With D3 schools they do make offers and they do try hard to bring kids in to the school and program early. There are different recruiting rules for D3 and NAIA schools. Most decent D3 teams will have 1 to 3 kids who were considering D1 schools. The best teams will have 7 or 8 of those kids.
What to do freshman year? Start considering college in general. As others have said: go to schools and take the regular prospective student tour whenever you can. Make the time now. You are not making a decision. You are learning about options. Go with a friend to make it more fun. Parents need to get serious about what they can afford and have a real conversation with the kid about how finances need to considered. Be realistic now and save big heartache later.
Keep in mind that substantial athletic scholarships for freshmen are few and far between. A fully funded D1 women's team can give out 14.9 scholarships. Typically those teams will have about 30 kids on the roster. There is a lot of flux between schools and between classes at a given school. A coach who just graduated a big senior class may well have more money to commit to an entering freshman class but they might also have commuted to a couple high school sophomores and need to conserve money for them.
This is where academic money can be a huge benefit to recruiting. A kid who can get say a half ride based on grades means the coach can give a quarter scholarship to start and the parents are then in for a few K. That's a player the coach really wants on the team.
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