Meeting With Coaches During Your School Visit
When scheduling your visit, it is important to let the school know that you do have an interest in meeting with the coach of the sport you play. Assuming that the timing of your visit works with the schedule of the Head Coach of the program, most admission offices will coordinate a time for you to meet with her or him during your visit. If the timing does not work with the Head Coach’s schedule, they will arrange for you to meet with an Assistant Coach within the program. In most cases, this meeting will happen after you have completed your tour and interview.
Important Reminders:
Do not expect a coach to be able to tell you where they see you fitting into their program during your preliminary visit. At this point in the admission process, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a coach to tell you where you will fit into their program for a number of reasons:
During the early stages of the admission process when most visits/interviews occur, that Coach’s current season may not have even begun and so they do not yet accurately know what their needs are going to be for the following year.
At this point in the process, coaches won’t yet know the which other athletes who play your sport will be applying, so they can not yet compare your abilities to the other applicants who may be applying
Of the other athletes you play your sport that do decide to apply, at this point the coach won’t know which of them will be admitted
Of the other athletes who play your sport who do apply and are admitted, the Coach will not have a sense of how many of them, or which ones of the them, will enroll making it impossible for her/him to know how that may impact your place in the program
Remember, coaches at the secondary school level are most often teachers, faculty members or administrators at their schools and not just full time coaches, and do not have the ability to be out evaluating players in the same way college coaches do. Because of the demands on their schedules, secondary school coaches will often wait until they have a better sense of which students have applied and are likely to be admitted before beginning to evaluate them as athletes.
Family Perspective:
From a family perspective, the goal of meeting with the coach during your preliminary visit should be to make a connection with the coach to let them know you have an interest in their school and their program and also to give them a sense of the level you are playing at. If the coach has previously seen you play, then this first meeting in the admission process is a good chance to update them on your plans for the upcoming athletic season.
The other goal of this meeting should be to learn more about their program by asking specific questions related to your situation such asL
If I came in as an underclassmen at start at the jv level would I have a chance to move up the following year?
How many teams are there in your program?
What options are there for training/games when my sport is out of season?
If I am coming in as an older player (repeat 10th grader, 11th grade, or PG) and playing at the varsity level right away is a deciding factor, when will you be able to provide some specificity about that?
What level were most of the players on the varsity team playing prior?
Follow Up:
Following your initial meeting with the coach, you should send a follow up email to thank them for meeting with you and also, if possible, let them know any tournaments or games you may upcoming particularly if they are in close proximity to the school. Ultimately if you do decide to apply to the school and are admitted, the coach should be able to tell you where you will fit into their program prior to making an enrollment decision. By that point, in March or April, in addition to having a better sense of the needs of their team, coaches will have had a chance to evaluate you specifically and also will know where you compare to the other athletes in your sport who have been admitted.
Want to learn more about the secondary/boarding school admission process? Be sure to sign up for our newsletter and free resources. -Or reach out to our Director, Brad. You can connect with him by email at bdarco@darcoassociates.com
