Ok, I've got some questions regarding the AROTC process and school list prioritization for those of you who have been through the process.
Before I ask the questions, I will give some background on my D. She is currently a junior at a boarding school in NE who is an ice hockey goalie who is interested in playing DIII in college (perhaps with another sport as well - preferred, but not critical in the decision making) as well as participating in ROTC.
In addition to her parameters for school selection, we as parents have some "preferences" regarding school selection, including that at least in the underclassman years, her ROTC committment does not require her to drive in poor weather (i.e. snow/ice) as she is a novice driver (not allowed to drive while at school) and has zero poor weather experience (we live in the south). This will give her time to develop the necessary skill on an optional basis before being required to drive in these conditions.
This requires either attending a host school or a cross-town school that offers the required coursework or (less preferable) a school within walking or quick public transportation distance of a host school.
I have done the research (visiting dozens of school and unit websites) and have found many more schools than I anticipated fitting within our requirement. Other issues will pare (academic/major fit and Women-only campus - D's issue not ours) this list down to about 10 potential schools where she could pursue her academic, athletic, and ROTC interests.
Now we get to the question - prioritization of schools on the ROTC application.
The joker in the deck here is coach interest in my D. Typically, a school will only carry 3 goalies on their roster and rarely will ever bring in more that one goalie in a year. Some top DIII coaches wait until the DI picking is about done (March) to show their hand regarding their top choice for goalie. Of course this sets a game of musical chairs about when suddenly a top prospect is "available" late in the game.
Other coaches, knowing that FA will not be a factor in the committment may be happy get a quality goalie they like and call it a year. I'm thinking most coaches will fall into this category.
Of course, almost all (if not all) of the coaches from schools on my D's list have not seen her play. If they were at a game she was playing, it was to look at another player. Most of this is because almost all of the schools on the list are rather distant from her school and where she has played club hockey recently.
This visibility will be remedied for many of the schools this summer through a time-tested strategy of inviting the coach to watch her at a particular (probably the biggest) hockey camp/tournament of the summer. This will probably get the eastern coaches, but many of the schools on the list are midwestern, unfortunately. For those coaches without travel budgets (much of DIII recruiting is regional) they will have to go on reports from others (information is shared freely from what I am told) or purely on D's coaches recommendation (a former DIII assistant).
So (if I haven't lost you), there may be a list of coaches who are interested in her during the summer and others who may see her in a holiday tournament during her senior year.
Meanwhile, we've got an AROTC application to file including prioritization of schools. Now the questions:
1) Are you allowed to add/change/drop/rearrange the order of schools on your list once you submit the completed application? If a coach that doesn't see her until Thanksgiving, but wants her at that point comes about, can we boost that school up the list?
2) Does the order of prioritization play a significant role in which (or how many) offers you get for how many campuses?
3) Are you likely to get all of your offers in the first month after you are approved as fully eligible OR do they trickle in over several months as schools are awarded more slots?
4) Do AROTC units talk to coaches to determine likelyhood of "both events" occurring (AROTC scholarship award and coach committment to athlete) or are they even allowed to talk?
5) Obviously, we should start with schools she likes more closer to the top, but if a coach from say the #4 school (very acceptable) says we want you during the summer, should we bump that school higher up the list to increase the chance of a scholarship or do they look that far down the list up front? I've read that you should put schools where you are likely to be accepted high on you list (instead of your reach schools) to make sure you get a usable scholarship. This would seem to be a parallel strategy.
Sorry to be so long winded, but I'm hoping that more relevant information will yield a better understanding of what we are doing.
Thanks
Before I ask the questions, I will give some background on my D. She is currently a junior at a boarding school in NE who is an ice hockey goalie who is interested in playing DIII in college (perhaps with another sport as well - preferred, but not critical in the decision making) as well as participating in ROTC.
In addition to her parameters for school selection, we as parents have some "preferences" regarding school selection, including that at least in the underclassman years, her ROTC committment does not require her to drive in poor weather (i.e. snow/ice) as she is a novice driver (not allowed to drive while at school) and has zero poor weather experience (we live in the south). This will give her time to develop the necessary skill on an optional basis before being required to drive in these conditions.
This requires either attending a host school or a cross-town school that offers the required coursework or (less preferable) a school within walking or quick public transportation distance of a host school.
I have done the research (visiting dozens of school and unit websites) and have found many more schools than I anticipated fitting within our requirement. Other issues will pare (academic/major fit and Women-only campus - D's issue not ours) this list down to about 10 potential schools where she could pursue her academic, athletic, and ROTC interests.
Now we get to the question - prioritization of schools on the ROTC application.
The joker in the deck here is coach interest in my D. Typically, a school will only carry 3 goalies on their roster and rarely will ever bring in more that one goalie in a year. Some top DIII coaches wait until the DI picking is about done (March) to show their hand regarding their top choice for goalie. Of course this sets a game of musical chairs about when suddenly a top prospect is "available" late in the game.
Other coaches, knowing that FA will not be a factor in the committment may be happy get a quality goalie they like and call it a year. I'm thinking most coaches will fall into this category.
Of course, almost all (if not all) of the coaches from schools on my D's list have not seen her play. If they were at a game she was playing, it was to look at another player. Most of this is because almost all of the schools on the list are rather distant from her school and where she has played club hockey recently.
This visibility will be remedied for many of the schools this summer through a time-tested strategy of inviting the coach to watch her at a particular (probably the biggest) hockey camp/tournament of the summer. This will probably get the eastern coaches, but many of the schools on the list are midwestern, unfortunately. For those coaches without travel budgets (much of DIII recruiting is regional) they will have to go on reports from others (information is shared freely from what I am told) or purely on D's coaches recommendation (a former DIII assistant).
So (if I haven't lost you), there may be a list of coaches who are interested in her during the summer and others who may see her in a holiday tournament during her senior year.
Meanwhile, we've got an AROTC application to file including prioritization of schools. Now the questions:
1) Are you allowed to add/change/drop/rearrange the order of schools on your list once you submit the completed application? If a coach that doesn't see her until Thanksgiving, but wants her at that point comes about, can we boost that school up the list?
2) Does the order of prioritization play a significant role in which (or how many) offers you get for how many campuses?
3) Are you likely to get all of your offers in the first month after you are approved as fully eligible OR do they trickle in over several months as schools are awarded more slots?
4) Do AROTC units talk to coaches to determine likelyhood of "both events" occurring (AROTC scholarship award and coach committment to athlete) or are they even allowed to talk?
5) Obviously, we should start with schools she likes more closer to the top, but if a coach from say the #4 school (very acceptable) says we want you during the summer, should we bump that school higher up the list to increase the chance of a scholarship or do they look that far down the list up front? I've read that you should put schools where you are likely to be accepted high on you list (instead of your reach schools) to make sure you get a usable scholarship. This would seem to be a parallel strategy.
Sorry to be so long winded, but I'm hoping that more relevant information will yield a better understanding of what we are doing.
Thanks
I will confirm with a PMS. If it is true, then it simplifies prioritizing as there are 2 clusters of schools in the midwest in the same 2 units (hosts). I'll just make sure that we only list 1 school from each cluster in the top 5 if this is the case. Helps our eastern situation as it looks like each school in the east is in a different unit than the others. So we'll have to be picky there.