What January 1st Means For Official Visits
As a recruit you will start being able to go on division I official visits 8/1 heading into your junior year and starting 6/15 after your sophomore year you can take official visits at division II schools.
But what about official visits at division III schools?
If you are a current high school junior and have been in contact with division III coaches, you may have opportunities to go on official visits soon.
In division III, you are allowed to go on official visits starting 1/1 of your junior year.
This means that a coach could potentially invite you to come to campus for an official visit starting next month, but is this very likely to happen?
It depends on the coach and the timeline.
When a coach invites you on an official visit at the division III level will often depend on when their admissions office does academic pre-reads.
For each school this may vary.
Some DIII schools will do pre-reads on high school students as early as January 1st of their junior year, some may not until March or later.
Many coaches and admissions offices will wait until after your junior year is complete.
The reason is that once your junior year is complete, your transcript will be a much better representation of what your academics will look like at the time of applying to colleges.
Most coaches want to make sure that a pre-read is completed before inviting recruits on official visits because then they will have a more clear picture if it is possible for a student to be admitted into their school. (as a reminder, pre-reads are not a guarantee of admittance, they are used to gauge if a student is a potential academic fit)
The majority of recruits at the division III level will go on official visits in the fall of their senior year, but there are some reasons why you might go earlier.
One reason is that some of the top programs in the DIII are looking to gain commitments earlier because much of their recruiting competition are division I schools. This means they are trying to bring up recruits in their second semester junior year.
Another reason is that it may be more challenging for a recruit to visit in the fall of their senior year. This might be because they have their high school tennis season in the fall and it is more challenging to get a specific date to work for an official visit.
So if you have been in consistent contact with division III coaches, you should ask a coach about their admissions pre-read process.
Ask the coach what does the process look like and when does their admissions office do pre-reads as well as what materials they will need from you?
This will help you gauge when a division III coach may ask you about coming to campus on an official visit.
If you know that it may be hard to do an official visit in the fall of your senior year, let the coach know earlier in the process to see if they will be able to bring you up in the spring of your junior year for a visit.
Going on official visits is an exciting time in the recruiting process no matter what division you are looking to compete at, so enjoy the process!