Originally Posted by Anonymous
Prospect days are not invite-only and are open to everyone. I am not saying they are not beneficial if it is her dream school. From our experience with my older daughter, no coach where she was a true Tier 1 recruit asked her to come to a prospect day. The schools that had a very strong interest in her invited her to campus for a visit to see the facilities, attend class with an underclass teammate with a similar major, had lunch with some of the team, and then watched practice and ended with a meeting with the coach. There were usually one to two other girls. These were unofficial visits. My daughter was not a top 20 recruit, more mid-range 20-50. This was pre-Covid so I am not sure what the rules will be for on-campus visits this fall. I would recommend waiting to see who reaches out on September 1st and make your plan from there. If a coach really wants your daughter at a prospect day they will make room for her. Also, every school does it differently but that was our experience. Don't put all of your eggs in the basket of the schools that have reached out to your club director prior to Sept 1st, they express interest in many players. They have to, as they need to have an idea of where girls stand when making their lists as this is a numbers game and the lists are constantly changing. Your daughter will most likely hear from some schools she did not know had an interest. Keep all of your options open, kids think they know what they want but a lot can change once they get on the campus and meet the team and coach. They will know what is the right fit. I have another year before I go through this again with daughter #2 but it is interesting to see how different the process is for each class and the extra year of eligibility has added a new twist. Goof luck to your daughter!

Unless things have changed, some schools absolutely have "prospect days" with very limited spots. The recruits that the coaches are interested in are made aware of these camps well before the general public and they take the majority of spots. The camp is then put on the website for open registration but there are few if any spots still open and when players try to sigh up they are put on a wait-list. This may only happen at some of the top programs, most other programs have to cast a much wider net so they can't limit their invites to 50 players.

This may have changed but it was certainly the case when my oldest went through the process.