Headfirst Honor Roll Camp and / or Northeast Academic Camp at Pennsbury

Has anyone attended the Headfirst Honor Roll Camp? If yes, what is the academic requirement (their website does not state). Also, what can be expected at the camp? Do the College Coaches coach the camp or is it run more like a showcase camp with coaches watching from the sidelines?

Judging from what I've read, it sounds like the HFHRC is one where the coaches coach the camp while the Pennsbury Academic Camp is one where the coaches watch from the sidelines.

We are trying to figure out if we should attend the Headfirst Honor Roll Camp or the Pennsbury Academic camp or both. Would love to hear your experience and thoughts on one or both. Thanks.

My DD attended the Pennsbury "Classic" Recruiting Camp last year. (It was held the day after the "Academic Camp".) IMO...it was nothing more than a fundraiser. 648 girls attended in 3 different sessions (catchers/outfielders - pitchers - infielders)....it was a meat market. You really need to set yourself on fire to standout. One positive is the numbers that are recorded for your DD are unbiased, which is good.

Having said that, my guess is the Headfirst Honor Roll camp may be a better choice beings the actual college coaches get the opportunity to work with your DD.

Otis said:

My DD attended the Pennsbury "Classic" Recruiting Camp last year. (It was held the day after the "Academic Camp".) IMO...it was nothing more than a fundraiser. 648 girls attended in 3 different sessions (catchers/outfielders - pitchers - infielders)....it was a meat market. You really need to set yourself on fire to standout. One positive is the numbers that are recorded for your DD are unbiased, which is good.

Having said that, my guess is the Headfirst Honor Roll camp may be a better choice beings the actual college coaches get the opportunity to work with your DD.

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Thanks Otis, agree, those "non-academic" recruiting camps are a bit of a "cattle-call" aren't they? We attended one last year in Portland and there were over 600 kids there.. and 300 of them were Pitchers alone. Unless one was extremely tall (ie. over 6 feet) or a flame-thrower (pitching over 60 mph), no coach was looking at them. Needless to say, no one took a second look at my daughter. Hence, no more "regular recruiting camps" for us. We are now only looking at attending the high-academic camps and hoping to differentiate her using her grades and test score. (Yes, she can also play softball). lol

Based on the digging I've done, there's no academic minimums for the Headfirst Honor Roll Camp which means that literally anyone who wants to attend can essentially go. So I'm wondering.... how many kids can we expect at the Headfirst camps? If the turnout is anything like the regular recruiting camps then we're probably not interested.

You didn't ask, but our experience with the Riseball High Academic camp was great. It has coaches from all the schools you'd expect coaching your kid during drills and on the sidelines during scrimmages. Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell and others. DD attended a couple of years ago and I was impressed. I don't think they have minimums but after attending several high academic camps, they won't take you unless you are the cream of the crop.

We thought about sending my 2016 to a Headfirst camp, but it seemed expensive. I'm not sure of the academic requirements, but she started receiving the "invites" for these camps after attending a specific college camp, and the first "invite" implied they got her name from a college coach. Interesting, since this college coach never seemed interested in my kid, though she did know my kid's academic credentials.

My older two have attended the Pennsbury Academic Camp. Yes, coaches watch from the sidelines while players go through a series of skills "stations". It has become larger each year. My eldest attended in 2012 and there were about 120 kids there. My middle kid attended in 2014 & 2015 - there were about 250 there this year. Pennsbury clearly states the academic requirements, though a kid will likely need to exceed those if they want to play at top academic schools (especially DIIIs that do not give much leeway on test scores, even if you are a stud player).

Pennsbury resulted in some DIII coaches contacting my kids. I suspect it had more to do with their test scores than their playing abilities - coaches tend to get panicky when they realize that they don't have enough recruits who meet academic requirements, so they start reaching out to kids with the academic credentials (with some level of softball ability).

If your kid is DI material, she may benefit from these camps. And if she is a top notch player, she probably only needs an 1800 on the SAT to be recruited by an Ivy. If she is more DIII material, then I think attending individual camps may be the way to go, assuming she has an idea of where she wants to go. And have her score as high as possible on ACT/SAT. One DIII coach at a NESCAC school told us that it makes her job a lot easier if a recruit scores at least 32/2100 - admissions doesn't question her recruit list as much when they have those (minimum) scores.

NoGolfTil2017 said:

One DIII coach at a NESCAC school told us that it makes her job a lot easier if a recruit scores at least 32/2100 - admissions doesn't question her recruit list as much when they have those (minimum) scores.

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Either/or or both/and?

Either/or or both/and?

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In my opinion, not stating facts...If your kid is high academics and you are trying to get into one of these schools she will probably need to take both and use the better score. Both my girls did better on the ACT but not by much. Now days most kids trying to get into IVY's or NESCAC schools will take the tests more than once. My recommendation is take them right after she completes Algebra 2 and Geometry. There is a bit of Trig on the SAT that can be learned in an afternoon with a teacher. Test prep works too.

dadofadirtlover said:

Either/or or both/and?

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either/or.....

InsidePitch said:

In my opinion, not stating facts...If your kid is high academics and you are trying to get into one of these schools she will probably need to take both and use the better score. Both my girls did better on the ACT but not by much. Now days most kids trying to get into IVY's or NESCAC schools will take the tests more than once. My recommendation is take them right after she completes Algebra 2 and Geometry. There is a bit of Trig on the SAT that can be learned in an afternoon with a teacher. Test prep works too.

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Some schools will also "superscore", but not sure about the Ivy's.

We've had nice success at the Pennsbury Academic Camp but like any other camp or showcase it's imperative to target and contact coaches before hand so they will seek your dd out. Unless you're in the top 5% of talent it's tough to get noticed at one of these.