I am recruiting as a D3 B- prestige school and went after a player on my D3 list who was currently considering a D3 C prestige Simmy. His WOTS at the beginning was one of the weaker messages. Something along the lines of "Such & such has expressed interest but he's keeping his options wide open." I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to recruit him at this point, and it was pre-signings, so I kept sending ST's until I got the information that I needed to make my decision. I sent 7 ST's, then saw that WOTS message had not changed. So I wound up sending in total: 10 calls, 8 HVs, 7 STs, guaranteed starter and a scholly offer (I've lost a battle before by being dumb and not offering the scholly, so I made sure to check this several times). The last message I received from him was the 5 PM cycle on 7/14. He said:

You're my top choice right now. If I could sign today, I would! Thanks again for believing in me.


I took that as a "you're in the lead message", as it's pretty blatant. I therefore saw no reason to spend any more money on him. I continued to check the WOTS over the next couple of days and it stayed at "He is struggling between your school and the simmy". I understood this meant it was close, but I also assumed I would get a message if something changed and the Simmy took the lead. At the 8 AM cycle this morning, I received a message saying he had signed with the Sim. This seems pretty messed up to me. I thought you're supposed to receive a message if you lose the lead. Do I just not understand the system?

what was the last s cholarship message.....tht is the only onw that matters

Posted by Trentonjoe on 7/16/2012 10:37:00 AM (view original):
what was the last s cholarship message.....tht is the only onw that matters

this... if the sim is still being considered by a player by the time signings start, simmy will make a "final push"... if they are no longer on the considering list they will not make this effort, so it is important to either put in enough effort to take them off or just have enough saved to take back the lead

The last scholarship message I got was the one I mentioned:

You're my top choice right now. If I could sign today, I would! Thanks again for believing in me.

Up until he signed with the Simmy I received nothing else. I get what you're saying about having enough saved to take back the lead (which I had done just in case), but never got a message saying I had lost the lead.

I'm assuming the last day of signing is today.  7 am last day is when all battles are resolved.  If it's going to that period, you know it's close.  To my knowledge Sims don't make a final push if they are considering and forego that push if they aren't.  What does occur, however, is that all teams get "bonuses" added to all their efforts depending on how early they were recruiting the player. 

My gut tells me that it was a close battle (evident by the time in which the player signed as well as the last FSS message "struggling.")  And that the bonus on the last cycle (for early recruiting) did enough to tilt the battle in the sims favor.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 7/16/2012 10:37:00 AM (view original):
what was the last s cholarship message.....tht is the only onw that matters

Did you even read his post?  It says right there in the middle of what he wrote what the last schollie message was.

Posted by Rails on 7/16/2012 12:00:00 PM (view original):
I'm assuming the last day of signing is today.  7 am last day is when all battles are resolved.  If it's going to that period, you know it's close.  To my knowledge Sims don't make a final push if they are considering and forego that push if they aren't.  What does occur, however, is that all teams get "bonuses" added to all their efforts depending on how early they were recruiting the player. 

My gut tells me that it was a close battle (evident by the time in which the player signed as well as the last FSS message "struggling.")  And that the bonus on the last cycle (for early recruiting) did enough to tilt the battle in the sims favor.

I disagree with this.  I know what people say and I know how it used to be, but I am confident (relying on anecdotal evidence, of course) that sims make a push.  I don't know when or why, but I have been in situations where I have been blown out by a sim that was not tight with the recruit and all of a sudden couldn't be beat.  It was much more than considering credit, in my opinion.  It doesn't always happen, but it happens that a sim goes from not tight to tight, and it certainly seems like more than credit.  Actually, I don't even know if sims get considering credit.

I appreciate you guys' input. My biggest concern isn't necessarily whether or not the SIM made a push. Obviously something changed, so it's hard to argue that at no point did he make a push. I mean, he went from "keeping his options wide open" on the SIM to "struggling between" the two of us when I had dropped quite a bit. And considering I am pretty certain I was in the lead at least for a bit, the fact that he signed with the SIM is another good indicator of that.

My biggest concern, though, is that I received no message indicating any change. Am I confused or was that last schollie message not a clear indicator that I was in the lead? If my assumption is correct, then don't you usually get a message indicating when that changes? I'm still relatively new to the game, so I'd love to get some veteran inputs on this, because it's an important learning experience for me. I know people would say "If it's close, you should just spend the extra to make sure you get him." But when you're talking about tight recruiting budgets that have to be split between multiple players, that $1k that I spend on "just to be safe" might mean I don't have enough to sign someone else. It seems like a pretty important thing to me.

Further, I received no such message for almost 48 hours. It makes no sense that when I get a message saying I'm in the lead, that I should be expected to just arbitrarily spend more on a guy "just to be safe" when I got the "I'd sign with you today" message very early on.

Send in a ticket.

1) SIMS do not make any final push.
2) I think there is something wrong in the recruitng process that Seble is not looking at.   I have been in several battles and seen several threads where a player has switched "allegiance" without a new scholly email getting sent out.   This needs to be looked at.

Posted by mullycj on 7/16/2012 2:46:00 PM (view original):
Send in a ticket.

1) SIMS do not make any final push.
2) I think there is something wrong in the recruitng process that Seble is not looking at.   I have been in several battles and seen several threads where a player has switched "allegiance" without a new scholly email getting sent out.   This needs to be looked at.

I would agree with No. 2...began noticing it 5-6 seasons back roughly (in 1-day worlds).

To preface, the theory I'm going to throw out is something I've only seen once and it was several seasons ago, so who knows how accurate it still is.

I have been in a situation where a battle was stagnant for a while, almost a full day after signings. I still had a lot of cash left, but I hadn't spent any because the last scholly message had me in the lead. Basically I got tired of waiting and didn't want to risk something crazy happening, so I dropped something like 25 campus visits on the guy in one cycle. I was expecting that would knock the other team off, and then the following cycle the guy would sign. To my surprise the guy signed immediately that cycle.

So basically the theory I am throwing out is that the SIM made one huge push and the guy signed that cycle, which is why you never received a scholly message.

Yeah, I think anyone who is adamant that sims don't make a final push is still living in the tarek years, barring an actual response from CS.  For one, I don't think sims have considering credit because they don't have "credit" the way that humans do, and two, even if they do, it's not enough to tighten up in one cycle the way that they do.

Posted by mullycj on 7/16/2012 4:08:00 PM (view original):
Lets kill this forum theory right now.  SIMS make NO FINAL PUSH for recruits.

Based on?

If it's just your experience, I don't think that's enough to "kill" anything based on how many people I have spoken with who disagree.

Why don't you ask CS yourself and serve up the answer with your plate of crow when you get back.     That question has already been asked and answered several times by friends/conference mates who were non-believers.