I went all in on a local recruit I liked. Used 80 APs to unlock everything, went down to around 40 after that. Offered him 25 mins, guaranteed starter, 20 HVs, 1 CV.

Another school comes in, gets to VH, knocks me down to medium. Only thing I can do to make it up to high is invest APs because I don't have any other recruiting actions available to me. What are the chances that you could move up to high using only APs in that scenario?

I figured it was a hopeless case and moved my APs elsewhere and the player signed with that school, but I was curious if everyone else saw it as a hopeless case or if APs alone could move me up to high?

Things to consider

1. How are you in terms of preferences?
2. How do you think your opponent is in terms of preferences?
3. How does prestige compare to his?

YOU have an edge from being considered early - but that is of modest size and can be overcome by prestige and or prefs

My prefs: bad on success, good on full court press. My opponent: probably neutral on success and good on FCP (I lost out on the player to Boston College, which is ranked #1 right now, but BC's previous three seasons were 12-15, 7-20 and 18-11, so I doubt he was good on success).

I am at D+ prestige, he is at B-.

At the time, I invested all in on the player because he was 6 miles away from me (i.e. super cheap HVs/CV), and he wasn't a super-highly rated recruit (#75 Center), so I figured he was just a backup option for BC and maybe I could run out to a big enough recruiting lead to make BC look elsewhere. But once BC dropped me to medium after I had invested everything, I assumed that APs weren't going to move the needle enough to get me to high. But I am wondering if a ton of APs could have changed that.

so if there were no other prefs, we are assuming they were even

B- is rather big edge over D+ - and thats the key - you have considering credit - he has prestige - and we dont know his AP's v your APs

might several cycles of 80 AP have got you back to high? dont know, sounds uphill to me, but thats a guess

I would have dropped out of that too. I try to stay away from battles with schools more than 3 prestige levels above me. I would fight an A- team with my B- team if I had the edge on preferences, but even then I'd be aggressively investing in backup options if I think the other team is throwing CV+20HV+Start+Minutes.

I’d say likely not. Folding, and using your attention on other options was probably a good decision. Given the prestige and preference disadvantage you had, if we assume the exact same effort+AP+promises, you’d likely have struggled to stay in signing range. If he knocked you out of range at 40AP per cycle, it’s unlikely you could have made it back, unless he dropped his AP for some reason. Once visits get involved, especially max visits, the ability of your attention to move the needle goes down precipitously.