Just heard a scary story for early commitments. I boy committed to W&L in his junior year. He had already strong ACTs (33, that's over 2200 SAT equivalent) and a good GPA (3.8 out of 4.0) and good lax resume (good club team and all-county and HM all-state). When he did his early action application, he was not talking to any other schools and did not prepare any other application material for other schools. December 15th(or there abouts), he and 4 other lax commitments were not admitted! He had to scramble to apply to a bunch of other schools. Fortunately, the W&L coach was a stand-up guy and called around to other coaches and found this boy a slot at another school that was prepared to accept him (still an excellent school academically). Lesson: a verbal commitment is only that is not a binding commitment. While it is true that most times, commitments of this sort do work out, boys and girls need to be prepared to scramble as this boy did.
I think you only heard part of the story. My instinct is the parents had selective listening and reading. The coach likely told them everything is subject to admissions. I know plenty of kids who have gone to W and L and the coaches were straightforward and gave them an accurate picture of admissions. Shame on the parents for allowing this to happen. Also a D 3 school does not have the same process of verbal commitments that a D1 has. One of the reasons is that a D3 can put everything in writing from Day 1. So these parents knew the score going in. My guess is the kid had sub par ACT
