In the spring of 2016 my daughter explored the organization NCSA.org.
A salesman explained to both of us that the organization connects prospective athletes with college coaches. We paid $1495 to become part of their program. In doing so we were allowed to post videos of her swimming meets and document her academic achievements. In this initial consultation he emphasized that the academic achievement was of utmost importance. He urged her to achieve a 3.5 GPA or better. “Many swimmers can swim the 50 in 25 seconds. But the coaches are going to be impressed by a 3.5 GPA.” From that point on she strove to attain that level.
For the next 24 months she was contacted by dozens of coaches from all over the United States. She was contacted by coaches as far west as Oregon and California, as far south as Florida and Texas, and numerous coaches from colleges throughout the mid-west. Following the advice of the NCSA counselor she responded to every e-mail she received.
Among the first coaches to contact her was Coach Brian Fazzino, Head Swim Coach, Franklin Pierce University. In the fall of 2016 she accepted his invitation to an open house. There she met the coach and toured the campus. She visited the Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication. It is her goal to become a Television broadcaster. She excels in Mathematics and wanted a to minor or double major in that discipline to study business analysis or management.
She was accepted for admission by eight Universities. Franklin Pierce seemed to be the perfect fit. It is a small school, offered both or her academic degrees, on a secure campus and she could swim competitively.
Franklin Pierce competed at the division II level. She visited division III schools when in high school. She was already a better swimmer than any of the teams she observed. Her times fit in well with those recorded on the Franklin Pierce Swim Team website. She is a solid division II swimmer.
In December of 2017 the deposit for admission was paid. (Admissions assured that it would be fully refundable if notified prior to May 1, 2018, the deadline for all the Universities to which she had applied.) No deposit was paid to any other University.
During the third week of April 2018 she courteously declined the offers to six of the seven Universities (besides Franklin Pierce) where she had been accepted. She notified Franklin Pierce of her confirmation to attend and asked for the next step in the enrollment process.
A telephone appointment was made to establish her class schedule for the fall semester on May 5, 2018.
The opening question of that call was,
“Yes. I am a swimmer.”
Thus begins the devastation that earns the description:
DEBACLE AT FRANKLIN PIERCE UNIVERSITY
What follows is a description of the callus response to the question: Why? from Steve Hennessey, Associate Director of Admissions, Athletic Liaison
Since February, 2018 my daughter has received 22 e-mail messages from Admissions. Most sent from Eric Murdock.
Because the pertinent messages came from Mr. Murdock I wrote to him and asked why we were not informed of the February decision to terminate swimming until after the deadline of May 1. Mr. Murdock has NOT ever responded.
This links my e-mail to Mr. Murdock. A response did come from Steve Hennessy.
Mr. Hennessy’s response implied that we should have known of the termination of the swimming program because of a posting on a Franklin Pierce website.
I am very disgusted and angry. I had encouraged my daughter to consider Franklin Pierce. I had several exchanges with Mr. Hennessey. I wanted Franklin Pierce Admissions to recognize and admit that they have misrepresented itself to us.
I sent Mr. Hennessey documents so that he could see that we were consistently being mislead.
To the announcement of the termination of swimming, he implied that we should have telepathically known to find the website notice of the decision.
To the fact that communication came through NCSA, he said that my daughter had supplied NCSA as her e-mail contact. This was false. On her application she provided the e-mail address that she had used since childhood. The NCSA address was provided to admissions by the sports department of which he is liaison.
To the omission of the fact of termination of the swimming program on the swimming website, he side stepped with the weakest excuse of all. The defunct swimming program was a part of the current school year. Apparently, as such, the existence of the website does not misrepresent Franklin Pierce to the pubic.
Because of the tone and evasiveness of these response I felt Mr. Murdoch was reluctant to respond for the communication sent signed by him because of possible legal implications. Those were not and are not a consideration. Possibly he was using Mr. Hennessey as a gate keeper to insulate himself. Not responding to the documentation and the obvious resulting misrepresentation kept the issue vague.
In his final message Mr. Hennessey revealed that it was not that Mr. Murdoch, whose signature was on all the communication, who was being evasive. As liaison from sports to admissions it was the responsibility of Mr. Hennessey from the beginning to notify prospective swimmers. He stated that in his many years connected to sports he had never seen an athlete not in contact with the coach. At the beginning of the 2017 school year coach Fazzino offered to assist her once the application was completed(see his e-mail). On the 31st of October he followed up(see his e-mail). Thirty-eight days later She received notice that she had been accepted.
Because of the speed of her acceptance, it was reasonable for us to assume that Coach Fazzino had kept his word using his influence to assist us with the process.