getting noticed by colleges

[Sparky Guy]

Here is everything that you will need - Fastpitch Recruiting Cathy Aradi has written the "bible" for 2 decades on getting recruited by various sized colleges.

Get your DD used to doing the research and knowing how she will contact coaches, when the time comes.

A caveat to her book. Do what she says, but start when your daughter enters HS her freshman year. The coaches are spending their scholarship money 2-3 years out right now. They are looking at the 16U level as the main recruiting age.

 

[RichK]

A caveat to her book. Do what she says, but start when your daughter enters HS her freshman year. The coaches are spending their scholarship money 2-3 years out right now. They are looking at the 16U level as the main recruiting age.

Very good advice Sparky but to be fair D3 school opportunities tend to happen later so don't give up if you can't get a D1 early verbal. D3 makes more sense for many kids anyway and money is available if grades are good.

 

[Coach-n-Dad]

Yes, if a goal is to play at the very top level of DI softball your DD must start at or before freshman year. RichK is also correct about later opportunities, and I would add that there are opportunities at ALL LEVELS right up to the summer after High School. Some schools don't recruit until late; some verbals will fall through for whatever reason (grades/injuries/stupid teenager/etc...).

DD is on an email list that comes from Lorie Ivy (SoCal ASA) and there are regularly schools that are looking to fill ALL POSITIONS for the upcoming graduating class.

 

[redhotcoach]

Every coach's clinic I have been to, the college coach's said "if you want to play at my school, come to camp. We don't have a lot of time or money to be chasing girls around at the different tournaments."

Watching a girl...had a d1 coach tell me they pick most girls by how serious and game like they play catch warming up.

 

[JAD]

Several posts in this thread regarding how to get noticed by college coaches have me wondering, on a typical college softball team how many girls are on full ride scholarships? How many are on partials? How many are walk-ons? Is the percentages different for DI? DII? DIII? NAIA?

 

[GOINGDEEP]

We had a D1 come last Saturday to the sub-state game, all parties knew about it.

Watching a girl...had a d1 coach tell me they pick most girls by how serious and game like they play catch warming up.

Same coach came last night to the state game, no one knew she was coming or even there until after the game when she met DD coming off the field. She had sat down the line on the visitors side. ( pretty sneaky ) She's looking at DD and our 3B, I bet she wanted to see there demeanor when they thought no one was looking. Heck I walked right passed her twice going to the concessions, I gotta get new glasses.

 

[InsidePitch]

If DD is 99 percentile smart, would playing SB help her get into an Ivy or a Stanford if she is an above average player.

 

[Coach Dad 01]

I know this is SB but D1 coaches actually looked at my sons grades in middle school before deciding to offer in Football or not. Most want Student/Athletes not the other way around. It improves their Student/Athlete graduation rate for the "stupid" basketball and football players that bring in the money!

 

[dropball1]

Several posts in this thread regarding how to get noticed by college coaches have me wondering, on a typical college softball team how many girls are on full ride scholarships? How many are on partials? How many are walk-ons? Is the percentages different for DI? DII? DIII? NAIA?

A fully funded D1 softball program has 12 athletic scholarship allocations to work with and a DII softball program has 7.2 scholarship allocations - you may find that some of the mid-major and smaller D1 programs are not fully funded. From there take a look at the school's roster and you may see that many D1 schools have a season roster of +/-18 players. I think ULL has as many as 30. You can see with 12 scholarship (D1) and 7.2 scholarships (in DII) that the idea of a full athletic ride is limited. Schools package athletic and academic.

DIII schools do not have athletic scholarship money to award and it is typically academic money used to offset tuition etc.

Not sure how the NAIA programs allocate funds.

 

[3'sDad]

Inside: The research I've done to date (which continues to evolve) says for a top flight academic school (Ivy, NESCAC, Patriot League, Service Academy, Rice, Stanfornd, Vandy (no softball), etc) thr following genral guidelines are in place for student-athletes:

1. GPA - 3.5 and above
2. SAT/ACT scores - 2000/31
3. Class rank - top 25%
4. The DD has to be a DI type athlete -the coaches look for the best athlete they can get through the admissions process.