Recruiting rollercoaster

[ladyhornets]

My daughter has started her recruiting rollercoaster. It is very frustrating for her at this time. She is a 2013. What tips do you have? What questions should she be asking?

 

[sluggers]

turn the softball recruiting process upside down. Let *her* decide where she wants to go, and then see how softball fits. Do *NOT* let softball dictate where she goes to school...

1) Determine what she wants to do after college.
2) Find schools that offer programs that help her with her post-softball life and that "fit" what she wants out of a college (e.g., urban, non-urban, big, small, etc.)
3) From that list of schools, contact the softball coaches and talk about playing for them.

 

[Bouldersdad]

2013 would make her going into her junior year of High School. Unfortunately at that age its hard for them to decide what to wear to school much less where to go to school.

As a Junior she should be well on her way to achieving a high score on her ACT/SAT which by the way is as important as her athletics.

Now is the time for unofficial visits. You as the Parent will have to set these up thru the admissions office at the college of your choice. Once there ask to see the the Softball coach. I have never seen a coach yet that wouldent answer any question you have if asked politely. Hand them a hard copy of the dd,s profile and skills video if you have it if not . then the address online they can view it at.

Ask about their tenure, what programs they feel is not a good fit for the athlete, their season, their expected roster needs. Do not ask about money........ huge no no and a huge turn off at your first meeting. If money is brought up let the coach do it. Be honest and up front about any and all questions they ask you.

Clinics......... Now is the time to pick the colleges shes interested in and attend their camps and clinics. although these are primarily fund raisers for the colleges it is a good opportunity for the college coaches to be able to speak to your dd if they so desire it.

College are not allowed to approach your dd until Aug after her junior season, up until that point all the can do is relay camp and clinic info.

Do not get hung up on D1. only about 1% of all players go D1 ......... the rest fill the needs of the rest of the Divisions. Make sure you let her explore different schools in different divisions. You might be surprised at the amount of money a D3 or NAIA will offer if her athletics and academics are an asset.

Let her make the decision on where she belongs. When she walks on the right campus it will click. Remember this is for her education in the long run, Not a parents bragging rights on where their kid goes to school. If you force a kid to go where they do not want to go you will spend many a long night listening to crys on the phone. And believe me.............. its not worth it.

Constant communication between the dd and the colleges are a must. from her Intro to inviting them to games and thanking them for attending ( whether they did or not ) then reminding them of next weeks games and so on. The more she talkes to them one of 2 things will happen they will be interested or tell you to politely go away lol.

Patience and persistence from both parent and dd and it will work out fine. Hope all goes well.


Tim

 

[Cannonball]

Two great responses here! I can't add more.

 

[ladyhornets]

Thanks for the tips! All the help we can get is welcome!!

 

[jacketsfan]

Sluggers and Tim hit it right on. Read through the D3 sticky thread.

I can tell you - it is an emotional roller coaster - no way around it. You find that just because a school is your number one, and they like you, doesn't mean you'll get an offer. My DD had schools that liked her, but didn't need her position in her class - they had signed them in the last class.

One school rated her as their 6th prospect, but they needed 4. The coach told her if 2 declined, she'd get an offer. They all accepted - no offer.

I think she quit softball, for an hour or two anyways, 20 times during her recruiting process.

We had late nights, smiles, tears, ups, downs, travel, sunburns, and every other range of human emotion. Quite honestly, I'm not sure I'd wish it on anyone.

She selected a D3 where she liked the school, the coach, and it gave her the opportunity to pursue her academic passion (and it is a passion with her). She had immense peer pressure to go to a larger school, and endured a lot of grief from other players. A new girl joined her TB team, and the first thing the girl said to her was "oh, so you arent' good enough to get looks from D1 or D2 schools". It was intense, and she had lots of doubt.

Move forward a year, and she reports to school in a week. Athletes report a few days early to get their NCAA compliance brainwashing and indoctrinations, and to get to know each other a little before everyone else gets there.

This summer, I have never seen her so happy. She made the best grades of HS in her senior year - she wanted to be prepared academically is what she said (all A's, with 4 AP classes! - sorry - a brag moment). Softball has been so fun to her again this summer, because the recruiting pressure that was all last year is gone. She wakes up every day, so excited that she's another day closer to college that she can't stand it.

So, it is tough at your DD's age. But, if you can fast forward for just a glimpse of what it's like when it's over - I will say again, I wouldn't wish on it anyone, but I also wouldn't change a minute of it.

If you have any more specific questions about the process, post away. There's a good group here who I am sure will happy to help as much as possible.

 

[jacketsfan]

Sorry, since you asked for tips I'll give you this one - during their season, from about January to May, it is very hard to visit for unofficals. They are very busy. During Fall, it's much easier to get some time. There was not one school that we asked to visit, where the coaching staff declined our request. In all, we visited about 13. Most of our trips were in late Sept/early Oct.

Many of the coaches we talked to committed to coming to her play during the course of our unofficial visits. As it worked, all but 1 actually did come see her. They felt like, since she took the time to come see them, they would return the favor. That is all we could ask from the campus visits, and we were very happy to have met some really good people during them.

Questions that we asked were along the lines of:
- what positions are you looking for in my class?
- (DD is a pitcher/utility, so she also asked) do pitchers only pitch, or can they play a position as well?
- given my major (biomedical engineering), what sort of conflicts do you foresee with labs, exams, etc? How well do you work with the professors in the engineering college on these things? (all schools have some profs that will work with them, and some that won't, so we wanted to know sooner rather than later)
- what is your recruiting calendar for the remainder of the Fall, and for next summer? As soon as you what tourneys you will attend, can you let us know, so we can try to influence our team's summer schedule?
- how many players do you normally carry?
- how often should I update you on my academic and softball progress? Is there a thing as too much information? What sorts of information would like from me (test scores, GPA, softball schedule)?
- I am only going have 2 or 3 camp opportunities - how important is it for me to come to your camp? Can games/tourneys take the place of camps? How many players have you signed from your camps?
- I notice you only have 1 or 2 (or more usually - none) players from Florida on your roster. Do you not recruit there? If you don't come to Florida to recruit, where do I need to go for you to see me play (Colorado was the common response outside of Florida, Rising Stars inside Florida)
- do you have mandatory study hall? What's a typical in-season day like? Out-season day?

That's all I can think of right now, but she had a list of about 15-20 questions like the above. A key focus for her was the academic/athletic balance because of her major.

We also sent her softball profile, and her trasncript ahead of time. Many of the coaches had them out, had highlights, things circled, and had questions for her prepared also.

You'd be surprised at how much ground you can cover in an hour of office time, and an hour or so of campus tour time. We found coaches to be very accomodating with their time.

We also learned, in spite of it all, they are just people too, and they also like to meet good people and share stories.

 

[ladyhornets]

Thanks so much!!!!

Sorry, since you asked for tips I'll give you this one - during their season, from about January to May, it is very hard to visit for unofficals. They are very busy. During Fall, it's much easier to get some time. There was not one school that we asked to visit, where the coaching staff declined our request. In all, we visited about 13. Most of our trips were in late Sept/early Oct.

Many of the coaches we talked to committed to coming to her play during the course of our unofficial visits. As it worked, all but 1 actually did come see her. They felt like, since she took the time to come see them, they would return the favor. That is all we could ask from the campus visits, and we were very happy to have met some really good people during them.

Questions that we asked were along the lines of:
- what positions are you looking for in my class?
- (DD is a pitcher/utility, so she also asked) do pitchers only pitch, or can they play a position as well?
- given my major (biomedical engineering), what sort of conflicts do you foresee with labs, exams, etc? How well do you work with the professors in the engineering college on these things? (all schools have some profs that will work with them, and some that won't, so we wanted to know sooner rather than later)
- what is your recruiting calendar for the remainder of the Fall, and for next summer? As soon as you what tourneys you will attend, can you let us know, so we can try to influence our team's summer schedule?
- how many players do you normally carry?
- how often should I update you on my academic and softball progress? Is there a thing as too much information? What sorts of information would like from me (test scores, GPA, softball schedule)?
- I am only going have 2 or 3 camp opportunities - how important is it for me to come to your camp? Can games/tourneys take the place of camps? How many players have you signed from your camps?
- I notice you only have 1 or 2 (or more usually - none) players from Florida on your roster. Do you not recruit there? If you don't come to Florida to recruit, where do I need to go for you to see me play (Colorado was the common response outside of Florida, Rising Stars inside Florida)
- do you have mandatory study hall? What's a typical in-season day like? Out-season day?

That's all I can think of right now, but she had a list of about 15-20 questions like the above. A key focus for her was the academic/athletic balance because of her major.

We also sent her softball profile, and her trasncript ahead of time. Many of the coaches had them out, had highlights, things circled, and had questions for her prepared also.

You'd be surprised at how much ground you can cover in an hour of office time, and an hour or so of campus tour time. We found coaches to be very accomodating with their time.

We also learned, in spite of it all, they are just people too, and they also like to meet good people and share stories.

 

[FPMark]

Sorry, since you asked for tips I'll give you this one - during their season, from about January to May, it is very hard to visit for unofficals. They are very busy. During Fall, it's much easier to get some time. There was not one school that we asked to visit, where the coaching staff declined our request. In all, we visited about 13. Most of our trips were in late Sept/early Oct.

Many of the coaches we talked to committed to coming to her play during the course of our unofficial visits. As it worked, all but 1 actually did come see her. They felt like, since she took the time to come see them, they would return the favor. That is all we could ask from the campus visits, and we were very happy to have met some really good people during them.

Questions that we asked were along the lines of:
- what positions are you looking for in my class?
- (DD is a pitcher/utility, so she also asked) do pitchers only pitch, or can they play a position as well?
- given my major (biomedical engineering), what sort of conflicts do you foresee with labs, exams, etc? How well do you work with the professors in the engineering college on these things? (all schools have some profs that will work with them, and some that won't, so we wanted to know sooner rather than later)
- what is your recruiting calendar for the remainder of the Fall, and for next summer? As soon as you what tourneys you will attend, can you let us know, so we can try to influence our team's summer schedule?
- how many players do you normally carry?
- how often should I update you on my academic and softball progress? Is there a thing as too much information? What sorts of information would like from me (test scores, GPA, softball schedule)?
- I am only going have 2 or 3 camp opportunities - how important is it for me to come to your camp? Can games/tourneys take the place of camps? How many players have you signed from your camps?
- I notice you only have 1 or 2 (or more usually - none) players from Florida on your roster. Do you not recruit there? If you don't come to Florida to recruit, where do I need to go for you to see me play (Colorado was the common response outside of Florida, Rising Stars inside Florida)
- do you have mandatory study hall? What's a typical in-season day like? Out-season day?

That's all I can think of right now, but she had a list of about 15-20 questions like the above. A key focus for her was the academic/athletic balance because of her major.

We also sent her softball profile, and her trasncript ahead of time. Many of the coaches had them out, had highlights, things circled, and had questions for her prepared also.

You'd be surprised at how much ground you can cover in an hour of office time, and an hour or so of campus tour time. We found coaches to be very accomodating with their time.

We also learned, in spite of it all, they are just people too, and they also like to meet good people and share stories.

Outstanding!!!... Very interesting, Thanks for sharing!

 

[jacketsfan]

If you time your visit right, you can get a chance to watch them play a fall game or two. We were able to do this at a couple of schools. It was very interesting to us to see the physical differences between the upper classmen and the freshmen. In some cases, you could tell who had spent a few years in a weight training program and who wouldn't. At one school, she said "they're all bodybuilders - they don't recruit anyone with my body type". Then, they switched all the freshmen in, and she said "nevermind, they all look like me". Then she said "I don't know if I want to look like a body builder in a year".

Anyways, it was very interesting just to see the interactions on the players, coaches, and see what kind of athletes they had on staff, and what kind of athletes they were recruiting.