The 4-year college landscape is a big crossroad for our children. It provides them with a balanced student-athlete experience that will help shape their personal and professional direction.
High school athletes are strategically marketing themselves to college coaches as true student-athletes and maintaining a streamlined approach with college recruiting will serve you best.
Below is a short list of organization tips for college prospects to consider when launching their college recruiting plan.
Broad Strokes
Begin your college recruiting plan with broad strokes and general targets to develop initial momentum. The college search is a marathon, not a sprint. The well-educated prospects will get a head start on the pack.
Identify general operatives that potentially define your ideal college experience. This can change over time, but this assignment pushes you to think for yourself. Divide your operatives into 3 categories (academic, athletic, and social). As an example, your operatives might be:
- Highly select admissions standards
- D-3, D-1AA college baseball programs with a solid success history
- Medium size undergraduate population (10,000 undergraduate students)
Define your Mission
Building a Powerful College Recruiting Mission Statement can help elevate your position on a college coach’s radar and compliment your recruiting effort. Furthermore, your statement should be crisp, confident, and well-balanced.
Help the coaches believe you are looking for a quality education that will point to a successful future career. In addition, drive home the point you have the athletic tools to impact a successful college team. Finally, establish yourself as a team player and potential inside team leader. College coaches should see you as a prospective student-athlete who is the complete package.
Define yourself
The simplest way to define yourself is by developing a personal profile. Keep it to 1 page and list your academic, athletic, and personal accomplishments. Include an area at the top that lists your contact information and an action photo and leave some room at the bottom to add your personal mission statement and coach testimonial.
Develop Your College List
Identify operatives that will define your ideal college experience and create your college list. Review the personal mission statement you created in your profile. This will help you identify potential college options.
College sports is exciting, but it has a shelf life. Target short-term goals during the 4-year experience but identify long term goals four decades from now!
Investigate/Explore
Once you have your initial list of colleges and universities that potentially match, add detailed coach contact information. Moreover, include resource websites for each college that includes both the home and athletic websites.
Take 20-30 minutes to review each of the resource websites. This will give you a strong sense of what each institution offers you as a true student-athlete. It also provides you with a glimpse to the general college culture.
Recruiting Team
A team approach during the college recruiting process can maximize efficiency and minimize individual pressure and stress. Forming a trustworthy group of individuals who play specific roles during the recruiting cycle will increase your chances of reaching pre-set goals.
Surround the prospect with individuals who offer strength in designated areas. This will help lighten the workload for the family and increase efficiency. An effective team approach to college recruiting will emphasize a streamlined and impactful effort.
Today more than ever, high school athletes are strategically marketing themselves to college coaches not just for scholarships, but in hopes of entering their top college choices in a highly competitive arena. And it’s working. College prospects who embrace these organization tips, will position themselves best for the college search.
Tom Kovic is the Founder/Principal Advisor at Victory Collegiate Consulting, where he and the senior staff provide individual planning and advisement for college prospects and their families. For further information, visit: https://victoryrecruiting.com.
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