A. As many as possible. You probably can’t name more than ten or fifteen colleges/universities; but there are literally 1,087 colleges and universities in the NCAA. If your sport is sponsored at the majority of these participating schools, you should let virtually every coach know about you.
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A. We usually recommend that you first decide which parts of the country you won’t go to school (everyone has their least favorite areas of the country), then look at your grades, SAT and ACT scores and which schools sponsor your sport. From that list, you market yourself to all the remaining schools and their coaches.
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A. We provide you with the recruiting system that helps you create a one page profile (your resume), an introductory letter to all coaches, a recommended list of schools and coaches to contact, the means to directly email all of the coaches and follow-up support to answer questions and offer guidance during the recruiting process.
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A. No. Never send a tape or CD unless a coach asks for one. Those who send them find out later that the tapes or CDs are frequently stored somewhere, unseen by any coach or assistant. Instead, you should upload your video to a free video storage site and provide a link to the video on your profile or cover letter.
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A. You should visit schools where coaches show a genuine interest in you and are actively recruiting you. Since cost is always an issue, you need to continually grade and rank the coaches who are recruiting you to ensure you visit only the schools where there is the greatest mutual interest.
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A. In a number of cases, yes. Many schools recognize the amount of time and commitment it takes to be a successful athlete and give students and the coaches recruiting them a specific range for admittance that would, otherwise, be less forgiving for non-athletes. Don’t be afraid to ask this question of the coach.
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A. Any coach may write you, email you and send you literature and information about his college and sport program at any time. Each sport, however, has specific start and cutoff dates for talking with student athletes in person. Check the NCAA site to verify when a coach may speak with you personally (www.ncaa.org). The general rule is that coaches are not allowed to initial verbal contact with recruits until July following their Junior year.
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A. You want to introduce yourself to as many coaches as possible in order to find all of the coaches who have a specific need for an athlete with your abilities. Since coaches needs change every year due to graduation, injuries and competition, you need to make sure that coaches looking for an athlete like you are aware that you’re available.
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A. Not many people realize that colleges and universities are actively encouraging students from great distances to apply. They do so to ensure that their mix of students come from as wide a demographic as possible. Because of this, the further you are from a school, the more appealing you are to the admissions department of the school. Applying to schools further away from you actually enhances your admissions and recruiting opportunities.
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A. No sooner than the beginning of your Junior year. Coaches routinely begin compiling their recruiting lists of student athletes when the athletes are in their Junior year of high school. Sending information during your Sophomore year will only result in coaches requesting you contact them your Junior year. Many students question whether they should contact coaches during their Junior year when they haven’t yet taken their SATs or ACTs and possibly haven’t competed in their sport during the Junior year. We actually recommend that you contact the coaches during your Junior year, regardless of test taking or competing, because you want to establish coach interest early. Since you will have ample opportunity to update the coaches throughout your Junior and Senior year, it is to your advantage to generate interest earlier rather than later.
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A. The recruiting process is similar to looking for a job. More interest equals more opportunity and selection and affords you greater leverage to negotiate the best opportunity. Keep in mind, also, that colleges routinely purchase lists of high school athletes who participate in competitive events (e.g., conference, district, sectional and state events) and send marketing information to the students. Students routinely receive letters or packets of information that start off with, “Congratulations. We recently saw you compete at your Sectionals and we’re impressed. We’d like you to consider coming to play for our team.” These letters, while flattering on the surface, are really nothing more than marketing packages to try to sell the student athlete on coming to these schools. You need a system that causes coaches to respond directly to your personal, individual accomplishments rather than blanket marketing campaigns.
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A. The answer to this is “potentially” yes and “potentially” no. While your high school coach may know a number of college coaches and have close relationships with those coaches and schools, the actual needs of those coaches may or may not fit your abilities. There may be interest ranging from mild to intense, but betting your entire recruiting effort and final results on only a handful of schools known by your high school coach puts you in a vulnerable position. You are relying, entirely, on your coach to find the best opportunity for you at the best cost and that could backfire. You should consider your high school coach connections as an addition to your efforts to be recruited rather than your entire recruiting effort.
Also keep in mind that high school coaches truly don’t have the time to help every one of their athletes get recruited by colleges. Most high school coaches are teachers as well as coaches and their teaching and coaching time commitments are extensive. Assuming they have the time to focus a substantial amount of their energies on getting you recruited is both unrealistic and unfair to the coach.
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A. You should always pay attention to how coaches from schools you’re interested in treat you as a possible recruit. If the coach from your number one choice is actively recruiting you and is offering you a financial support package that meets your needs, you don’t need to go any further. But if you are not convinced that your top choice schools are going to recruit you or offer you any form of scholarship, you need to actively pursue being recruited by other schools.
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A. Yes. Just because you go to a small high school or your conference is made up of high schools with small enrollments doesn’t mean there aren’t a number of college coaches who are going to actively pursue and recruit you. Remember, college sports programs vary in levels of competitiveness and size as well, so college coaches appreciate and value what you can bring to their program.
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A. Yes. Many student athletes are recruited every year having never played their sport in high school. By showing the college coaches your results at the club level and using your club coach as a reference, you should have little problem being recruited.
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A. Yes. In fact, at many colleges you will be actively recruited by coaches from both sports. As long as there are no scheduling or coaching restrictions on playing two sports at the college of your choice, you should be able to both be recruited and allowed to play two sports at the collegiate level.
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A. This is one of the most frequently asked questions. The answer is “yes” and “no”. Yes, you should send video to coaches when they request the video. No, you shouldn’t automatically send video to each coach you initially contact. The majority of coaches you contact will probably not view you as a recruiting candidate and will never view the video you send them. Save your videos for the coaches who request them.
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A. This is another frequently asked question. The answer is one of taste and available funds. If you want a professionally edited video and have the funds to spend on this effort, you should do it. It won’t hurt as long as the video isn’t solely focused on you and you alone. College coaches want to see you in action with your teammates and competitors. Editing everyone else out of the video ruins its value to the coach. Showing only successful plays also diminishes its value. Coaches want to see not only your best plays but also plays where you had to react to an unexpected situation or competitor. How you adapted and responded is valuable to the coach in assessing your skills and potential value to his team.
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A. We would never discourage you from promoting yourself to college coaches in order to get recruited, but there is little evidence that a large number of college coaches visit these sites to watch video.
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A. The general rule of thumb is 5-15 minutes of video showing you in various plays, scenarios and action situations. Most coaches will want to see you in active competition and with your team (if a team sport). If your videos are full team, make sure to include your uniform number in the video description.
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A. Depending on the year there are between 345 and 350 DI schools, between 290 and 295 DII schools and between 445 and 450 DIII schools for a total of between 1085 and 1090 total NCAA schools.
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A. An important criteria when sorting your probable college selections is knowing when a coach is legitimately interested in having you play for his team or is simply marketing his school. If a coach doesn’t view you as one of his top candidates, he will frequently promote the school, the team and the benefits of the school without offering any incentive to choose his program over others. Marketing his school and program to you, rather than recruiting you, saves him using athletic or other types of financial aid while getting an athlete he would “like” to have but doesn’t “have” to have. You have to recognize this early on in the recruiting process so you don’t find yourself inadvertently losing out on opportunities from coaches who are genuinely recruiting you.
Just like with a job offer, if the coach can get you at “no cost” (e.g., scholarship money or guaranteed admission) and you turn out to be a good athlete and contributor, he gains a valuable asset. If you don’t turn out to be a good athlete in his program and conference, it’s nothing lost on his part since he didn’t offer anything to get you to play on his team. You want a coach who recognizes your talents, your potential contributions and is willing to do whatever it takes to convince you to play for his team and attend his college. That is the essence of being recruited – true choice, true leverage and the opportunity to attend the best school possible at the best price.
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A. The difference between an Official and Unofficial visit to a college or university is based on a high school student athlete being invited, in writing, to visit a campus and learn about their athletic program at the expense of the school. For Official visits the school usually arranges for and pays transportation to and from the school and room and board while the student is at the school. Most Official visits occur on specific days (frequently Homecoming weekend or other important athletic event weekends – to showcase the school’s athletic program) and include spending time with the coaching staff, other athletes and other current students on campus.
An Unofficial visit is usually also coordinated by the coach or his/her staff and is also on important athletic weekends, but the cost of transit to and from the school is the responsibility of the student. Room and board is usually provided as well for Unofficial visits.
There are specific rules that govern how many Official visits a high school student athlete can accept during their high school career. The general rule is that a prospective athletic scholarship candidate can only accept five total Official visits to DI and/or DII schools.
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A. Coaches are not allowed to initiate contact with a high school student athlete or his family, except in certain situations (see NCAA guidelines), until the month of July after the conclusion of the athlete’s Junior year in high school. Prior to July, coaches are allowed to respond to high school athlete’s emails, texts and phone calls, but are not allowed to initiate any verbal contact.
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A. Coaches are allowed to answer any questions you pose as long as you initiate the conversation.
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A. Yes, you can. If you want to spend valuable time doing the research, valuable time creating a database, a profile, a cover letter and then sending everything to every coach at every school in the U.S. that supports your sport. The amount of time it takes to identify which schools support your sport, the division they’re in, enrollment, their location, their student body average SAT, ACT and GPA and the name of each coach, his/her phone number, email and mailing address can take an enormous amount of time to compile – time you could spend focusing on how you want to manage the coach responses you’ll receive when you use RecruitU2 instead.
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A. Scouting services operate on the premise that you need an objective, unbiased look at your skill sets and a write-up on those observations to obtain the most interest from coaches. They believe that in doing this and making a detailed, statistics laden packet of information on you and your athletic ability, you’ll have a better chance of being recruited by coaches. RU2, on the other hand, operates on the premise that only YOU can best describe your abilities and present them to the coaches. The biggest difference between the two types of services, however, is in how many coaches are exposed to you.
With traditional scouting services they post your scouting report and profile on their web page and send a general email or letter to all coaches in all sports at colleges where they have relationships and invite the coaches to come see the new athletes on their web page. Taken as a whole, the number of coaches they contact is fairly large, but when you dig down into the number of coaches per sport, you will realize that the number of coaches specifically coaching your sport is small. RU2 believes that every coach at every school that sponsors your sport and where you have a chance for admission academically, should be exposed to you and your talents. RU2 is a pro-active promotion of you directly to every coach, while the scouting services wait and hope for coaches to visit their site and sort through all the athletes in your sport until they find you. The second biggest difference is cost. Scouting services charge anywhere from $750 to $5,000 depending on the package. RU2 is $249.
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A. In much the same way scouting services operate, social networking sites offer to put your profile up on their web site and wait for coaches to come to the web site, sort through all the posted profiles and find yours. Since this service is inexpensive it draws a large number of high school student athletes to these sites. This means that as the sites become more popular with the student athletes, there are more student athletes for the coaches to sort through if they are going to find you. The most frequently heard criticism of these sites is that, coaches don’t have time to go to multiple sites, register with them and then spend hours reading hundreds of profiles that are all formatted differently and have different information in them. The coaches would rather either hear from a student athlete directly and establish communication with the student or get recommendations from other sources they trust.
Remember, just like when you look for a job, you don’t want your resume in a giant pile of other resumes hoping that someone will pluck yours out of the pile and call you. You’re better off contacting or responding directly to the person charged with hiring. Getting recruited to play your sport in college is exactly the same situation…… go to the source (the coach) and expose him to your talents.
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A. The NCAA has a minimum set of academic eligibility requirements for any high school athlete who would like to play at the collegiate level. The requirements are frequently updated and outlined on the NCAA site (www.ncaa.org) and we recommend you visit the site, type in “eligibility requirements” in the search field and print their requirements. Take these printed requirements to your high school guidance counselor and discuss your core courses and what you need to do to ensure you meet at least the NCAA minimums. You cannot get recruited or participate in inter-collegiate sports unless you meet these requirement.
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A. Your grades are like your credit score. The better they are, the more opportunities you have. Remember, a coach needs to be sure he can get you admitted to the school before he will spend the time and effort to recruit you. Some athletes assume that coaches can get them in the college because they are good athletes and the coach wants them. In some cases, usually borderline, this is true. But in 99% of the cases if your grades are well below those required for admittance to the college, you will not be recruited or able to attend the school. Keep your grades as high as possible.
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A. There are some historical regional and geographical biases that have evolved in regards to each of these tests. Some schools require only one of them, some both. In order to have the greatest opportunities available to you (e.g., the highest number of coaches interested in recruiting you), we recommend you take both tests your Junior year.
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A. Extracurricular activities are very important. They represent your involvement in your school and your community outside your academics and sport. They are an indication that you have varying interests, are committed to giving back to the school and your community and that you enjoy participating in and excelling at other activities. Colleges and universities view extracurricular activities as a sign of a well-rounded student who is able to participate in a variety of areas and manage his time to be successful in all.
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A. As a general rule the answer is “yes” this can help you. Many superb athletes are offspring of previously successful athletes and coaches recognize this and take it into consideration when determining who they want to recruit. RU2 always recommends you put this in your profile to make the coach aware of your parents previous inter-collegiate athletic history.
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A. Playing a club sport or attending various camps to fine tune and improve your athletic abilities is ALWAYS highly regarded by college coaches. Any camps or clubs that help you strive for continuous improvement are going to be viewed positively by college coaches. And your camp and club coaches are viewed as credible sources of information in regards to your athletic abilities and value to a team. Exposure camps and traveling clubs/teams that allow you to be viewed by multiple coaches in various cities are also highly thought of for obvious reasons.
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A. When you are planning on visiting a school on an unofficial basis, it is always recommended you contact the coach or athletic department prior to your visit to make them aware of your interest in their school and sport program. It gives them the opportunity to re-review your profile, arrange for tours and provide you with an informative and positive visit to the school.
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A. Parents are absolutely critical to the recruiting process for a number of reasons. They are experienced in organizing a project, are experienced in talking with and negotiating with other people, they can remain more objective in looking at the programs and offers, in many cases, than the student athlete because they aren’t as easily swayed by the coach’s recruiting efforts and, finally, because the parents are going to be more experienced in comparing costs and offers of support. If that isn’t enough reason to be involved, parents should also be heavily involved to give moral support to their student athlete. Being recruited, choosing the right school and program and accepting an offer from a coach and college is a big, sometimes overwhelming process and teenage student athletes need their parents for help, guidance and support.
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A. There are two thoughts on this topic : 1. Send your profile and information to coaches early in your Junior year, establish a line of communication with the coaches, let them tell you what they believe you need to do in order to become a top target recruit of theirs and then update them frequently on your progress., or, 2. Wait to contact them until after you have finished your sport season your Junior year. The thought here is that you will have had the opportunity to put in three full years of athletics to show the coach and leverage your successes to win a recruiting offer.
We believe each student athlete is different and should seriously think this through for themselves. The experience and results we’ve had in this area support earlier rather than later contact with coaches. We have found that when a student athlete sends information earlier in their Junior year of high school to college coaches, there tends to be more communications between the coaches and student athletes (via email…… not coach initiated) and they develop a better feel for each other. This usually is a big benefit to RU2 athletes – coaches know them better and tend to recruit student athletes they believe they can communicate with and who are coachable. If you’ve taken the coach’s advice throughout your Junior year and had success with implementing his recommendations, you both will feel comfortable with the possibility of playing for him in college.
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A. No, absolutely not. Your GPA is sufficient for being recruited.
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A. We ALWAYS recommend either taking a preparatory class for the SAT and ACT or, at least, buying preparatory software courses for use at home in your spare time. The SAT and ACT scores you receive will dramatically affect your eligibility to be recruited by coaches.
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