Added Time: Our Monthly College Search Newsletter

October Update:

Big Plans, Red Flags, Your Future!

If you are exploring options for support in your athletic recruiting and college search process, the choices can seem overwhelming! If you play for your high school or a competitive youth organization in your sport, you are likely already receiving all kinds of marketing materials (and maybe some phone calls). There are a wide variety of options: recruiting services, online advisors, local experts, sports specific recruiting “experts,” club coaches, high school counselors, etc. So… how do you wade through all this and put YOUR team together to support your college search? Here are some things to think about and some red flags to watch out for as your journey continues!

1. The college search process begins with a self-assessment

1. • Academic Level: are you limiting yourself to highly selective colleges? A particular major/interest area? Academic support setting? School size or type? Other college related priorities (i.e. religious affiliation or availability of student support/experiences)?
   • Geographic radius: most students stay within 150 miles of home for college, do you want to go further? It can give you more options, but also challenges depending on your goals.
   • Playing your sport as a priority: you DON’T have to be 100% sure about playing in college to explore your options! However, you should clarify in your own mind (subject to change, of course) about how important playing your sport is to you. Is it your #1 priority? One of several competing priorities? Or something nice to explore if it works out with the schools you prefer regardless?

2. If you are focused within your home geographic radius and playing your sport is not at least one of several priorities, you may be fine with support from your coaches and school counselor. There are only a finite number of colleges within your radius, so you can reach out to those coaches and get feedback. It is also likely that your high school coach or club coach can help you connect with a local college coach or two (or knows who can).

3. Generally, the more selective you aim and/or the more geographically diverse you get, the more value an effective independent advisor can add to your college search. Obviously, College Athletic Advisor can help, but we are not the only ones! If you got this far and think you should explore adding an independent advisor to your college search team, let’s talk about some things to look for and things to avoid.

Green Flags: Quality consultants have these qualities:

• Center YOU, the student-athlete, in the recruiting process – good advising involves facilitating YOU exploring what you want and giving expert analysis of options that you have not considered as well as effective coaching on what you will need to do to get there!
• An understanding of the academic AND athletic environments at colleges, including options beyond the schools you see on ESPN regularly.
• The ability to help you find options that align with ALL your goals. Advising for athletes that ignores their desire to play in college is pretty much useless, similarly, it’s pretty unhelpful to advise aspiring student-athletes on picking colleges based mostly on athletics without much concern for academics and overall fit!
• Membership in professional organizations like the IECA or HECA.

Red Flags: Danger! Move along:

• Internet databases with their own private messaging systems and engagement trash like web analytics (i.e. “profile views” allegedly by a college coaches) – college coaches want to connect AUTHENTICALLY with YOU. Emailing from a spoofed email account will just put your emails in a spam folder so many coaches will never see it; and if a coach really is “viewing” your profile and NOT reaching out, how is that helpful for you? Coaches will ALWAYS prioritize real interest/outreach over searching an internet database. The folks in that database are there to sell you camp or recruiting to colleges that people do not generally want to attend. Most of the internet based recruiting companies are owned by the same Chinese private equity firm anyway.
• Advisors who lean into "knowing coaches" in their sales pitch. The truth is coaches recruit based on their assessment of a student-athlete's ability to contribute to the program, and they want to hear from YOU! Any smart coach’s first question when a friend recommends a student is to ask, “why isn’t THIS KID calling me?”
• Advisors who want to insert themselves between you and college coaches and serve more of an “agent” role. College coaches want to talk to YOU, if an advisor is telling you NOT to contact college coaches it is VERY likely that there is something (or a lot of things) unethical going on and you need to rethink what you are doing and who you are trusting with your future.
• Advisors (or youth coaches) who play up their “expert evaluation” of you. The reality is that each college head coach is an evaluation committee of one – any other evaluation is meaningless for that college. Wise advisors enable you to get that evaluation from college coaches, they do NOT try to substitute their own.

In the end, while College Athletic Advisor’s expertise is unmatched, not every student’s journey demands every tool at our disposal. There are many advisors qualified to help students reach ALL of their goals, academically, athletically, socially, and financially! The idea is to navigate your college search/recruiting process to get you to the right college! You want to choose an environment that is a platform to elevate your life! Keep that in mind as your college search moves forward!

As always, if you are looking for the individualized or institutional consulting help that puts you ahead of your peers, check out our services here! You can make an initial appointment through the link on our homepage! School administrators and counselors access our free resources, appointments and programs for school collaboration here.

For more information, contact Dave Morris, College Counselor & CEO, College Athletic Advisor, [email protected] or phone: (719) 248-7994

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