My D17 is applying to a variety of DIII LACs, none in the “highest ranks,” most in the midwest. She has met with coaches at two of them already & both she and the coaches thought she’d be a great fit on their teams. (Both school are top choices for her in other ways as well, they’re both in the same conference and her times would place her in the middle of the pack on one and near the top of the pack at the other.)
Question: Should she fill out the online recruiting questionnaires on the other schools’ websites? Or, should she contact the coaches directly by email, introducing herself? If we’re able to visit, she will try to meet with coaches on those visits, but we can’t visit them all. She’s pretty modest and isn’t comfortable going on about her times, which are good for her class but not necessarily the fastest in the world.
Adding to my original post: We understand that DIII schools don’t recruit the same way that DIs do & of course don’t offer athletic scholarships, but we wonder if a coach who wants her might have some sway in admissions (and even that elusive “institutional grants”) that may help tip the balance at some schools…? Plus, she wants to get a feel for each team as to her desire to be on the team, attend that school, etc.
Influence with admissions? Yes. Influence with other FA? That is really NOT supposed to happen. Recently a school in NYC was dinged because it was clear the athletes were getting more FA than they would have received without the coach. Bad. However, it never hurts for the school to become interested in her academically and pursue her that way.
If she’s otherwise interested in the schools, why wouldn’t she fill out the questionnaires and perhaps get to meet the coach/team and see if that is an extra reason to want to go to that school?
@twoinanddone, I hear you about the FA influence. It’s supposed to be a big non-no, I understand.
I guess my question is should she use the online forms or write an email introducing herself directly to the coaches? I’ve heard that many coaches don’t really use those online recruitment forms anyway…?
Either one is fine, but the coach might direct her to fill out the questionnaire also. Some keep statistics that way. I’d do the questionnaire, and if I didn’t hear anything within a reasonable time (a week?), I’d send the email.
Agree that many coaches don’t seem to pay much attention to the forms, but DD always filled them out and updated with new PRs, just in case. I think an accompanying intro e-mail as well as update e-mails are an absolute must.
I would email the coaches directly. If time permits then fill out the questionnaire too. But if it is one or the other, email which will at least go to the right person. You should put all of the same info in the email, times, grades, test scores etc.
IF the school provides merit awards, then contributing on campus as a recruited athlete seems to be one possible factor in determining a merit award. It cannot be a factor in need-based aid, whatsoever.
My son applied only to safety/match schools because we knew we needed merit and he was a recruited athlete – we were very pleased with the merit awards he received. We did a lot of research before hand to figure out the ranges of merit awards given at each school, and he interviewed and wrote thoughtful essays, as well as followed up regularly with both Admissions and athletic staff. I like to think he brought a lot more than sports to campus, as he is a well-rounded kid, with music, art and athletics, so we can’t separate it out and say that “yes, recruiting made all the difference in his merit awards.”
Take the time to do the questionnaires, and email head coach, copying assistant coaches, with detailed email about academic and athletic stats/background. If she is going to be talking to a number of schools about recruiting, consider starting some kind of log tracking date and important content of communications with each school – there is a lot to keep up in the air, checking to see who has scores, latest film, etc.
@Midwestmomofboys, thank you for your reply. What you are saying seems to jive with what I’ve heard from some other folks as well, ie. that being a recruited athlete adds to an applicant’s overall “contribution” to the campus community, though I guess you can’t really know for sure. My daughter and I have been doing research on all the schools, searching also for that merit aid. She’ll have a couple of reaches, just in case, but her list so far is matches and safeties. She’s researching them as schools first and teams second, visiting with each coach when we visit whenever possible.
Great advice about keeping track of it all, too. We’ve already started doing that for all the other aspects of her search just so we don’t go mad, but it will be much more critical to do so once she’s talked to and corresponded with more coaches for sure. Good tip!
@mnparentof3 sounds like you have it under control! Our approach was also, school first, then sport --we looked at in terms of, “if you have a sport-ending injury on the first day, are you still glad to be attending THAT school.”
Division 3 schools can do whatever they want with their money, and being an athlete may make the applicant a well rounded student and just what the school is looking, for which is great for admissions. For a D1 or D2 school, merit aid can only be given to an athlete under the same terms it is given to other students.
My view of the purpose for on line questionnaires is as a coach’s filing cabinet. You may get a response from filling out a questionnaire, but you are far more likely to get a response from an email, call, or better yet, an in-person meeting with the coach. My sense is that the questionnaire is used to keep the information about recruits in one place, so recruits can be compared. Take for example the soccer coach who is looking for striker with a GPA of at least 3.8. It is a bit easier for coach to find a kid who fits the bill from searching questionnaires than from digging through the email in-box. That said, from the recruit’s perspective, it is much easier to stand out by contacting the coach directly. I would take the time to do both, but personal contact gives more bang for the buck.
I agree with the thoughts above to contact coaches directly. Filling out the forms can’t hurt, and obviously it makes sense to comply if the coach requests that, but at some schools I’m not even sure if anyone even reads those forms.
I agree, although it was hard to tell whether the questionnaire was ever the reason for contact since we always did both. Some coaches specifically asked for them to be filled out. Some asked for the form to be filled out when it already had been, leaving me to wonder whether the questionnaire was ever read.
Once or twice there was no response to numerous emails, and then contact from the coach out of the blue months later. I thought that might have been from the questionnaires. But, I would never expect a response from a coach from the questionnaires (as in why didn’t she get back to me, I submitted the questionnaire).
My subjective sense is that schools are all over the map on how they use questionnaires, in some cases going through the information systematically and following up with promising athletes, in other cases seeming to use it as a mechanism to reduce the amount of direct outreach coaches have to deal with.
It probably depends on where the school fits in the ecosystem to some degree, e.g. a school like Oregon probably already knows about the small set of people good enough to be on their short list. I know this thread is about D3 so that’s just an example.
For schools with a high academic filter, I can see questionnaires being useful at least in screening out those who have no chance academically, and conversely identifying those who seem in range on both academics and athletics.
