<p>Hi all-
2016 daughter (libero) would love to play at a high academic D3 but we have no idea where to start, other than filling out online recruit forms. She plays for a very good club team in Southern CA but I have no idea when she should start emailing coaches, etc. Some of the girls on her team are already doing this but they are all targeting large D1 programs (the club leadership seems pretty focused on D1 too). We have done this with our son for another sport, but we are beyond clueless with volleyball, esp in D3, since I think the timeline is a lot different than D1. Good academics so far...4.0UW and 200 PSAT. Thanks in advance for any help/links to resources.</p>
<p>momochan,</p>
<p>My daughter is a high school senior and has just completed this process – and, fortunately and happily, will be attending and playing for one of the top academic D3 schools in the fall.</p>
<p>Fundamentally, you are still a little early in the process. The process doesn’t really start until high school junior year, and even then, not really in earnest until the beginning of the club season in January. Your daughter should fill out the recruit forms and make sure to follow up with emails directly to the coaches right before the start of the junior year club season. The emails should include a summary of her academic credentials (grades and any solid SAT/ACT test scores she has obtained by then (if she has any by then)), the name of her club team and a schedule of tournaments (especially key tournaments like USAV national qualifiers, major regional tournaments, etc.). You should also make a highlights video that you can post (privately) to youtube and give the coaches the link – this will be good for coaches who can’t see her play in person and also an intro to her capabilities for coaches who will be able to see her.</p>
<p>You should try to schedule some unofficial visits in the spring of junior year so your daughter can begin to get a feel for which schools she likes best and you can also meet the coaches and get a better feel for whether they might have interest. Your daughter should also provide the coaches with regular updates about academic and vball developments. The academic piece is very critical – the coaches at the most academically competitive D3 schools (NESCAC, Swarthmore, Pomona, Carleton, etc.) need to focus their time with kids who have a reasonable chance of admissions and, if your daughter’s academics are good and she is a solid player, that’s the sweet spot for the coach. We found that good academic information often got a stronger positive reaction from a coach than something vball related (although, of course, the recruit has to be able to play to be of interest to the coach in the first place).</p>
<p>Some (but not all) schools will do pre reads with admissions during the summer between junior and senior year after receipt of junior year grades and SAT/ACT test results. During that summer and into the fall, coaches will begin to make decisions on which recruits they want to support (it may be a bit earlier for some key hitters, but for most coaches and most players, there will be no real decisions before the summer after junior year and many decisions will not occur until the fall). Most coaches have the most influence with admissions at the ED stage and will likely want your daughter to apply ED if they intend to support her with admissions.</p>
<p>In general, the vball recruiting process at top academic D3 schools closely resembles the process for other sports. We learned alot by reading and searching on these forums for the experiences of others. If you spend some time reading and searching, you’ll begin to see a number of themes coming up regularly (and learn the posters who tend to provide the most reliable advice).</p>
<p>Hope this helps. If you have other questions, I will try to answer them if I can. </p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter.</p>
<p>chs1980 has given some good advice. I will add that even if a club coach is focused on D1 they can also be very effective in helping with recruitment of D3 athletes. I would add Emory to the list of schools your D is considering. Her GPA/test scores are in line with what Emory is looking for and they have several team members from California.</p>
<p>Thank you for your replies. It gives me an idea of when to start things rolling and has significantly reduced my anxiety. To further my research, I would love to find a website that lists the relative strength of D3 volleyball teams…is there such a thing?</p>
<p>momochan,</p>
<p>I’m not aware of any list of the relative strength of D3 vball teams. That said, I’d thinks about starting in the reverse way. Namely, search out 15-20 schools your daughter has interest in from an academic and other non-vball standpoint. After all, who knows whether she will continue to play throughout her college career (injury, change in focus, etc.). Among schools she liked reasonably well, I might do a little research on how the team tends to perform. Although some teams tend to be either routinely pretty good or the reverse, at the D3 level (especially high academic type D3), many of the teams move around a bit from year to year – sometimes very good, rarely very bad, usually a decent record.</p>
<p>Also, I got your PM. Unfortunately, I do not have enough posts to provide a reply. I would say that, based upon the limited info in your PM, your daughter does seem to be a solid candidate for thinking about playing in college at the D3 level. I would try to get some input from her hs and club coach. They should be able to give you a pretty good feel. Also, ask them about what skills she needs to continue to work on. To be recruited at the DS/libero positions, she’ll need to be very solid on serve receive.</p>
I’m helping a friend whose daughter is being recruited for volleyball and both she and her parents are totally overwhelmed by the process. If the student’s grades/rank/scores are in range for the schools, is it that important to apply ED? She’s under a ton of pressure from coaches to choose one school and apply ED. I’ve encouraged her to cross out schools with terrible academics and also the very highly competitive ones where I feel that she will struggle to keep up academically while playing a sport. Here’s what’s left: Denison, College of Wooster, Cornell College (Iowa), Mount Holyoke, Simmons, Knox, Sarah Lawrence, Trinity (CT), Wells. All of these have given her pre-reads except College of Wooster and Cornell College, but she’s in conversation with those coaches as well. She’s in the top 5% of her high school class though she got Bs in two AP classes last year, with an ACT superscore of 30 and taking an INSANE course load her senior year. She’s young for her class and between sports and school has not had an opportunity to develop any idea of what she’s about as a human being and what excites her academically. I’d like for her to have the opportunity to do that. Would love to hear feedback on these choices for academics, vibe, and volleyball.
Some great advice here, much of it is not limited to volleyball recruiting. A couple of additional thoughts. A league website can be a treasure trove of information. While it does not compare information between leagues, the stats and results section can give you good information about comparing volleyball programs within a league. If you are comparing NESCAC schools, for example, the NESCAC website will allow you to compare the league and non-league records and player individual stats for the schools of interest. The “D3 Volleyball” website contains the top 25 polls (as does the NCAA website), and of course “D3” seems to have related websites for most D3 Sports. Some sports have regional polls as well that helps dig below the top 25.
Another planning tool that we found important was drafting up that college resume. It was a helpful piece of paper that can be given to a coach at a meeting or in an email. Also, it was invaluable for filling out the questionnaires because all the recruiting information was contained in one place.
Not sure about volleyball, but as a general matter, video for “non-timed” sports is very helpful to provide a prospective college coach.
Finally, at most (but not all) D3 schools, athletic recruits are expected to apply early decision. Some people are adverse generally to applying early because they want to to keep their options open among the many schools to see, for example, which gives the best FA. But look at this from the school’s perspective - that is exactly what the school is trying to prevent. They are giving the athlete a bit of an advantage over the non-recruits. Perhaps the kid would be in the middle of thousands of kids with similar academic stats and unlikely to get in without the bump from the coach. The quid pro quo for getting that bump is that the athlete is actually going to attend the school (and presumably play for the team). If all athletes applied RD, all athletes would wait to consider all their choices and some schools would end up with no athletes while others ended up with more than needed, resulting in unhappy recruits who get cut or who weren’t playing. An athlete does not have to apply ED. However, in my experience, if the athlete chooses to forego ED, he or she will not get the advantage of being a recruited athlete with admissions. In fact, if a coach has offered support in exchange for the recruit applying ED, and the recruit applies RD, it is telling the coach that the recruit is not committing to the school and may be committing elsewhere.
We have a senior daughter who has also just completed this process and has committed to applying ED to a high academic D3, and agree with all the great advice here. I think the videos that we provided (both game footage and a skills video) were really key - out of the three schools who were interested enough in her to submit her information to admissions this past summer for a pre-read, none of the coaches had seen her play in person. I also wanted to thank everyone in the CC community, as we learned so much from reading through all the recruiting posts here. There was just such a wealth of information posted here which was so helpful in guiding us through the process for which we are very grateful. Here is one other site that I also found very helpful - just google ‘The College Volleyball Coach’ - he has a blog that specifically talks about VB recruiting where he posts answers to questions that are submitted - lots of good information there as well. Good luck!
I recommend applying ED. Coach told my daughter there were 2 other recruits got rejected in RD round. D got in ED round and now playing on the team. Everything was so smooth and stress free after the date of acceptance which was before the winter break. It was nice, I would do it again if I had to.
While it may depend on the sport and the specific athlete, our recruited player was told throughout the process with multiple schools that, while they may want him to play for them, if he didn’t feel he could commit to apply ED, they couldn’t commit to a spot on the team being there for him through RD. From the coach’s perspective, with an ED applicant, they know that they have that recruiting need filled (a GK, or center back or whatever position it is that needs to be filled). If the player wants to keep their options open through RD, then coach will keep looking to fill that need and chances are, another prospect will fill it just as well, who is prepared to apply ED. So now, in April, there is no need for that kid to be on the team – while the student can compare admissions offers, the athletic spot may well be gone.
What is the role of finances in this family’s decision? Some of those schools give good merit awards to full pay families, such as Wooster, Knox, Denison and Holyoke. Others, like Trinity, as a NESCAC school, don’t give merit at all, only financial aid. Some of the schools in #5 are very different types of places – Trinity CT vs. Sarah Lawrence.
If possible to narrow it down to a smaller group for more visits, I’d encourage the family to do that. “Fit” both with the overall school culture as well as the team matters for schools of this size.
Finances are going to be a major factor for most people. We did the D3 recruiting process for another sport. My S was lucky, the coach most interested in him did NOT require ED. They offered him a spot in Nov of his senior year, and just wanted to know where they were on his list. In other words, they went on the honor system. The only comment they made about ED was that they could fight hard with the Fin Aid office to get you what you are entitled to, if ED, less able to help if you apply RD. If not eligible for Fin Aid at all, that does not help. We waited for RD so we could see merit aid. It was stressful knowing he could be rejected and lose his spot, but the coach assured us he would not lose his spot on the team if we go RD.
All that said, some schools did say you must apply ED to make the team as a recruit.
You can also tryout as a walk-on in D3 schools, but you have to think, what is your purpose in the
recruiting process ? Maximizing chances of getting into a high academic, or playing ?
If your kid is borderline / below avg grades and a coach says you can get in, if you apply ED, then DO IT. If you think your kid would get in anyway (above avg grades) why not wait for merit scholarships in April and see what other options you have. Can walk-on at public tryouts, if a really good athlete.
Following this thread - D15 wants to play volleyball in college but is also an excellent student and interested in STEM. She’s been contacted by some D3 colleges already and I’m not sure how to guide her through the process.
Threebeans,
Understand that what your D is doing is marketing herself to colleges. D3 colleges have like nothing – nothing – when it comes to recruiting budgets. Therefore, the D3 academic recruit is tasked with presenting herself as something the coach wants for the team.
Since your D is all set academic-wise, she needs to be able to market herself athletically. First step: tapes. Can you afford a pro? Does your high school tape games? Do you have your own video player and tripod? At a minimum, I would get some advice about what coaches might want to see in a video, then put it together. Second Step: College Resume. You can probably track some of these down from the internet or college guidebooks. Include name, address, email, gpa, test scores, athletic accomplishments, jobs, clubs, academic honors. Third Step: Request pdf of unofficial transcript from your school. Fourth Step: Complete on-Line Recruiting Questionnaires. Cast a wide net. Fill out for schools that are too cold, too competitive, too small, too expensive (and not competitive enough, too big, too cheap). Fifth Step: Email coaches. This should definitely come from your D. Personally, I like to use each bit of information in a separate email. For example, one email would be to attach the college CV. Another email would attach the tape. Yet another email would attach the transcript. In each email, do what you can to encourage a back and forth discussion. End emails with “I would love to know what you think.” Sixth Step: Set up meetings with coaches. The more meetings, the better. For each of those coaches that have expressed interest, set up a meeting. This is important, even if you think the school is not a fit. Your D may end up liking a different school than you or she originally predicted. Seventh Step: Let the dust settle.
This seems quick and simple. It isn’t, but it can be quite rewarding.
@gointhruaphase - THANK YOU for your reply, she does have game tapes and video from club season - she has edited them and has profiles on the various sites. She also links those to the forms on the webpages the colleges ask you to fill out to show interest. Her club coach gave her a sample college resume to base hers off of - shouldn’t take long once she has time to sit down and complete it. I totally agree with college visits once they’ve shown interest. We’re going through that right now with S17 and it’s amazing who has moved up and down in his rankings after a visit. One more for him this weekend and one later this month before he makes that decision. Thanks again !