There is some wisdom in there, although there is some inaccurate and misleading information as well. There is a big area between getting a generic form letter and getting an offer when you are definitely being actively recruited. The 2 examples given at the start of the article probably have a lot better than a 1% chance at a very good scholarship, even if it’s not technically a “full ride.” I’m sure the average athlete on scholarship isn’t paying $60,000+ at Syracuse. D3 and Ivy recruiting was only talked about in extremely vague terms of need and merit based aid, not in a way that a parent reading this article would understand what that really means. And for many looking at those schools, a scholarship isn’t the goal, it’s an admission ticket into a school that otherwise your 4.0/1600 student isn’t even a coin flip to get into. Several other little things like that.
In general it was more accurate than I expected, but there were plenty of almost but not completely accurate oversimplifications, and you could tell the article was written by someone who did some research but who is not actually very familiar with the process. Parents spending a couple hours reading through this board, and asking a few questions, will be in a far more knowledgable spot than ones who read this article and take it all at face value.
As far as recruiting services, the advice given here is that the recruiting services are generally unnecessary, which is what the article says. They are good if you just don’t want to do the work yourself and would rather pay someone to do it, and if you really aren’t picky and want to get in front of as many schools as possible. So you are fine with a random small school in Florida, or a different one in Oregon. In common sports where there are a ton of programs you may get in front of more programs that way. Of course all of that is predicated on it being a quality service that is actually doing work for you. I’m not sure what percentage of them are really like that. We didn’t see the need personally, so using advice from this board (and a lot of hard work, both in the recruiting process and for a decade leading into that working at his sport) S19 was able to land at his “dream school.”
I think there are a lot of “recruitable” HS athetes who just don’t have that goal, and never did.
With S19, we always knew playing in college was a possibility, and something he wanted. He probably would have gone to the local D2 school as a practice room guy for a few dollars if he had no other options, although as it turned out he was one of the lucky few who had a very extensive set of options and was kind of in the driver’s seat when it came time to talk to coaches.
With D21, it was also a possibility, and I tried to make sure she kept those options open. But it was never really her goal, and I knew from the beginning that the money being spent on training and travel teams was probably not going to lead to a college scholarship, or even playing at all. She ultimately would have been a very recruitable D3 player at a high level academic school, or probably a middle of the road D2 player who was mostly on academic scholarship with a few dollars thrown in from the athletic department so she could say she was “on scholarship.” But it wasn’t her goal, so we didn’t pursue the opportunity.
There is a bit of an implication in the article that we “wasted money chasing a scholarship” with her, but we didn’t. She got a lot out of it, and I got my money’s worth by getting a confident young woman who knew how to face and overcome challenges out of the experience, not by getting a scholarship. THAT was always the goal.
Our child is brilliant, but we do know that she would have just been one of many applying without the sport bump and likely would not have been accepted into the school.