<p>The recruiting process, as seen through the eyes of a mom.</p>
<p>Recruiting has been a very time consuming and labor intensive process, not for the faint of heart. Since this all started for us, around the first of February, I have taken a new career path. I now proudly hold the position of Personal Assistant to my daughter, Student-Athlete. As such, my duties include, but are not limited to, sorting through mail, sorting through emails, proof reading emails, rough drafts of emails, researching schools, researching teams, researching financial aid, researching camps, organizing the calendar, scheduling of unofficial visits, scheduling of official vists (God willing), and anything else my student-athlete and prospective coaches throws my way. I know some people say let the student-athlete handle things themselves, but I am here to tell you that I can barely handle it all! And I don't go to school 8 hours a day, train 3 hours a day and study 2-3 hours a night. The child has to sleep sometime! </p>
<p>And now they tell me it is about to get worse, much worse, as recruiting gets into full swing. Maybe I should think about hiring a personal assistant for myself!</p>
<p>Congratulations on your new job! Be sure to set aside some funds/plans to reward yourself for all this hard work once your daughter is off at school. You will have earned every minute of spa time.</p>
<p>^^^Excellent incentive program, bchan1 - definitely reward yourself fishymom! I cannot wait for us to have final stories to tell each other…and then perhaps you can retire?</p>
<p>Fishy - give yourself a raise $$, and enjoy the rest of the rollercoaster ride. Believe it or not, there will be a time when you look back and think that it was so worth it!</p>
<p>I can relate to your new job! I had the same job for several years (yes, years) for my son. Now that he’s a rising jr. in college and still playing the sport he loves I can say it was all worth it on my end. For most kids that want to play at the next level there is a lot of behind the scenes work involved. With their hectic schedules there’s no way they can do it all.</p>
<p>It has been rewarding as a parent to really enjoy his college experience. For the kids that love playing their sport there is nothing they would rather be doing.</p>
<p>Thank you for your humorous honesty, fishymom. I agree that it would have been extremely difficult for our D to handle all the tasks associated with recruiting without my help. It’s not that she wasn’t capable of doing so; there just wasn’t enough time in her day to keep everything well-organized and prioritized. If necessary, she could have managed and a few badly worded e-mails or delays in sending paperwork probably wouldn’t have drastically altered her results. All the same, one never knows for sure since one school told her they were particularly impressed with the maturity and efficiency with which she conducted herself during the process. And my research turned up some important and deal-breaking details about several schools.</p>
<p>The experience is likely less intense for kids who don’t have lots of homework or who early on set their hearts on one school. But for scholar-athletes who are courted by many schools which would be a good fit for them, it’s very labor-intensive.</p>
<p>I don’t know about everyone else, but one thing that was a frustrating time-sucker was when the school or coach “lost” information or documents. For practically every school D had to re-send one thing or another. There was a certain Ivy coach who requested that she e-mail the same information so many times, D eventually sent him all the copies of her previous e-mails in which she had already given him the info. and then wrote off the program as too disorganized.</p>
<p>Even now, details come to my mind that prove helpful. For example, a few days ago it occurred to me that D hadn’t confirmed the receipt of her final transcript by the university or the NCAA Clearinghouse. She had given the transcript request forms to her counselor a while ago and so in her mind, she was done. Kids lack the accumulated experiences with incompetence which tell us when and with whom checking-up is advisable. Lo and behold, it seems that they were not sent yet or were “lost” because neither institution is showing receipt. So, now D has to stop off at the high school before work tomorrow and see to this before it causes her trouble.</p>
<p>Fenway, I concur, I need a raise!!! And GFG, I could not agree with you more. Kids just lack the experience to handle some of this stuff and assume that everybody is as conscientious as they are. We adults know that is not the case! We have not had anything “lost” yet, but I’m sure it is coming.</p>
<p>Cheers for all hardworking parent!!!
I merely gather informations about coaches and organize contact info and visit schedule for my D. It is definitely tough and confusing job to do.^^</p>
<p>Last Nov 11 was a dream come true for this personal assistant! To have all that time and effort validated with a happily commited student athlete was worth all the hard work! I got to throw away all the piles of brochures and files full of correspondence in one big purge - it felt good to get my office back. Our student athlete was a whole lot easier to live with once the decision was made, too!</p>
<p>We are looking forward to the purge–Since the Ll is in the mail–I think as soon as it arrives, we may have a ceremonial bonfire to rid the house of the paper–Kind of wish we had kept it all–its been 12 months of mailings…probably more if you count the stuff requested back in soph yr!</p>
<p>Thanks for the post, Fishymom. This website is a great source of wisdom and knowledge regarding this whole process, but there are the occasional posts about how the kids have to do it all that made doubtful spouse and me wonder if we were doing too much for doubtful D. The kid honestly needs a secretary, and that’s us and, evidently, you. Cheers.</p>
<p>Excellent job! I completely agree the parent should be involved in some way as I am in my senior year at exam time currently… my parents maybe help research the college that’s about it they don’t want to get too involved they want it to be my decision… but it’s soo much work to do with training 2 hours going to school for 7ish hours going to training for three hours then coming home to do homework and then deal with all the emails and paperwork to do with going to america! Definately reward yourself at the end! its a hard job and im sure you are doing brilliant!</p>
</p>