Questions about the D3 recruiting process

Athletic Recruits
1

My D is a junior, and interested in playing basketball at the D3 level. She is my oldest, and I have not been through the D3 recruiting process before. Over this past summer she completed about 25 online profiles at schools she is potentially interested in, including a link to her AAU and HS highlight tapes from Soph year.

She heard back from about 15-17 of the schools, some asst coaches, some head coaches, via email. The emails were personal, giving her feedback on her tapes, asking for her future schedule, asking for full game tapes, etc. Our issue is we live in south Florida, and all of the schools are a long way away - so making visits to each before she applies is unlikely. It is also unlikely that these schools will be able to see her play in person, although a couple may be able to get to tournaments next July.

My questions, if anyone can provide insight, are:

  • what indicators should we look for to determine who is really interested and what is just "coach speak"?
  • how often should she contact the coaches during her junior year - via phone and/or email?
  • are the prospect camps for D3 a good idea for our situation or should we lean on her game film?

Any other info/suggestions regarding the general D3 recruiting process and timeline would be greatly appreciated! The schools she is considering are mostly in the NESCAC and Centennial conferences.

Thanks!

2

I don’t know if basketball D3 recruiting is similar enough to soccer to compare our experience, but we have been advised, generally, that the coach likes film to get a sense of whether a player might be a good fit for the team, but then wants them to come to their own ID camp to really seem them play. From the athlete’s perspective, the school’s own ID camp is a good way to get a feel for the personality of the coach and players (there are usually captains/returners working the camp), and the style of play. So, individual school’s own camp can be invaluable.

As for coach speak, we haven’t learned to translate it yet, and my kid is a senior scheduling visits. Some coaches are quite specific – an invitation on campus means a roster spot. Other talk about “continuing the recruiting process” which seems to mean, we want to keep your kid interested, but we don’t know how interested we are in your kid." Since my kid is in season now, he generally emails his top schools every 2 weeks or so with updates and updated film. As the coaches are in season as well, it is challenging for them to find a time when they can talk by phone.

Congrats to your daughter on making a strong first impression!

3

Thanks for your response and suggestions regarding the camps and email frequency. Thank you, yes it seems like her first impression was positive and the responses are encouraging! She is trying not to get too excited, and we (her parents) are trying to figure out where we should invest our time and resources to travel to prospect camps/tournaments, since it’s such a distance for us.

4

My D is a senior and has been recruited with varying degrees of intensity by a few D1, a few D2 and about 30 D3. The D1 found her at July viewing, the D2 we sent film, and the D3 were a mix of us sending film and them finding her on berecruited.com or captainu.com.

I have found it’s really hard to gauge how interested a coach is by how much they communicate after the initial “we really like your film” email. Some whom we thought weren’t interested at all have now offered her official visits, and other who we thought were quite interested have disappeared. One problem for my D is that her junior year SAT scores are 200 points below where several of her target schools would like to see them for bare minimum entry (UAA schools). The majority of those schools were supportive of her working to get her scores up and the majority still came to watch her during July viewing, but we’ve only heard from a couple of them since July.

She only emailed updates every couple of months to all coaches and only sent updated film when requested to do so. The schools that are really interested in her don’t seem to care how often they hear from her, and the really, really interested ones initiate the contact.

We did send her to a June camp at a UAA school at great expense (we are on the west coast and it was on the east coast). They seemed to really like her at the camp, came to watch her not once but twice during July, but now have disappeared. It was a useful experience, though, and it will be interesting to see if the UAA schools’ interest in general perks up if she raises her SATs enough, or if they just didn’t like what they saw in person at July viewing.

Speaking of July viewing, the coaches at your D’s interested schools will want to see her play in person and they will ask for her AAU schedule. We moved our D to the only travel club in our area that was going to the majority of the July tournaments that her interested schools were going to be at as well. We figured we’d be spinning our wheels with AAU otherwise.

5

And forgot to mention that D plays basketball as well! :slight_smile:

6

Great info, thank you! When did your D start communicating with the D3 schools, early JR year, end of junior yr? My D test scores in her soph year were right in the mid-range of her target schools, so I’m thinking she’ll be OK there by the end of this year.

My D is not a physically imposing nor particularly athletic kid, so I’ve kind of felt like the camp environment would be a better place to show her skillset than at tournaments(more structure vs the pickup style ball at tourneys). In what way would you say the camp was a useful experience? How many players were at the camp would you guess?

When did the schools offer official visits, the D3 schools I mean? How was that process, did the coach call and make that offer, was it via email, etc?

Thanks in advance for your time!

7

Vikingd,

How to parse through the coach speak, hmmm. I think the best way to start is to put yourself in the coach’s position. You may start with 500 high school girls of interest. If you assembled the best ten girls of that early 500, chances are that eight of them will choose a different school. So, as a coach, you want to spread a wide berth early on (i.e., junior year) and cull down by the fall of senior year. I would say, the interest from coaches now might reflect that wide berth.

That is my way of saying that the fact of receipt of a coach email early in the junior year is “soft.” A lot will change by the end of junior summer. Right now, coach speak should involve words of encouragement. Later there may be somewhat less encouraging words given.

Regarding how often your daughter should contact the coach, I would say for now every 3-4 weeks. In season, it could be upped to every two weeks, or even weekly. By all means, if your daughter has new information (e.g., captain of the team, all league, a new SAT score, updated transcript, new tape), that should be sent to the coach separately to allow for the greatest amount of coach interaction. In short, take advantage of every opportunity to contact the coach to convey your interest. I understand some schools have programs that calculate the number of times the student has contacted them.

As far as the best way to showcase your daughter’s talents, that really is your call. Some kids don’t do well under the pressure of showcases and camps. On the other hand, some shine. You have to decide whether a camp is the best way to show her talent or whether she would do better on tapes alone. Some kids in the NESCAC have been recruited based on camp performances, others based on tapes alone. It is also true that some also have been eliminated by performances at camps. Like I said, you need to know your kid. You might want to pick a small camp near your home to see how well she fares.

I do think a coach is more likely to be interested if he or she thinks that your daughter will for sure attend the school, which is why ED usually is required for coach support. One way of conveying interest is visiting the school, but that can be tough if you live at a distance. If you can’t go to the camp or visit the school, call and email often. Then see where the chips fall.

Usually “official” visits (whatever that means) occur in the fall of senior year, although (unlike D1) overnights can occur in the junior year because one never knows whether a visit is official or unofficial at the D3 level…

Best of luck

8

Vikingd,

D started contacting schools the spring of sophomore year.

My D is also not physically imposing nor does she have D1 athleticism. She does have a D1 skill set and shooting ability, but it’s hard to show off in AAU ball, as you know. So she prefers the camp environment.

There were about 25 girls at the camp I mentioned, so it was a great opportunity for her to show what she can do. She got a good feel for the personalities of the girls on the team (who were there helping) and for the coaching staff. She also got a tour of the campus and got a feel for the surrounding area. She will be doing another camp on the west coast this month.

She’s also done camps at local colleges and discovered that she had no interest in those schools just based off of the camp vibe and the coaching staff. Her HS team also did a local team camp, which was enormously beneficial b/c she got to show her game off in a non–AAU environment. That D1 staff was so impressed with her that they gave her serious consideration (even sending someone to watch her again during July viewing), even though they said she is 6 to 8 inches too short for their conference. Ultimately nothing came of it, but it was a look that she wouldn’t have gotten otherwise without the camp.

The offers of official (overnight) visits (loose term for D3, like the above poster said) came face-to-face during unofficial visits D took during the summer. Some coaches then followed up on the plans via phone, some email. She is literally on a plane as I type to the first overnight visit. Some of the overnights we are paying the airfare, some the school is.

The above poster is spot on about the wide berth being cast junior year and about communicating often if you can’t go visit the school very readily.

9

Also wanted to add–this camp that D did was in a city where three schools had expressed interest in her. So she did the camp, then visited the other two schools while she was there. Those two schools are now bringing her in for official overnight visits. The school where she did the camp has dropped off the radar, but again, we don’t know if that’s b/c of SAT scores or b/c they decided she wasn’t a good fit. But my point is that even though it was quite a trek to travel to the other coast, it ultimately was worth it b/c we were able to fit more than one school into the equation.

10

Thanks so much for your response. I will share that info with her and let her go from there! Sounds like she needs to stay busy on the phone/email!

11

sanmln, sounds like our daughters have very similar profiles :slight_smile: It sounds like picking a camp might be a good idea. Thanks again!

12

You’re welcome, and yes, they do sound quite similar! Feel free to PM me any time with any specific questions.