<p>Recruiting varies from sport to sport and from division to division and from school to school.</p>
<p>If you're a rising senior, you better get moving. If by "smaller schools with smaller recruiting programs" you mean Division III, the recruiting season for 2006 is heating up now. For DI and DII it has been underway for awhile, but depending on the sport, there are still opportunities for '06's. Different sports move at different paces.</p>
<p>Gather your list of schools and get to work contacting the coaches directly. Attach your sports resume and, if you have one, a transcript (so the coaches can determine if you are in the ball park admissions-wise), otherwise be sure to include your SAT/ACT scores and gpa on your sports resume. Offer to send a video, if you have one, and ask if they prefer VHS or DVD.</p>
<p>Don't send the same generic email to every coach. Division III coaches especially like to know that you are interested in their program and school specifically and not just sending out 1,000 emails in bulk. </p>
<p>The golden rule in my daughter's sport (volleyball) is unless you are "Top 100" type prep athlete, you must contact the coaches yourself, not wait for them to discover you. There are too many thousands of athletes. </p>
<p>DIII coaches can be very hit or miss when it comes to replying to emails and online forms that recruits fill out. If you don't hear from a coach after contacting them, try again. If you are really interested in a school and have carefully checked out their program and think you could fulfill a need, keep trying -- my daughter often had better luck with phoning coaches then emailing them. Some responded to snail mail but not email, some vice versa. </p>
<p>If you are not a rising senior, NCAA restricts the types of communication a coach may have with a recruit. See the NCAA website for more information: <a href="http://www2.ncaa.org/index_students_parents.php%5B/url%5D">http://www2.ncaa.org/index_students_parents.php</a></p>