<p>I just read an article in our local paper about a private company offering a service to high school students. Private assistance in the athletic recruitment game. The service walks students and their parents through the paperwork while contacting colleges coaches throughout the country on behalf of the students. They serve as an advocate for it's clients and approach college coaches as an independent scout.
They serve all levels from Div 1 to Div 3. In their words "We're doing the things that a guidance coluselor and a coach would do if they had the time and resources to focus on one kid." They charge $1700. for their services.</p>
<p>Save your money and buy a few books on athletic recruiting in college. </p>
<p>The reality is that very few of the athletes who are potential recruits stay below the radar screen of recruiters. The remaining potential recruits are best served by coaches and parents. I'm afraid that such a service is trying to take advantage of parents by flattering egos and making illusory promises of riches. </p>
<p>PS There is also a tremendous amount of imformation available online, ranging from the NCAA website to dedicated discussion forums.</p>
<p>I posted merely because I thought it was interesting. I have no competitive athletes in my family. My athletes are the ones who help the other team when they fall or apologize to them when they knock them over. They are of the have a nice game school of athletics.</p>
<p>Do not use these services. All information they provide can be found on web sites. Most recruited athletes, are recruited without these services. The student can take it upon themselves to email or call coaches to make the intial contact. Most coaches are more than willing to help their "top" athletes get into a program. They are not as busy as a guidance counselor with 100's of students, and can take the time to help the 1 or 2 on a team that may have athletic potential.</p>
<p>$1700! That's crazy. Most top athletes attend multiple venues frequented by college scouts. It's not hard to get a look--if the athlete is scholarship material.</p>
<p>As the father of an athelete who was recruited last year, I too would join in and say that any parent in a similar position should not spend that type of money. The necessary "forms" are available free of charge on the NCAA's website. Every college website has an online form for athletes to fill out expressing their interest. Followup emails, phone calls, and scheduling visits with the coaching staff when on campus, result in my son being recruited by three top schools and admitted to all of them. There is nothing that I can think of that we did that could justify spending $1700, nuless the parent simply does not have ANY time to help out. At least, that is JMHO</p>
<p>Spending nearly 2k on something like this is God's way of saying you have too damn much money :)</p>
<p>bigdaddy- from some of the names listed in the article I would say your right on. One of the girls they interviewed did say that she has received interest from coaches at schools that she had no idea existed. Most of the kids interviewd were Juniors so it will be interesting to see what comes of it. Or if the company is still doing business a year from now.</p>
<p>If your S or D is a Div. 1 quality high profile athlete, then maybe you are all correct. Why spend the money? </p>
<p>BUT, if your S or D is a D-2 or D-3 athlete and you as a parent don't have the time to do the research and send out the information as needed, then you'll be missing out on some excellent opportunities with out the assistance of some of these services. As for my S, he's gone from "no" interest, to a mailbox full of offers and phone calls every night since from coaches across the county. He's now gone on several visits as well, many of them to the "high" profile schools that are discussed on these forums everyday. If not for the "service", he'd be another unknown athlete trying to walk on somewhere.</p>
<p>These services are easy to bash, but for certain athletes they serve a great purpose.</p>
<p>Athleticman, I think if you re-read my post, I allow for the fact that some parents might not just the time to spend making the contacts, sending out tapes, etc. BTW. my son was a Div III (and Ivy) caliber athlete, and the "work" invloved was not that much, nor the knowledge need, that extensive. But, if it worked well for you and your family, that is great. That is what it is all about -- finding the right fit.</p>
<p>You just have to be VERY, VERY careful with these services. From what I have heard, most are no good and just do blanket "cold call" type of correspondence to every coach in the country, and the coach tosses the stuff in the wastebasket. That's what I have heard. They had better be able to give you a very specific track record. </p>
<p>Most coaches rely on their own network, established recruiting venues such as tournaments, national rankings, summer college sports camps, and so forth. I have never heard of someone getting recruited as a result of a service. (I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I've just never heard of it happening). Every recruited athlete I know who is playing at ANY level is playing because of coach-to-coach contact, or student-to-coach contact, or having been seen at a major recruiting event (or more). </p>
<p>If, however, the services will PLACE you in the highly visible recruiting events, help you with a nice-looking and well-organized sports cv to send to coaches, help you create a videotape IF REQUESTED by the coach, then I could see some value, but I doubt that the price justifies that amount of service.</p>
<p>I agree with athleticman. I have had experience with 2 daughters going through the process. Though the expense is great, in some instances it is well worth it. For a decent athlete with scholastic accomplishments there is money available. It is just there are so many thousands of schools, it may be difficult to match the student with the school. For the highly accomplished athlete being recruited by division 1 schools, there is no reason to use the service.</p>
<p>Athleticman and waterlogged--(can just imagine the sport!)--would you be willing to share how you identified a qualified recruiting service, if you did? That might help people here make an intelligent decision about which recruting service to use, if they decide to do so. </p>
<p>In our case, there were not too many schools in the country that were of interest, in light of son's academic strengths and interests combined with the sport he wanted to play, so the sorting out process was quite easy and a recruiting service would have been overkill.</p>
<p>Our high school had a recruiting information session through the athletic boosters. We were contacted later by a service appparently affiliated with the main speaker. We met with an agent and discussed our situation. Fee would be $1300. Since second daughter has several d1 schools interested and since she is not interested in D3, we decided to do it ourselves. We experienced some trepidation when we did not hear from any target schools July 1, but by Sept 1 some had called. We also had some mixed signals in the process. It has been educational. We wish we had known about an agent for my first daughter because she would have had the scholastic achievements and been more desirable (we think) to a division 3 program with merit money.</p>
<p>Patient,
Maybe I have something in common with Waterlogged, my S is a swimmer (Stat's - 4.2 gpa, 1300 sat), and my perspective is rather narrow in that regard, as it's only related to swimming. </p>
<p>First I tried to help my son do it himself or together actually. I soon learned how inadequate our efforts were, there are sooooo many schools and alot of different levels. Trying to match up his academic desires with schools that offered quality programs and then with sport specific and even event specific swim programs was too much to wrap your arms around, anyone really.</p>
<p>My search for assistance quickly led me to a service that was headed up by a former D1 college swim coach. My feelings were that there could probably not be a more qualified person to help us focus our efforts and I was right. This service knows most coaches on a first name basis and has earned the respect of his opinion on the prospect. As a matter of fact they'd not even offer the service to us without an interview and certain swim times. Lastly, they offer us the service for the next 5 years of eligibility, not just a one shot deal. He now has a web page with video's and it's updated regularly (with updates to the appropriate schools who we've had contact with). </p>
<p>Oh yes, please note that my earlier message said "county" and should have read "country". </p>
<p>I'll add something that's worked out to be a side benefit to this: All the phone calls and correspondence from coaches and asst. coaches has helped my S's interview skills tremendously. He's always been pretty comfortable around adults, but these experiences positively transfer to admissions interviews and scholarship interviews. </p>
<p>Hope this helps some of you, in our case it's been a very good experience so far.</p>
<p>Lots of sport parents here. Do any of you know of awards and scholarship types of things for kids who want to play D3 sports or sports not offering $ at a DI school? As you know, some DI sport programs have many scholarships, but an emerging sport does not, so we are looking for outside sources to, hopefully, supplement.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Athleticman and waterlogged, thanks so much for your responses. In retrospect, there is one woman in our area who performs this kind of service and has been quite helpful to athletes. As usual, it's impossible to make a blanket statement about whether a category of services is, or is not, good or appropriate under the circumstances. Best of luck to both of you and your children. </p>
<p>A-man: you should turn on your private message function, if you haven't already--I would imagine that swimmers might want to write to you to get that name, and I don't think you'd want to necessarily post it on the public forum. </p>
<p>I agree that being a recruited athlete is a really wonderful experience in all the ways you described. The official visits are fantastic--they give such a personal view of the school, both positives and negatives.</p>
<p>somemom - I am not sure exactly what you are asking. </p>
<p>If you were asking about sources of financial support specifically for athletes from outside school to support DIII athletes I would be careful ... that sounds like it might not be allowed by the NCAA. The only money supporting NCAA athletes (provided specifically because they are athletes) is supposed to be through the university in the forms (scholarship, travel, food, etc) outlined on the ncaa web-site ... outside boosters have been a major source of issues over the years. </p>
<p>If you're talking about club sports I would think there would be much more latitude ... even then a lot of "serious" clubs play in formal leagues and national organizations which I'm sure have guidelines about wat is allowed and not allowed (for example, this lacrosse web-site shows all the organized divisions of college lacrosse including club divisions ... <a href="http://www.laxpower.com/common/college_men.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.laxpower.com/common/college_men.php</a> )</p>
<p>Many division three schools have "merit" scholarship money in the form of endowments that may be intended for a specific type of athlete. An example might be for a female athlete wanting to major in education or for a female swimmer. If a coach is interested he may make these opportunities known. The athlete will usually need to keep up their grade point average to keep the money throughout college.</p>
<p>If you check the number of full and partial sport scholarships offered..........for instance Stanford offers 4 scholarships total in field hockey.............no official scholarships in club sports, then it becomes important to find additional sources to apply for helping funds, especially when you realise that your student-athlete will ahve a hrader time holding down a campus job than non-athlete students! So, i am looking for any unobvious, (not fast web type) resources for athletes in a sport not offering a full-ride. I think they can be alumni, etc., but how do you find them? Are they usually school-specific?</p>