<p>My D is a jr, and will be doing a few first unofficial campus tours in early April (she can't be contacted directly until July 1 before her Sr. year). Her sport is a timed/personal bests sport. Her club coach has offered to write some letters on her behalf. At first I thought it was not necessary as its a time sport, but then I thought that perhaps it helps give the college coach an idea of her personality, etc. as she has been with this club since she was 9 and with this coach since she was 12.
Should we ask him to send the letters now, to arrive before we show up for the unofficial campus tour and hopefully have a few minutes with a coach while there? Sort of as an introduction? Or should we wait to be sure there is interest from these schools?
Sorry if these are stupid questions! We are brand new to the process.</p>
<p>My D is also a junior and runs XC & track. My D submitted each school’s recruitment questionnaire a few months ago and her coach emailed the coach’s personally. Prior to that, she had only visited two of the schools. We’ll be visiting three others over spring break. We may visit one other over the summer. Hopefully, the coaches will be available to meet with her. I would say have her coach send the letters now. There is no harm it that. However, there are no guarantees that the coach will have time to meet with her. She can also email the coaches herself. They can respond to her, but not iniatiate contact until after July 1 with one phone call per week.</p>
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<p>The short answer is absolutely. If your daughter projects to be a recruited athlete at this school or any school then the answer is “yes”. The name of the recruiting game is to be procactive. Recruited=passion+skill+exposure+persistence+luck.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I agree, send the letters and your DD should email the coaches to set up meetings while you are visiting. If your DD doesn’t have a “professional” looking email address, like firstname.lastname@**********, now would be the time to set one up and use that for college contacts.</p>
<p>Your daughter should be contacting prospective coaches well ahead of the first unofficial visits. She should make sure she has filled out the prospective student athlete questionnaire at all schools she is interested. Have her follow this up with an email to each coach - attach a resume that includes all academic and athletic info. This would be a great place to include your current coach as a reference - include the current coaches cell and email so the prospective coaches can contact him directly. Next step would be to make phone calls. If the coach is interested, they can absolutely email your daughter directly once she’s a junior. And they can take phone calls - if they are interested they will make sure she knows how and when to reach them. It was our experience that coaches were very honest about their level of interest, so you don’t have to “waste” any unofficial visits. And if they are interested, they will go a long way in arranging your visit. We made 6 unofficial visits before D was a junior - she had talked to the coaches ahead of time and knew where she stood. The interested schools arranged meetings with admissions, campus tours - including the athletic facilities, meetings with appropriate professors, and spent time talking to her directly. D had to do a lot of leg work to make all this happen, but it was so worth it - the visits were all excellent. She verbally committed early in her junior year and we are all very comfortable with her decision. And, yes, good references from your existing coaches go a long way in the process! D was very nervous making that first call, but learned that coaches are expecting the call and will absolutely lead the conversation. They do not want to waste your time any more than they want you to waste their time, so they will tell you if a visit makes sense and where you stand in their recruiting process.</p>
<p>Dtch:</p>
<p>A couple of thoughts to consider…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You might want to make sure that there’s some interest in your D from the college coach before burning your credit with the club coach by asking him to contact 20 schools on the initial ‘possibles’ list. And, inevitably, a shotgunned approach will sound pretty generic. It’s better that he or she writes a half-dozen letters and can individualize the kid’s skills/mindset to that particular college.</p></li>
<li><p>Sometimes it’s better to ‘stage’ contacts over time. Let the college coach get interested and follow up with some email updates as to her successes and, if the coach is still interested, then have the club coach follow up. It helps to keep her in the coach’s mind if the communications are spread out. </p></li>
<li><p>If you’ve thought of doing a recruiting video, you might turn the camera on the coach and let him speak for 30 seconds about your D; it’s more powerful than words on a paper. Also, with editing software, you can (after starting with the coach looking into the camera) have the coach’s voice continue on as voice-over while showing otherwise ‘boring’ clips of her swimming, running, etc.</p></li>
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<p>Ursa, I absolutely love idea #3, never heard that one before, but that would be powerful. Definitely would’ve used that… We heard many coaches say how they got so tired of the same old songs on everybodies tapes (“All I Do Is Win”, etc. 
Great idea!</p>
<p>I’ve done several music-backed highlight videos for my son’s baseball teams (and the last one included “All I Do is Win”) but feel from my reading that music is a no-no for recruitment videos. It’s almost like telling a coach you’ve got to Hollywood-up the clips to generate some excitement for the kid. I think crowd and teammate noise is even better. I think the favorite sound on my son’s baseball recruitment vid - he’s a pitcher who primarily has been a last-inning closer - was a team Mom imploring as he went into his stretch:“Just one more out, 'jackets. Just one more out!” He then throws an unhittable slider for strike three as the team roars in exhultation. There’s no music that improves on that. B-)</p>
<p>All coaches told us simple is only way to go - just the match, no more than 10 min</p>