How to Make the Best of Your NCAA Recruiting Journey
By: Katelin Lawson
Tags: Scholarships For Students, NCAA, College Recruiting, Recruiting, College Golf

Tip #1 — Be the one who reaches out

My first tip is do not wait on college coaches to contact you first. You should be actively communicating with coaches and initiating conversations in order to get your name out there in case coaches do not already know who you are.

This communication can be done via email or phone calls. If you are unsure of exactly where you wish to attend school, sending out mass emails that are individualized to the coach and school may be a good start to see who is interested in you, and where the opportunities may be the greatest.

How do you find college coaches and how can they be contacted?

There are hundreds of colleges and universities in the United states that offer both NCAA and NAIA opportunities for playing college sports. Keeping your options open and evaluating opportunities, scholarships offers, and a place fit for you are all things to take into consideration during your search. Even if you have just one or two colleges in mind that you believe you are set on, it does not hurt to look, and you may even discover a campus that delivers even more opportunities for your future.

So, how do you go about contacting coaches and broadening your choices for a college? You may start off with a simple google search of the schools that you may already have in mind by searching for the sports team in which you are involved and finding the coach and their contact information. Simply send them a professional email (if you are unsure of how this looks, google has plenty of examples of format and content for such an email) highlighting your interst in the school, team, and coach, your achievements within your sport and academics, and any other extracurricular actives, sports, or community service that you may be involved in. This is your chance to grab the coach’s attention by convincing them why you would be a great asset to their team.

There are so many schools out there, how do you make sure you are not missing out on any opportunities? Certain organizations and websites exist that make this process much easier. Websites such a ncsasports.org provide an organized way to search for colleges in certain states and offer filter options to choose specific divisions, tuition costs, enrollment size, and more.

ncsasports.org allows you to filter which states you are interested in

Additional filters to tailor the search for what is best for you

Once you enter the information that reflects what you are looking for in a school, the website generates options best for you and provides a list where you can compare aspects of the school such as tuition, athletic selectivity, enrollment, division, and how much this school matches to your personal preferences.

Warning. Although this website, and similar organizations offer amazing and efficient ways for searching and communicating with schools, once you are registered for your free account, the company will begin contacting you to sign up for their premium features that are accompanied by hefty costs. The features that I have already mentioned are all free to use once you have created your free account, but additional features and services will cost you more money through a membership fee.

These features include a few extra services ranging from having your own messaging center within the website, online coaching sessions for recruiting, and testing prep for SAT and ACT tests. Through personal experience, I do not recommend purchasing these additional features. As a stressed high school student who had no idea where I would be attending school , my father and I were pursuaded into purchasing a membership which, in my opinion, was not worth the money. These packages can range anywhere from $500 to $1,500, however, I later found that much of the information that is provided at these high costs can be found elsewhere on the internet for free.