Student-athletes and their parents often think 8th or 9th grade is early to start the college recruiting process or get started on a recruiting profile. The fear of starting too early became even more magnified in the wake of 2018’s new NCAA recruiting regulations. The truth is though, it’s never too early for student-athletes to start building their online presence! While September 1st of a student-athlete’s junior year might be the first contact period for college coaches to schedule official visits and phone calls, it should not be the start date for your recruiting process.
One of our analysts explains those NCAA rule changes in further detail here
While the evaluation period is different for each division, the SportsRecruits platform can help you start doing research on college athletic programs and store your academic and athletic information. Instead of saving multiple versions of a resume on your computer, you can update your SportsRecruits profile along the way and all of your information will remain in one place. Rather than searching the Internet for data on each individual college program, their acceptance rates, and athletic scholarships, the SportsRecruits school search system allows you to search and filter through every college athletic program in one place. Provided below is a brief explanation on how any student-athlete can effectively use the features of SportsRecruits before junior year of high school:
Building your Athlete Profile
A completed SportsRecruits profile provides college coaches with all of the necessary information that they need to evaluate you as a prospective student-athlete. It may be difficult to fill the academic section out as an 8th or 9th grader, but at least you can get your essentials in there. You can also complete your student-athlete bio that will allow college coaches to learn more about you and where you are currently in the recruiting process. Throughout your time as a college-bound student-athlete, continue updating and adding information to your athlete profile! Click here for some quick video tips on getting started with your SportsRecruits profile.
Building the Video Library
While middle school or 9th grade may be too early to have video, as you progress in your recruiting process, video is a necessity. Once you do have video, you can easily upload and store it in your SportsRecruits video library. This way coaches can see how you progress as an athlete. Plus, the SportsRecruits platform operates with complete transparency, so you will be notified when a college coach views your video. Click here for a step by step explanation on how to upload a video to your video library.
Advanced Search Tool
If you aren’t sure what type of schools you’re interested in but know you want to play a sport in college, an easy first step is to start doing research. Researching college programs can be a confusing process, but our advanced school search system is here to help. Through the SportsRecruits school search system, you can apply filters by NCAA division, school size, test scores, and much more in order to discover schools that are the right fit for you. Once you have a head start on your target list of schools, you can start planning visits to college campuses. As an 8th or 9th grader, you won’t be able to meet with college coaches on campus, but you can still make unofficial visits. Click here for a step by step explanation on how to use the advance school search.
Using the Messaging System
The more times you actively reach out, the better chance you’ll have to discover which college coaches are interested. As an 8th or 9th grade, college coaches might not be able to reply to your email or express interest in you as a student-athlete. However, no NCAA recruiting rules prevent you from reaching out to college coaches. Using the SportsRecruits messaging system, every college coaches’ contact information is just a few clicks away. This means that you won’t have to sift through individual college athletic directories to find one college coach’s email address. When you send a message via SportsRecruits, you will be able to tell if they’re interested through notifications on which programs view your profile or watch your video. If you start your outreach early, you can narrow down your search and save yourself time in the future by focusing on schools that express interest in you. By the time September 1st of a student-athlete’s junior year rolls around, college coaches will move fast to take their relationship with target student-athletes to the next level. It is important to understand that NCAA legislation does not mean that college coaches will not think about or evaluate student-athletes until their junior year. They want to see you express interest in their program. Click here for a step by step explanation on how to use the messaging system
So how do I get started with SportsRecruits?
As former student-athletes here at SportsRecruits, our best advice to you is to get started today! Build out your student-athlete profile, add video, find schools you're interested in and start messaging them!
If you are a prospective college student-athlete, no matter what your age, you can start building out your recruiting profile right now - for free! Click here to sign up.
Using SportsRecruits, thousands of student-athletes have not only started their recruiting processes but also committed to the college of their dreams through the platform. Check out the extensive list of commitments in real time: SportsRecruits Members Get It Done
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