Student-athletes can use the Advanced School Search System to Filter through Roster Needs. The Roster Needs feature gives college coaches the ability to publish the positions and academic credentials that they are recruiting within upcoming graduation years. This article walks you through everything you should know about these needs and what they mean for you.
What are Roster Needs?
On the college coach side of the platform, each program is able to indicate the positions they are targeting for each recruiting class. Within each position listed, college coaches can also add notes or list their program’s academic and athletic benchmarks. In order to see full details of a published need, click directly on that need on the program’s page. When viewing each positional need, student-athletes will see how closely they fit the recruiting benchmarks and can determine if the program may be right for them.
Based on the information filled out on your student-athlete profile, you may see match status indicators within each roster need. If you match the roster need based on graduation year, a position as well as other included criteria, that will be denoted with the green “Full Match” icon. Alternatively, the orange “Potential Match” icon indicates that you are a match in position and graduation year, however, your profile is missing information, such as video or GPA, in order to determine if you are a full match.
*Note: Roster Needs are always filled out directly by the college coaches at a certain program, SportsRecruits does not input any of this information.
What are the Different Levels of Match Status?
Match status on roster needs can be used to evaluate whether the program may be a good fit for you as a student-athlete, both athletically and academically. When a student-athlete matches all the criteria within a Need, they are classified by SportsRecruits as a “Full Match” for that Need, meaning they have met all the minimum requirements according to the program who published it. That student-athlete’s profile is surfaced higher in that college coach’s discovery feed, increasing the likelihood that the athlete gets viewed or evaluated by that specific program.
To understand how Match Status works, the three different levels are outlined below:
Full Match: A student-athlete is considered a full match when they meet ALL of the requirements defined in the Need. This means the student-athlete aligns with the Need on graduation year, position, and any additional criteria defined by the college coach who published the Need.
- Being a “Full Match” for a need does not imply any automatic acceptance to that school or an official spot on the program’s roster.
- Rather, a great first step is to review that program’s profile to evaluate it for a personal fit.
- If you find that this school matches your preferences, you should add that program to your Favorites List and consider messaging the college coaches at that program to introduce yourself.
Potential Match: A student-athlete is considered a potential match when they meet the graduation year and position of the Need, however, the student-athlete’s profile is missing at least one other piece of information requested by the program’s coach.
- Missing information can be anything from video to GPA. Once missing information is added to your student-athlete profile, you will have a better idea of how you match up with the roster need.
- The more information a student-athlete adds to their profile, the greater the likelihood that they become a full match with any given need. (A great place to start is by adding video, as this is a requirement on over 95% of published needs!)
- College coaches are looking for athletes who embody integrity both inside and outside of the classroom, so be sure to provide information that is accurate and truthful to the best of your abilities!
Disqualified Need: The student-athlete either does not match the positional requirement, graduation year requirement, or has an academic or athletic metric that does not exactly match the Need.
- For example, the student-athlete’s GPA is below the GPA requirement indicated in the Need, or they do not match the required graduation year or position
- Should a student-athlete come across a Program that is neither a full nor a potential match, do not get discouraged! There are hundreds of programs across the country, creating the opportunity for all student-athletes to find their next home. Keep academic and athletic information up to date and accurate on your student-athlete profile, then continue refining your parameters in the school search to discover Programs that are more realistic for you personally!
How can I use Roster Needs to help my recruiting process?
Our ultimate goal is to empower you to find the college or university that fits your academic, athletic, and personal interests. After building your list of favorite schools, roster needs can help you prioritize which college coaches to message and to further organize your list into a fit, reach, and safety school. When you are viewing the school profile of a program that has published needs, be sure to click a given need to see any additional academic, athletic, or general information. These details will help you understand how well you may fit this program. Each need can have varying amounts of detail, and they are meant to serve as guidelines. That means that matching all or most details does not guarantee recruitment.
We have found that the most important aspect is to have a complete recruiting profile. Just as you use roster needs to discover programs, college coaches use roster needs to discover athletes. Here is an example of the immediate information that college coaches can see in their feed of prospective student-athletes:
If you are missing profile information that has been requested by the college coach who published the positional need, you will be significantly less likely to appear in college coaches’ feeds. This generally means that the more complete your student-athlete profile is, the more likely you are to be viewed by colleges looking for student-athletes like you. This is especially true for profile video, as video is the main way that college coaches evaluate prospects. We suggest adding a highlight reel as your featured profile video!
A lack of profile information or video might cause a college coach to skip right past you, as this is what that coach would see:
If you’re not sure where to start, check out our “Recruiting Roadmap” webinar. This webinar discusses building your target list of schools, messaging college coaches, videos in the recruiting process, and more. All of our webinars are recorded and can be found at the bottom of the following page: SportsRecruits Webinars.
What if there are no Roster Needs listed for a Program?
The Roster Needs section will only appear on a program page if the college coaches at that program have published them. If the Roster Needs section is not visible, then the college coaches at this program have not added them to the platform. This does not necessarily mean they are not recruiting student-athletes in upcoming class years. If you are interested in finding out if you are a potential prospect for this program, it’s worth sending the coaches a message to introduce yourself and see if they might be recruiting for your position within your grad year.
Why SportsRecruits?
SportsRecruits is a college recruiting website that was created for student-athletes and organizations to take control of their recruiting process. On SportsRecruits you are able to host all of your athletic information, academic information, and recruiting videos in one place for college coaches to see with just one click!
Are you looking to jumpstart your recruiting process? Get started with a free profile today!
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