Contributor Rick Paine is an expert on the college recruiting process. He is also the Director of Swimming at American College Connection (ACC).
ACC is a SwimSwam Partner.
Up until a month ago, you had a pretty normal life as a high school sophomore who swims. Your biggest concern was what to wear to school tomorrow and what the main set might be at practice.
As of May 1, all of that changed. In case you are not aware, the NCAA changed its recruiting rules again and the new rules went into effect May 1. Division I college coaches can now start contacting recruits after their sophomore year beginning June 15. They are allowed to call, email and text recruits.
So, as a 15-16 year old sophomore, you thought you had a lot more time before you had to start thinking about college and what you wanted to be when you grow up.
Welcome to the new age of recruiting.
If you haven’t already, you must send your information to the college coaches right away. Don’t wait for them to find you. The coaches are not allowed to respond to any correspondence from sophomores until June 15.
Between now and June 15 you should sit down and talk with your parents about college. You want to be on the same page as them regarding how much they can afford to invest in your first year of college (knowing that you can always earn more scholarship in your second year). For many swimmers, the first year is the most expensive.
You need to start thinking about what you might like to major in. This is tough because most 15-16 year olds don’t have a clue to what they want to study. We suggest determining what you DON’T want to study. This helps narrow down the list.
Have a talk with your coach so you can outline your goals. You will want to use these goals as a way to sell your potential to the coaches. Your coach knows you best, so they can help you understand what to look for in a college coach.
Be prepared to be offered official recruiting visits. They can begin on August 1 after your sophomore year. We recommend not committing to an official visit unless you have a good idea if your parents can afford the school. Coaches are not allowed to make verbal offers until August 1. One of your parents needs to plan on accompanying you on your visits. Schools are allowed to pay for your parent’s housing while on the visit, but they can’t pay for transportation.
Practice your phone skills. A phone call might be your first introduction to a college coach. You want to be ready.
We recommend using a home phone for accepting recruiting calls. Only give your cell number out to select coaches. Being at home in a quiet place with your notes in front of you is the best way to take a recruiting call from a coach.
Another way to separate yourself from all the other recruits is to personalize your voice message on your phone. Instead of, “You’ve reached the voice mailbox for 719-203-4565” change it to, “You’ve reached Suzy Smith’s cell phone.”
Clean up your social media posts and make sure there is nothing controversial on there. Coaches will check on social media to find out info on recruits.
Be sure to respond to emails right away. Coaches will be quick to remove you from their recruiting list if they don’t hear back from you.
Good luck and enjoy the ride. You will never be this popular again.
Great article Rick! This guy knows what he’s talking about!!
“One of your parents needs to plan on accompanying you on your visits.” I disagree completely. Way to encourage the helicopter parents. The swimmer will never get any sort of legitimate feel for the culture and personality of the team with a parent around. The team will be on their best behavior for the parent, and the swimmer will have no way to know if, for example, they are usually a bunch of party animals.
Ahhh yes, the “Johnny Football” syndrome.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it, when parents attend recruiting trips, there’s parental programming and athlete programming. The parent might go on a campus tour with the athlete and visit with the financial aid office, but then when it comes to the more team-centric recruiting activities, the athletes will be off with the athletes and do their athlete things, partying, drinking, dinner, bowling, whatever it is.
I know there’s a lot of readers on this forum who can probably confirm or deny this understanding for us. Anybody?
They do have separate programming, but that doesn’t mean they never see each other. My son went on his trips on his own. Came back from a visit to a consistently in the top 5 at D1 NCAAs school saying they were “all drunk all weekend”. That school had his first choice coach, but the party hardy team was not something he wanted, so he chose another school. Pretty sure they would not have been drinking all weekend if parents were anywhere in the vicinity.
What part of a campus tour and the financial aid office is in the vicinity of “where swim teams drink”?
There are parents on campus every weekend at college campuses. I have a hard time believing that this appreciably impacts the party mentality of a college student.
How about that football tailgate? We will have to agree to disagree. As a college swimmer from the 80’s, the first time I heard some parents go on trips, I literally laughed out loud. Some of my teenaged daughter’s teammates can barely go to the bathroom by themselves thanks to their helicopter parents. They ask where, when, and what they should eat, whether they should take a nap, they can’t manage to get from the gate to bag claim at the airport without getting lost. The list is long and pathetic. I’d bet that kids whose parents go on recruiting trips have little to no say in which school they attend. The parents decide every aspect of their life for… Read more »
A team with a party culture like that is going to party no matter what. It is very possible what your son saw was actually a tame version of what they normally do. I think the real take away from your comment though is that your son saw them for what they were and chose to not be a part of it. Good job dad! Your kid has a good head on his shoulders.
I coach at a DIII school and personally like it when parents come on visits. You know your kids pretty well and the current generation of recruits is very adverse to difficult conversations especially such as telling you how they really feel when you are not… Read more »
Yes Braden is right
„You Will Never be this popular again“ lmao
“…knowing that you can always earn more scholarship money in your second year…”
Yeah, probably don’t want to bank on that nor have these recruiting agencies parroting that line. That honestly shouldn’t be part of the thought process at all.
The NCAA is allowing the recruiting process to become a free for all. This early recruiting is scary. You have 15 year old recruits staying with college juniors and seniors over the weekend on official visits. Quite the maturity gap. So then the swimmer signs after the sophomore year; two full years before he/she will attend and the coach that recruited him/her decides to leave before the recruit even enrolls. Now what for the recruit? They have lost bargaining power if they decide to look else where because the money for their class year is already committed. The NCAA should have rules that have the best interest of the athletes as the priority. In my opinion this does not.
I disagree with the bit in the article that says “You want to be on the same page as them regarding how much they can afford to invest in your first year of college (knowing that you can always earn more scholarship in your second year).”
Always plan for the worst. Do not go to college and have your financial plan rely on the assumption that you are going to earn a scholarship your sophomore year. You could get injured, you could have a bad season, whatever. You don’t want to be burdened with thousands of dollars in debt on accident
That comment caught my eye as well. Is it common for schools offering scholarships to condition an award on a successful first (freshman) season, or am I misinterpreting the original remark?
As kids graduate, you may jump priority over an incoming swimmer if you go from just making a travel team to ncaa qualifier. Coaches can and will take care of their own, but you can’t count on that.
They can’t guarantee it, but they can tell you money may be more available by the next year. A big graduating class can slow recruiting dollars for a year.
You also shouldn’t plan and expect your parents to foot any of the bill, unless the author is implying that’s possible versus implying parents should pay. Would be better if there was a clarifying statement in there.
My daughter is a D1 swimmer with an athletic
scholarship. It is guaranteed all four years unless she quits or is kicked off for disciplinary reasons. Her 4 offers were the same-injury doesn’t cause loss of scholarship. Hope that helps!
Families who need FA/scholarship money will be forced to compete for the limited dough from colleges and thus try to commit early ASAP – generally not good for all involved.