By Liz Boyd
If a high schooler wants to pursue athletics in college they have to get recruited first. Getting recruited is a whole process in itself that can start early on in a student’s high school career. Julia Vess started with Parros as a sophomore from South Lyon High School. She started golf as an eighth grader because she was looking for something fun to get involved in. She loved golfing throughout high school and decided to pursue it in college.
Throughout her time with Parros, we helped her with several different things, from helping her decide which classes to schedule to helping her choose between Lake Superior State University or Saginaw Valley State University. Probably the most important thing for Julia was that we helped her get into the right college for her to pursue golf.
Once you have your list of colleges that you think would be the right fit, the first step to getting recruited for athletics is visiting the website of the school you are interested in and filling out the recruiting questionnaire. Then the student needs to find the name of the coach and the coach’s email address of the sport you want to play. The student-athlete will send an email to the coach stating his or her interest in the school and the sports program and will include his or her athletic and academic stats. “Lisa was a very big help with the recruiting process. She told us to email as many coaches as possible,” said Julia about her own recruitment process.
Once you have started a dialogue with the coach, the student will share highlight video from their performances through high school. We encourage our students to create a website, such as a Youtube page, where students can share a variety of videos in one place. Make sure to keep your videos updated so that the coaches can see how far you have progressed. The next step is to further establish communication with the coach of your desired team. Call them! No matter what division you are contacting, all coaches are busy and competition is fierce, so make sure you keep that line of communication going. You don’t want that coach to forget you. They have a lot of other students that they have to keep track of, so keep them updated!
Your ultimate goal is to have a coach invite you for an official campus visit. An official visit means that the college will pay for the student-athlete to come and visit the college. An unofficial visit is when the student-athlete and their parents must pay for the visit themselves. An official visit means the coach is much more serious about recruiting the student.
In Julia’s case, she narrowed her search to two schools, Lake Superior State University, and Saginaw Valley State University, both DII colleges.
“This was a tough decision for Julia. She liked both schools. We discussed the need for the school to fit her in four different ways; academically, socially, geographically and financially. Both schools fit her academically and socially, but Saginaw State was better geographically since she wanted to stay closer to home. Lake Superior State offered her a very generous athletic scholarship thus using finances to persuade her to commit. The financial piece beat out the importance of location for her and her family,” Lisa Schmidt, our college planning counselor told us.
The athletic fit was also important, Julia was offered a key role on the Lake Superior State golf team, where she could make a big impact starting as early as her freshman year. This just goes to show the importance of applying to multiple colleges. Having the ability to compare and negotiate with colleges is a very valuable asset to have on your side.
Although Julia admitted to feeling a little nervous about going to college five hours away, she’s very excited to pursue golf and her major in kinesiology where she can build a career in occupational therapy. Regarding her process with Parros, Julia said, “I would recommend Parros College Planning because it helped to start the college process nice and early.” Julia continued, saying “the most memorable part of the Parros College Planning process was working with a lot of really nice people.”
Everyone at Parros aims to work together with the student and parents to create a college plan that will assist them best in all of their unique pursuits. Don’t wait to get started, contact us today!
