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Recruiting-101.com is a resource that was created to help parents, athletes, and coaches throughout the college recruiting process. If you are a parent with a son or daughter being recruited, an athlete confused about the recruiting process, or even a coach with a player who should be recruited, this is definitely the place for you. This site will be updated constantly with articles regarding the recruiting process, how to get recruited, NCAA rules of recruiting, interviews with college coaches, parents who are familiar with the recruiting process, and so much more. Stay tuned as we help guide users through the difficult journey of recruiting.
| Recent Posts |
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- I’m a junior with football recruiting interest but I do not have any scholarship offers. What should I do now?
- More on football highlight videos, recruiting highlight videos, and highlight tapes to send to college coaches
- Signing Day 2012 is here
Are athletic recruiting services worth the money?
I can safely say that the majority of readers out there do not have an unlimited budget when going through the athletic recruiting process. The reason that I feel this way is because if you are taking the time to learn more about the process and get insight from Recruiting-101, chances are you are doing a good portion of this yourself in an effort of trying to save money and be more involved.
With recruiting, you can hire a recruiting service that does the same for hundreds of athletes throughout the country. But like anything else, if it is your son or daughter, you are going to put in a lot more time than the agent that is working with you. The reason that this is because you want your child to be able to live their dream and play Division I sports. As for an agent of a recruiting service, they are paid the same amount if the athlete goes to State University of the local Junior College around the corner.
For those that have not dealt with it yet, recruiting service agents travel the country and in different areas visiting high schools in order to sign up prospects. This really is a never ending process that happens during every school year simply because their clients graduate and move on to the college level. And the more athletes that they help open doors to the Division I level, the better it looks on their resume.
The cheapest recruiting service that I have seen is $500 and that is by a former coach who does it independently. From what I have read, heard, and been told, the majority are in the thousands and can routinely end up around $3,000 or more (If there are any recruiting service agents out there, please let us know the prices by commenting).
While many families can swing it, if you know what you are doing during the recruiting process, I really believe that you don’t need them. One of the main selling points that some services try to sell, whether it be for football, basketball, volleyball, soccer, or any other sport, is that they send your profile out to every college in the country. I have talked to a Division I coach and he has told me flat out that they just throw away those packets. At that level, a kid good enough is likely not using a recruiting service that sends out mass mailings of their athletes.
The approach that you need to take as a parent is part of the Five Steps to a Scholarship article. Instead of sending profiles to every college in the country, I feel that it is much better to pick and choose what schools that your child is interested in (Let me stress the schools they are interested in, not that of the parent). If you are mass mailing schools, you may get interest from programs that you may end up caring less up in the end. You want to find a school that fits the size and location that seem suitable to the athlete.
One main selling point that these services say is that spending a few thousand dollars will save you much more in the end. I think instead of paying the price tag up front, you as a parent can put the time and effort in. Yes, there are going to be difficult parts of the process that seem confusing. When every college coach says that you did a great job at camp and that you need to keep up the good work, it is frustrating as a parent because what should you be doing next? That is why this site (Which costs $0.00 to view) is available to help you through those difficult processes.
Overall, I am cheap by nature and would personally avoid a recruiting service. From everyone that I have seen, they really have done very little to help the athlete. If the athlete and their family takes a proactive approach and markets themselves to college coaches, you can do it much cheaper. And at the same time, you are building an even stronger bond between your family. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment on this post as I am happy to answer anything thrown my way.
For position by position help throughout the football recruiting process, Recruiting-101 has put together a 28-page guide to help athletes get a better feel for what college coaches are looking for at each spot. Click here to learn more about the e-book now, which is currently on sale for only $5.00!
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
http://blog.ncsasports.org/2008/07/09/being-recruited-costs-time-and-money/
I’m the editor of our blog at NCSA sports and I encourage parents to take a look at the Link above explaining the reality of the costs involved with recruiting.
I also would like to point that our Scouting Organization does stand out from a lot of others in that we offer our service for free if an athlete qualifies for a Leadership Grant. Each week I am on a committee reviewing applications from various students who really need our help to make their college dream a reality.
Brian,
Thanks for visiting the site and the comment. I read the article you linked and disagree with part of it:
“Considering there can be scholarships that total well over $200,000 on the line, then an investment ranging from $5,000 to $30,000 to prepare a student-athlete to be recruited seems worth it. But what if a parent invests all of that money and they don’t know how to play the Recruiting Game?”
If a parent is spending that type of cash, then yes, they probably should go to a recruiting service. My assumption is that if a parent doesn’t know what they are doing, the most that they will do is maybe send their kid to a few camps and little else. I believe that most parents don’t have that type of money and instead try to do it themselves. Is that the smart move? I don’t know, but the more information they have, the better and that is why this site was created.
Your note on the leadership grant is great. If you could provide more information on it, please let me know because I think athletes need to know as much as they can about that type of thing.
http://www.ncsasports.org/foundation
That is the link to our foundation.
I also think readers need to understand what you should get from a really good scouting organization. Our standard program for $799 provides an athlete with the tools to maximize their recruiting potential. Considering that just creating a video will often coast around $400, I think the price is more than justified.
Brian,
Thanks for responding back and posting the link.
I think no matter what you need a football highlight tape. It may be best to make it yourself or find someone who can do it, but I think unless you get a really early offer, it is highly recommended.
As for the fees for a recruiting service, I would assume that is your job to sell so that is the call of the reader. I have my own personal opinion but it really does depend on a case by case basis what is best for the athlete and their family. I know when I was in high school, my family wouldn’t have been able to afford either the service or the tape for that matter so money is essential.
I have experienced that some student-athletes don’t need to be promoted, yet there are a vast majority that go unnoticed that are capable of playing at the next level. There are alot of scholarships that virtually go unused each year.
What are people to do?
It’s definitely a personal decision and yes it has to be weighed by each individual situation. I personally have helped both type of individuals. If you only get one offer, that is more than likely where you will attend school and participate in your chosen sport. If you have several offers, you get to make the final decision. We have generated over a 98% placement rate for our athletes. YES, I do agree that parents need to take more time and make certain that their child is DEDICATED. It not only makes the parents decision easier, it is a tremendous help to college coaches and the recruiting service, if that is the direction they have chosen.
Education is the number 1 priority and we do work very hard in helping that individual get matched with an appropriate institution. Those who only get one offer, better hope that it is a good fit for academically as well as athletically.
College costs have sky rocketed again and what most individuals will spend on a scouting service is not as much as they will spend on books in college. The return far out-weighs the investment.
Some services are not good services. Most of them do not understand the recruiting rules, and they need to be very careful with those student-athletes eligibility.
You have alot of good information on your site we also provide alot of information as well for free. We are still the best at what we do and I hope you will take the time to visit our web-site. Thank you!
AEe0aa Thanks for good post
Thanks for all you ideas! I sure will be back to visit your site again so i can learn more.
Hi! A Great Post. I was just playing with blogs. i was really excited.
I also agree..
I can speak from my personal experience that I had no idea that I needed to market myself to get noticed when I was in high school. I was a three time all conference player and 3rd leading scorer in my high school’s history… and did not have one offer. So this website is great. Props to the blog owner.
I also believe a recruiting service is worth the money if the student has the desire! It also depends on the families dedication and interest in attempting to market their son or daughter. Personally I believe time is money and outsourcing is the best option. I have been an owner of several businesses and understand that outsourcing is how to best maximize your return on your money (assuming it is done correctly).
Now with that being said I am now in the industry as a recruiter for Collegiate sports of america. This is largely to my experience as a high school athlete and how I was never able to realize my dream. I do not want that to happen to anyone else… if you have the athletic ability, academic ability, and the desire you should not be left out!
If you go with a recruiting service make sure they do not qualify anybody and everybody… This will devalue the marketing to the college coaches and they will ignore the information sent to them since they will believe the service has no credibility.
I highly disagree that coaches just “throw out” the athletes information that comes to them. Coaches have limited recruiting budgets and limited time etc. They are looking to find athletes wherever they can and from CREDIBLE SOURCES. We have thousands of coaches that use our service and value the information and they actively recruit our athletes. We have over 40,000 success stories!
Further we frequently get coaches from throughout the country emailing us their immediate needs to fulfull open scholarships on their teams…. does that sound like they don’t use the recruiting service?
Email me if you want to learn more about our recruiting services. We have various plans to choose from and offer affordable payment plans. Our results are extremely impressive. collin@csaprepstar.com.
Collin,
Thank you for the nice words and visiting the site. I still strongly believe that very, very few scholarship programs are going to be going through the cold sent lists that recruiting services send to them. If these coaches want to keep their job, they need to be able to find athletes on their own. For Division III and NAIA, sure, I can buy them using your service. Nothing above though and I strongly believe that.
First I really enjoy your website and have found alot of useful information on it. I am in the middle of recruiting process with my son who is a junior. He was 1st team all district his junior year plus a few other awards, anyway we have a highlight tape made. From talking to our HS Coach we were told to get some copies together and the college scouts would be around in mid april after their spring training was over and ours started. He would pass the highlight tapes out to the recruiters during our spring training. We have received a couple of dozen form letters and questioneres from smaller D1′s and others . What else would you recommend that would get his name out there to other schools. Thank you
I just happend to find the sight- i know Ross Tucker at Gobigrecruiting and saw something about your sight on his. Seems like a great sight- with a lot of excellent info. I got into college football recruiting last year after being asked to help a friends son. I played college football at West Virginia my freshman year- transferred and played at Univ of Delaware. Had no real connection to collge football since college since i started helping this kid. Long story short – he was not only under the radar but just on no radars- had great sr year- was really good- ending was great- helped him get 3 1-a offers in end and he singed with colorado state in the very end- actully got the call on signing day
I realized in this process the drastic changes from when i was a h.s recruit-(graduated h.s 1990) with the inernet combines all that- i was amazed franly how insane its gotten. But i thought i could help prospects and help college coaches as well. In process of helping this kid i built a good rap with a lot of coaches -who would say – recommend some good players for next year ect. so i started doign that on side. To this point have been paid zero-but that was part of my idea- rather then go out and say- pay me $1000 and i will help get your son a scholarship- i wanted to build and still work very hard to- rock solid realtionships with the college coaches so i am not one of those joke services that charge thousands of dollars -just mass mail and thats it
i guess i tend to be somewhat cynical regarding college football camps -combines ect- these chat rooms about recruiting as none of it existed in my day- and i am not sure a lot if any good comes out of it. But in helping these kids- its gotten busy – and i cant do it for free anymore. So i came up with $500. i say u can pay half up front half when u sign- if at anytime u want out- u get all your money back- even if i have been helping you for months. in the end if you are unhappy with my efforts- money back. I value my reputation too much to have people think i didnt do a good job. Anyway i know this sounds like a sales pitch for my service. I guess my point is not all of these services are same- honestly i never want to be lumped into the same category of some of these places- which i wont name- that charge $3000 or more to mail out a highlight film. I evaluate the players films- am realistic with them- write up a recomendation with players info and youtube highlight clip- send it to colleges- i know a lot of the coaches through doing this. they respond-they email me back- they go out and visit the kids i recomend- countlesss schools have offered kids who i recommend-schools that dont even recruit in their states. so i build my rep with the colleges by only recomending players that can play there- and the good relationships help prospects. I folluw up with the coaches to get their take on kid- does he have a shot at offer- where does he stand. kids can get 400 letters from a college- yet have zero shot at an offer- they are on their mailing list- get the camp invite-yet are ranked as the 50th DB on their list with 3 offers to give-no shot- but the player dosent know it. i will get the “yeah hes good- but hes too small- looking for bigger CB’s” tell the prospect- and he can cross that school off the list- focus on others.
also with the do it your self recruting- i use a couple examples. couple guys i am helping their fathers played in NFL for 10 years each. One kids dad was skepitcal basically saying- well i know the coach at this school taht sschool – tons of guys i played with have relationships with college ect. i said great- if there are ones you dont let me know- i’ll help out. i didnt tell him right away but later did- was -with all due respect- yeah they respect you were an nfl player- understand football -have contacts- but when u send film of your son- its still a players dad sending film of his son- and can fathers be unbiased about their kids- maybe -but probably not. the coaches want an outside opinion sometimes from a respected third party. since i stated helping the kid hes gaining way more traction getting offers ect and his father is happy
so since the process has changed so much- it totally makes sense for prospects and parents to get up to speed on it all -seems like you guys do a great job helping them with that.
sorry for the novel like email -didnt send this so it goes up on posting board or however that works -just thought i would drop a line and i will read more of the stuff on the sight- like i said seems like a real good site
Mike Fenske
micfenske@aol.com
917 566 4449
Hello, my name is Nick, I work for College Prospects of America and wanted to comment. You state in a couple of your responses that you do not think D1 schools use leads sent to them by “recruting services” and rather these are more used by the D2, D2 and NAIA schools. You may be sort of right as say the top 50 or so D1 schools may not use that many “recruiting service leads,” but so what? Only a small percentage of high school athletes have the ability to play at the top D1 schools and we rarely work with those kids. The majority of our clients are the “other 95%” of kids who are maybe small D1 or lower level talent and fall into a mucked up process with fairly no direction. For many sports if you take out the top 50-100 D1 schools, there are still hundreds if not 1,000+ schools with a program looking for kids. The fact is many of these coaches’ jobs are not only based on winning, but by the amount of butts they can put in the seats. So they extremely value all credible leads. Keep in mind there is more than just “sports scholarships” out there. We have seen athletes get better financial aid packages at a D3 school than they did in athletic money from a D1 school.
To be completely honest, the Top Football and Basketball Programs in the country might not use many of our leads, but if you are good enough to play at those programs, you probably do not need our services.
With that said, we do work with athletes that do have the potential to play at top D1 programs. In these cases will take a more personal approach in contacting the coaches or recruiting coordinators to get the athlete on that schools radar.
There is no right or wrong answer here. If a parent is willing to spend the time to research hundreds of schools to save a buck, then more power to them. But why spend that time gathering data, when you can be spending that time cultivating relationships with college coaches.
At the end of the day, college is going to be one of the biggest investments a parent or athlete makes and the athlete is in essence an asset that can reduce that investment significantly. As such, why would they not want to take every step and explore every option to ensure they do not waste the one shot the athlete has in his/her life to get recruited.
College Prospects of America
nturchan@yahoo.com
440-476-4034
A question for these recruiting services. What education of the college recruiting process do you actually provide for these student-athletes and their families? Also, how do you decide which athlete you are going to spend more time with? At Collegiate Athlete Consultant we serve in the role of student-athlete academic advisor. We work hands on with athletes and their families through the entire recruiting process. We will NOT mass email coaches (that go directly to spam folders in most cases) or make the phone calls for you. We teach you and your family how to go about the process correctly so you win half the battle with these college coaches – that you are a responsible, passionate young student-athlete that will not be a risk to their program. On staff we have professionals that have M.Ed’s in Intercollegiate Athletic Administration as well as one professional that has a Ph.D. in Sports Leadership. All of our professionals on staff have played at the college and/or professional levels in a variety of sports.
I agree strongly with this article. Families do have the opportunity to research themselves but I understand if they do not know what exactly they need to do. For more information please visit http://www.CollegiateAthleteConsultant.com or call JJ directly at 713-742-3763, jj.wood@collegiateathleteconsultant.com
Thanks so much for this insight! My daughter went on-line and filled out a recruiting application on a web site. The guy called and strategically worded all his sentences. After 20 minutes, my internal red flag went up and I asked “How much?” I got the usual salesman lack of an answer which usually translates to thousands of dollars.
This blog was an eye-opener and you are right…Do your homework YOURSELF. You’ll work harder and be happier with the results.
We had a family phone call with one of these recruiting agencies last night. It was 30 minutes of hype and after asking three times what the bottom line was the representative got very defensive. We never got an answer.Too many red flags for us…. We will use this website and help him ourselves. Thank you!