If you want to know anything about college recruiting process, just ask Al Woods. He blogs and set up a business to helps parents, basketball players in high school,college and overseas who are talented but lack that knowledge and push from coaches to take them to the right college. Wanting to make it easier for our young pushy athletic dreamers, we asked Al a couple of questions.
1. There are a lot of kids who are talented and without guidance, what advice can you offer teens who have a passion but need direction.
My advice to high school athletes would be to get involved with some kind of travel team, club team or athletic organizations where they can focus on developing their athletic skills. Many of these clubs and organizations participate in the summer months. What I hear most often from college coaches is that they want the athlete who is a student of the game which basically means someone who is devoting all of their time and effort to developing their athletic and academic skills.
2. What is one of the most common mistakes you see that can mess up a teens chance to be recruited.
Academics play a huge role in the overall college recruiting process. You must be talented to reach the college level but without very good grades, college programs will look at you as though you are invisible. Many high school student athletes believe because they are good at their sport, that somehow they can overlook any academic shortcomings they may have. I believe one of the most important things that student athletes need to do is to study for the SAT or ACT tests during the summers prior to their junior or senior year in high school. Scoring high on these tests will ensure college placement.
3. Advice to helped get recruited?
As a college recruiter, I have worked with thousands of student athletes and parents. I believe the most important thing I would tell any parent is to get involved in the college recruiting process early. Many parents want to delay the recruiting process until the senior year of high school. I believe you need at least two, maybe the three years to effectively make the college recruiting process work for you. There are so many things that can go wrong in the college recruiting process and giving yourself 24 to 36 months can help correct any mistakes you might make during the process.
4. To the teens that still have a couple of years left, what should they be doing and focusing on to help prepare them for their senior year?
Athletically, high school athletes should be focusing on getting exposure at various tournaments, camps or events where they can be seen by college coaches. Prior to their senior year, it’s important to establish some kind of contact with a large number of college programs that you are interested in. Establishing contact with college coaches can be done by a handwritten letter or an email. Prior to the beginning of their senior year of high school, they would need to find out the dates, times and locations of where the standardized tests are given. One of the biggest problems is procrastination on the part of parents and student athletes; many parents and student athletes delay finding out dates and times when the standardized tests will be held; are not totally clear on who’s recruiting them; are not sure how to begin the recruiting process; and are not making sure that academics are in order. What I’ve done with many of the families that I’ve worked with is to let them know that they will only get one chance to go from high school athlete to college athlete and they need to do everything in their power to ensure success.
