Give your college athletics recruiting process the green light🚦

It is college application season and time is of the essence if you want to play college sports.

So we’re cutting right to the chase.

Here are our guidelines for prospective college athletes to successfully navigate Fall Recruiting.

What recruits should:

🔴 Stop Doing
🟡 Be Patient with…
🟢 Keep Doing

To create this list we started by polling our followers on X (Twitter). This group includes hundreds of D3 college coaches and always delivers with great advice - which we pass on to you!

We then consolidated the advice along with our own thoughts to create this post.

We hope you enjoy (& learn something!).

We’re always looking to improve, so if you think there’s something we missed or a topic you want to learn more about, let us know by emailing us at dthreedirect@gmail.com.

FALL RECRUITING STOPLIGHT

🚦RED…YELLOW…GREEN

🛑 Stop Doing…

Former D3 athlete and current D3 coach, Chadwick Hixon, offered his thoughts to college recruits

Stop Comparing your Recruiting Process to Other Recruits: Plain and simple - you are running your own race. While you might start seeing other athletes around you posting offers, don’t get discouraged. Trust your process and remember that D3 recruiting stretches well into the Spring and even early Summer! This one comes from a current D3 Athletic Director & Assistant Coach at Emory University, Chadwick Hixon. In addition to being a great guy, he’s a must follow on Twitter(X).

Stop Neglecting Communication with Coaches: Recruits should maintain consistent communication with coaches of the programs they’re interested in. Resist the urge to be passive or cagey about where you want to go. Instead follow up on emails or calls from coaches, stay proactive, and let schools know if they are a priority (or top choice) for you.

Stop Overcommitting or Creating Scheduling Conflicts: Avoid booking too many campus visits or creating conflicts with your high school sports team obligations. If you start missing things like practice or competitions in the name of recruiting, it could could reflect poorly on commitment and time management skills.

🟡 Be Patient With…

Waiting for Offers: Despite what most high school athletes want, D3 offers and recruitment decisions often take time. Coaches may need to evaluate more players before making a final decision or may be busy with preparation for their upcoming seasons - so try to remain patient while waiting your offer to come through.

Pro Tip: Try to avoid pushing for immediate decisions and instead give coaches the space to evaluate thoroughly. Make it clear from your side what your preferences are (especially if they are your top choice) and then let them respond.

Merit Scholarships & Financial Aid Packages: Financial Aid negotiations can take time, especially if merit aid or FAFSA related funding amounts are being finalized. To ensure you and your family can make an informed and prompt decision once your college decision comes through, prepare all of your financial materials along with your applications ahead of time. This will help reduce overall turnaround time.

Yourself: Between school, your sport, and extracurriculars, you are balancing a ton right now. Make sure to find time to get sleep and try to remember to enjoy your last two semesters of High School. The time you have now with friends and family before you go off is special (even if it doesn’t always seem like it), so try to savor it.

✅ Green Light

Control the things in your control: This may sound obvious, but so much of college sports recruiting is out of your control as a recruit. While this can be frustrating - take heart in the fact that you are doing what you can. Not seeing offers from college coaches? Try these actionable steps:

Work on your game
Write emails to five D3 college coaches
Fill out a recruiting questionnaire
Set up a time for a campus visit at schools on your list

Work on your Common App: Nowadays, all D3 schools pretty much use the Common Application (or Common App). Start early to map out your application deadlines and what supplemental materials are needed for each school on your list. The Common App is normally released at the start of August so you can get a jump on the essays and information gathering before your school year starts.

Pro Tip: Early Action and Early Decision deadlines for many D3’s are coming up between November 1 and November 15!

Start Getting Ready for FAFSA: Getting your materials ready now will help you be prepared to file right when the form opens (usually in October). This will make it more likely that you maximize the total financial aid package you can get at each school. Here’s a previous post we wrote about FAFSA if you would like more information!

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P.S. Want more individual advice on your recruiting process? We have a few remaining open 1:1 coaching slots for current HS Juniors. Interested? Let us know by sending us an email at dthreedirect@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading! For more content like this, check out our weekly newsletter: Recruit to the Real World.

Fall Recruiting Stoplight