College Recruiting Resources

WHERE CAN YOU START? 
Read the NCAA Guide for the College-Bound Student-Athlete!
Click on the image below to download a free PDF or order a paper copy directly from the NCAA.

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RECRUITING RESOURCES ON THE WEB 
HERE ARE A FEW SITES AVAILABLE TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND AND ENGAGE IN THE RECRUITING PROCESS. SOME REQUIRE A SUBSCRIPTION BUT MANY ARE FREE.

It all starts with eligibility. The NCAA has created a site to help Prospective Student-Athletes and their families understand the academic requirements for playing college sports.
https://www.ncaa.org/static/2point3/

The NCAA’s Eligibility Center is the next step in preparing for recruiting. This site is vital for you to demonstrate your eligibility and academic progress. Any NCAA Division I or II school will ask you if you have registered with the Eligibility Center before they recruit you.

University Athlete is the “premier communication tool connecting collegiate coaches and prospective student athletes” and they live up to their tagline. This is the site to go to if you want to control the information that college coaches see about you during the club season. Keeping your current club, team, and contact information current here is CRITICAL! (free account required)

SEARCHING FOR SCHOOLS
Here are a few links to help you search for schools:

College Scorecard is a site created by the US Department of Education that shows information about school cost, graduation rate, average graduate salary, and more.

It is hard to get a feel for a college campus by just looking at pictures online so CampusTours built a site that has video tours and other interactive tools.

The College Board (makers of the SAT and PSAT) created a site called Roadtrip Nation, which offers tools for career and major searches, along with school search tools and more. (requires paid subscription)

The Princeton Review provides some college search tools. While the site is free, they do have “featured schools”, etc. which suggests that schools can pay to show up in your results. They are also looking to sell you on their test prep classes.

If you know you’d like to study business, then look at Bloomberg’s “Best Business Schools” list. The site does provide lots of data about how they build their list but no way to drill down on the schools themselves.

MORE RECRUITING SITES, TIPS & ARTICLES

Rich Kern – Site contains varieties of rankings and explanations as well as good recruiting resources
Recruiting Registry – Part of the Rich Kern site
NCAA Recruiting Calendars – You can see definitions of terms related to recruiting and download current recruiting calendars
CBound.com is a great site that acts as an online resource for basic recruiting information. (free account required)
PrepVolleyball.com has a little bit of everything: news, blog posts, rankings, camps, recruiting help, and lots more. (paid subscription required to access most recruiting content)
Finding Your Fit” from The Art of Coaching Volleyball
College Coaches Consider Parents When Selecting Recruits” from the Positive Coaching Alliance
5 Recruiting Tips” from USA Volleyball

VOLLEYBALL RANKINGS, FACTS & FIGURES

NCAA RPI Archive – A handy resource to research the historical ranking of a program
NCAA RPI Rankings – The current RPI for NCAA volleyball programs
AVCA Top 25 – The most recent volleyball coaches poll
Rich Kern – Site contains varieties of rankings and explanations as well as good recruiting resources
Scholarship Stats – Information about scholarship opportunities at schools of all levels as well as a summary of the chances of competing at the college level.
Estimated probability of competing in college athletics - Information about competing in sports at an NCAA school after high school. This is more narrow than the previous site because the data only come from NCAA schools (no JC/CC or NAIA) but they are valuable because they come directly from the NCAA instead of a third party.
Here is an article that recently appeared describing research on Colorado high school athlete participation in college.

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