College Recruiting
This page is for players and parents and it is intended to help you with information about
recruiting and life beyond high school. These are general, basic information about
exposure to recruiters, recruiting process, college choices, things to look for, questions you need to ask, and decision you need to make.
If you have specific question, send me an email and I will answer them as
early as I can.
Here are few questions that you, as players need to answer before you move forward.
You have made a decision to attend college, the question is why? You need to have conversations with your parents,
counselors, friends, and/or coaches to discuss the importance of education and
athletics and that leads to the next question, do you want to focus on athletics, academics,
or both?
Let's talk about athletic scholarships. You have heard and are aware of many athletes receiving NCAA Division I athletic scholarships.
There are 311 NCAA Division I colleges. If each one offers 12
full-rides, that will total little over 3,700 athletes receiving full
scholarship. Each year, on an average, Division I schools offer 3 new
scholarships per year. There are about 200,000 players competing in club volleyball
and with nearly 17,350 high schools offering volleyball program, that adds up to over
half a million players playing our sport.
This will add up to that less than 3% of the HS seniors will receive full-ride athletic scholarships.
These numbers do not include athletic scholarship in Division II, NAIA, and
junior/community colleges that do offer full or partial scholarships.
Looking at Club volleyball, the above numbers are consistent and about 3% of
our club has received full-ride scholarships. Some years more than others. Top volleyball clubs in the country are between 3.6% to 4.8%.
Your next question is: are you in the top 3%? if not, what do you need to
do to get there?
As a student-athlete you have to make one very important decision. Do
you want to focus on athletics and work for the next four years or do you want
to focus on academics and compete in sport or sports of your choice. If
you receive scholarship to compete for any college, the expectation is
performance. This means that XYZ college is giving you $$,$$$ amount of dollars
each year and expects performance each day of each season. In return,
they are giving you opportunity to earn a degree from that
institution.
Let's now talk about organizations and categories of colleges related to sports.
Some of these information is specific to volleyball. Most institutions
(colleges/universities) are members of these organizations for one reason or
another. To simplify, I have prepared the following chart and once again
this is very general.
I have divided the colleges in two, and
they are 4-year and 2-year
colleges. Choices you have after high school is to go to a 4-year
college or attend a 2-year junior/community college and then transfer to a
4-year college/university. Each institution has their own set of
guidelines on student acceptance.
Easiest way to insure that you can be admitted in most colleges
is high grades and high SAT/ACT scores. So, no slacking, no skipping, no
hallway meetings with friends, no easy rides. Bottom
line, go to your classes, do your homework, finish what your start, and strive
to earn high grades and take stronger/advanced classes.
Talking about athletics, let's begin with 4-year colleges. There are
two organizations you need to know about and they are
NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic
Association) and NAIA (National Association
of Intercollegiate Athletics). NCAA games and matches are most publicized
via television and radio and they host major premier national events. NAIA
institutions are smaller colleges and don't receive the same amount of
publicity. The NCAA is divided into three divisions and they are
I, II, and III.
To learn more about the difference between the divisions,
click here.
To learn more about their history
click here.
As for scholarships, Division I volleyball may offer 12 full
ride scholarships. As mentioned above, some years they may offer more
than others, but on average they give 3 each year to new recruits, the remaining
is reserved for their returning players. Division II may offer up to 8 scholarships and they do
divide this amount between the players. This is based on the amount of
funds each college program is budgeted. Some colleges may have 2.5 full
ride scholarships
for their entire program. To simplify this, if it costs $20,000 to attend
college, they have $50,000 in their scholarship fund to offer all their players. Division III does not offer any
athletic scholarships. I will add that there are millions in academic
funds compared to athletic scholarships. So study hard!
The NAIA is also divided into two divisions. The larger being division
I. These are smaller colleges that do offer athletic scholarship based on
their institutions annual budget.
Click here to learn about their history. Both
NCAA and NAIA have conferences that most colleges are member of. There are
also independent colleges that do not participate in any conference and they set
their own competition schedule.
For a listing of colleges and conference within NCAA go to
the following sites:
http://web1.ncaa.org/memberLinks/links.jsp
http://www.ncaa.org/sponsorships/
Now about two-year colleges. There are number of reasons why a
student-athlete will choose this route. Following are few reasons I've
heard, but not all:
- you may want to work on your grades and
transfer to the college of your choice,
- you may want to work on your game then
transfer to the college of your choice,
- you may want to earn your AA/AS degree
first and then continue on,
- you're undecided on the college and this
is where you want to start,
- you want to save money, complete entry
level classes, then transfer,
- you are disorganized and late getting
your paperwork, therefore have limited options,
- you want to earn your AA/AS degree and
that's as far as you want to go.
There is one national organization for junior colleges and that is
NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic
Association). They started in Fresno, CA in 1937 and you can
click here to read about their
history.
