College Volleyball Recruiting Video

Hey Coach,

Always enjoy your sight as we have a 2016 graduate who is slotted for lower D1, competitive D2 or upper NAIA at next level.

We have closely followed your recruiting plan outlined in your book.  We have sent recruiting video to approx. 100 schools that we feel would be realistic fits for our daughter.  We have received feedback from 25-30 which I feel is decent response.  

My question is how important is it to also fill out each schools online recruiting form?  If a school has our video but we did not complete their online recruiting form, how likely is it that we will have been left off their contact list?  

Also, what is proper follow up with a school after we have sent them the video?  If we do not hear back from a given school do we automatically assume they are not interested?

M.L.

Glad to know that collegevolleyballcoach.com and Inside College Volleyball has been a recruiting resource for your family!

I am actually surprised that only 25-30 schools got back with you, but I probably should not be because if you are reaching out to the competitive level you indicated, many of these programs don't have full time assistants, or any assistants for that matter.  The college coach has to juggle many, many balls and either blanks out or just hits the delete button after watching.

Don't put too much stock into the online recruiting form - Often times these are hosted by non athletic department servers and college coaches may not actually receive these in a timely manner.  If a college coach sends you a questionnaire or link to an online questionnaire, they you should immediately complete and return.

Better than doing the online questionnaire, you should always include a document which is your volleyball introductory letter/information sheet or web link to an online profile, when you reach out to a college coach with video.  Often times, a solid information sheet will be more beneficial to a coach/program than on online questionnaire.

After sending a video and player profile/information sheet, I would wait approximately two weeks, then send it out again (just send it again, without any segway - Worst thing that happens is they hit the delete button).  As I mentioned before, many college programs are understaffed and coaches can just sometimes forget to respond or even view the video - We get hundreds and hundreds of emails per week because we are also on the email lists for the university; things get lost.

There are 3 levels of communication as you manage the recruiting process - 1) PSA and college program actively communicate via email (most common and comfortable) once to twice a week and this level is basically for those schools in which your daughter has highest on her AAG list (Academic/Athletic/Geographic preferences).  2)  PSA and college program communicate every 2 to 4 weeks; this is for those programs which are still undecided about your PSA and/or your PSA is undecided about them.  Communication should still occur because Level 1 can often change.  3)  This is the see you later alligator level.  These are schools which have not responded at all to any outreach even though they are AAG for your PSA, or these are schools which don't fit the AAG for your PSA; the wastebasket, the dumpster, the college volleyball recruiting disposal.....

By what you referenced in your email, it sounds as if you taking all the right steps and managing the recruiting process - Congrats and good luck!

Coach Sonnichsen