News

“The successfully recruited athlete turns tasks that they don’t like doing into habits.”

Here are the 4 must steps to take for creating college recruiting opportunity and why most people don't take them.  

Let’s face it, becoming a recruited athlete and playing college sports is a big challenge. Sure, the top 1% of high school senior athletes get 95% of the recruiting attention. But what about the rest? Inside the numbers shows that there are 100,000 incoming freshmen college athletes each year of which 5,000 are highly recruited. That means coaches from top NCAA DI programs actively recruit them. Not so for the other 95,000. Therein lies your opportunity.

For the balance of college freshmen recruits, the job is on them to target market themselves to the coaches of colleges for which they have identified as a good match for their admission acceptance and possible sports opportunity. For this group of athletes, being recruited is not a pure talent contest. Rather, it is a contest in strength-of-purpose, diligence, relationship building, personal marketing, and continuous effort; all of which applies to athletes and parents. This requires having a proactive, knowledge-based strategy, and knowing how it works.

The formula for being recruited requires taking four initial steps in a sequence of ten steps. You can’t leap-frog to the fifth step, much less the tenth step. Therefore, we will focus on the first four steps to get you to the critical point.  

1. Step one in every college search process, athletes or students, is to build a college list and work from this list.  

It is essential that an athlete-family begins with building a list of colleges that match the student-athlete’s qualifications and interests, along with the parent’s interests and needs. Make no mistake, this is the starting point from which all activity follows. Without it, all of your work is nothing more than mere guesswork.    

2. Step two in every college recruiting process is to create a personal marketing package for use in broadcasting the student-athlete’s interest to colleges.

Marketing is the dreaded term of many people, however without it, talented athletes go unnoticed and unrecruited. Predictably so, their competitive sports come’s to a premature end while standing on their high school graduation stage. But with an active, engaging, marketing package and mindset, a college sports career becomes many more times likely.

3. Step three requires the student-athlete to collect the contact information of the coaches from the colleges on their college list

This is a simple task, yet one that few athletes will ever do, thus creating your advantage in doing so. It requires organization and a bit of effort to go on their websites for identifying the coach’s name, email, and phone number. But without doing so, your recruiting effort and likely outcome will fall short.

4. Step four requires the student-athlete to contact and connect with the coaches from the colleges on their college list. We call this “target marketing.”

Contact means to begin communications by sending their personal marketing package by email. Connect means to begin building a personal relationship by placing a call to the coach, the head coach at that. Herein lies the barrier for the majority of high school athletes and their parents. It’s not hard to send out an initial email, although few do it. What’s harder is the diligent effort that must follow. 

Too many athlete-families send out a single email in hopes that it triggers extensive interest. But that doesn’t work. Rather, it takes several follow-up emails along with phone calls to make the real connection. Very few athletes will go to that extent, but the ones who do will create substantial advantage over all others. Where most people see this barrier as being a 50’ concrete wall, I see it as being a mere one foot step to get over. It’s the perception of this great big prohibitive wall that stops talented and qualified student-athletes from continuing their sport in college.

The ultimate goal in taking these steps is to connect with college coaches in a meaningful way beyond casual emails and camp invitations. For those who do, playing college sports becomes much more within their reach. Once the relationship is established, everything will progress as necessary leading to step ten, planning for evaluations. Otherwise, athlete-families will be left to the hope, wait, and wish strategy; leading them down a frustrating, dead-end path and disappointing outcomes.

The college recruiting process rewards proactive involvement and a commitment to performing tasks that most young people don’t like doing. But transforming these tasks into routine habits will establish your advantage for becoming a collegiate athlete. I guarantee it!

Hans

If you want to be desired by colleges, then be a desirable applicant.

On a winter afternoon in February, the mail arrives to mom’s anticipation. She goes out to check it and finds three letters with college letterhead on the envelope. To the thrill of the family, she yells out “The college admissions letters have arrived, everyone come look!” The family circles around her, she hands them off to her child, the applicant, and says, “Here we go, let’s open them up.”

Denied…

Denied…

Deferred…

To the astonishment and utter disappointment of all, they gently put the papers down and everyone moves back to their previous place. “How can that be?” the mother utters in quiet dismay to the father. “That makes no sense at all. I wonder if there’s been a mistake.” Yes, several mistakes in fact.

Turn back the clock to that mid-month day in November, when mom said, “It’s time to get your applications going. Let’s open up the Common App.” A couple of weeks later, six applications were randomly submitted, casually prepared, a last minute essay written and attached, briefly considered supplemental questions answered, and off they went into cyberspace, to land one day upon a person’s computer for review. Predictably so, denials and defers came rolling in. Why would one expect anything different?

October comes around each year, then November, then December. For high school seniors across the land, they begin to think about submitting college applications and writing a quick essay. They know the applications are due, but the family is busy and application deadlines are months away. So, no hurry. What’s the deadline date they ask? Oh, we have time, so they think. That’s wrong.

Then at their convenience, they go on line, quickly fill out the “regular decision” application, attach their essay and casually hit the “submit” button. Feeling pretty good, they get through the holiday season informing family and friends of their preferred college interests. After all, they met the basic academic requirements for their colleges with a good GPA, a decent SAT or ACT score and a few AP classes taken. However, in most cases they remain unknown to the admission office. As such, they leave it all to chance and put their college future at risk. For too many families, this is the typical approach that often results in needless rejections.  

So let me share some insight here. We’ve identified the five most common and costly mistakes made by student-families in the college admissions process.

1.  A common mistake of college applicants is that they view their weak application essay as being strong.  

There is a big difference between a good essay and a great essay, between a nice story and a meaningful story, between an essay that captures a reader’s immediate interest and those that don’t capture any interest. That’s why many essays don’t get read past the first two sentences. Don’t get read? That’s right.

Every quality essay has a title and a conclusion, flows from an introduction through to a meaningful conclusion, is written with vivid description, and concludes with a strong statement reflecting probable college success. Quality essays are easy and interesting to read while holding the reader’s attention. Anything otherwise is not good enough and won’t serve the purpose—denied!

2. A common mistake of college applicants is that they submit incomplete applications.

There are a few key areas of an application through which admission officers can quickly determine that a student rushed the application, leaving it incomplete.

First and foremost is the “Additional Information” box found in the Writing component. It is reported to me that this is left blank in over 95% of applications. That’s a big mistake, but it makes for a big benefit to those who enter insightful information. Then there’s the “Activities” section where most people rush through and either enter a couple of activities or list activities that provide little value. Responses to supplemental questions can determine the fate of an application. It is reported to us that many admission officers go right to this area of the application to review the responses. If they lack insight or attention, then it reflects poorly on the applicant—denied!

3.  A common mistake of college applicants is that they fail to connect in a meaningful way with the admissions office.

Welcome to the key driving term in every admissions office- “conversion rate.” The business model of the university runs through the admissions office and is driven by the conversion rate. The conversion rate reflects enrollments as a percentage of acceptances.

The admissions office is run by analytics. The acceptance rate is the number of acceptances as a percentage of applications. The number of acceptances is driven by theconversion rate. Without this being an exact science, the admissions office must rely on conversions of acceptances into enrollments. Otherwise, the college is left with open seats and a significant loss in revenue. Therefore, it is important to connect with the admissions office throughout the process. The admission officers must sense the likelihood of your enrollment if you are granted an acceptance. It’s the big business of college at work. If they don’t believe you will enroll—denied! 

4. A common mistake of college applicants is that they don’t have an application and scholarship strategy.

College is a purchasing-decision, and it should reflect a buy-sell process. In considering that colleges are service providers while families are buyers, it seems that having a proactive, detailed, and knowledge-based strategic plan would be the starting point for everyone. Does anyone buy a house without having a plan and strategy?

Hoping, waiting, and wishing for good news to come in the mail is not the best way to secure good news. Rather, beginning as early as 9th grade, a strategic plan for finding the right college should be in place. An effective strategy results in receiving 6 – 8 acceptances, offering a range of experiences and costs to consider. After all, we’re not talking about buying televisions here, rather, we’re talking about buying a college education and a once-in-a-lifetime college experience. Blindly submitting applications that seem right or that Naviance picked as a match is not a strategy—denied!

5. A common mistake of college applicants is that they fail to protect the integrity of their social media.  

In a recent survey, over 40% of admission counselors acknowledged that they immediately access the applicants Facebook account to look for improprieties that might negate the applicant. Qualifying credentials and a good essay cannot overcome such improprieties. You know what those improprieties are, anything that might upset grandma will likely negatively reflect on an applicant. Let’s face it, if an admissions officer is looking to make a five-minute decision, then Facebook will do it—denied!

Poor planning, inattentiveness, or carelessness can all contribute to application denials. These are all avoidable mistakes over which you have more power and control than you think. Understanding common mistakes and managing the process to avoid pitfalls will make for improved outcome. It seems college logical to me. See how we do it atwww.mycollegelogic.com 

Hans Hanson, Founder and CEO of CollegeLogic

Turning Frustration into Fuel!

In tribute to one of my fine college aspiring high school seniors, Jack Sheehy, who suffered a devastating broken arm a year ago, I am sharing with you a truly inspirational excerpt from his college essay.  

I knew my arm was broken as I laid there in a big mess. The moment of chaos turned into months of x-rays, tests, procedures, and therapy. My elbow joint had been shattered by the sudden impact. My summer season was over and with it too was possibly my baseball career.  
 
I began my rehabilitation within 6 days. Saying it went slow would be an understatement. Stagnant and agonizing would be a better description. Every second of physical therapy was painful, with a stretch here or a twist there, often accompanied by an audible pop or crunchy feeling.  After 4 months, I did not sense much progress and with it came frustration, which peaked in October. I began to doubt if my arm would ever function normally again, forget about baseball. At that precise moment of revelation, a peaceful calm came over me as I realized that there are more important things than sports and I will have more difficult things to overcome in life.
 
That peaceful calm served to turn my frustration into fuel. Instantly I gained a newfound rigor for my rehab and with it, my spirits skyrocketed. On that day, I realized that my frustration was useless. I had wasted time complaining about my situation. I would complain no more, rather, I would get on with things and the tough tasks at hand.  

Thank you Jack!

Hans
Founder CollegeLogic
Office # 203.470.3704

Athlete-families are making the same mistakes as those made by thousands of others preceding them.

Where is the learning curve?

My article was published by USA Today, for the full article, click here to see the 5 most common mistakes made by athlete-families-

The five most common and costly mistakes made by athlete-families are-

1. Misinterpreting casual offers as serious offers
2. Pursuing exposure over evaluations
3. Focusing on athletic opportunity over educational opportunity
4. Not connecting with head coaches
5. Bypassing the admissions process.

College-hopeful athletes can leapfrog their competition by doing things right and avoiding common mistakes. Parents can help their child get college right and save thousands on college costs by being knowledgeable of the process.

CollegeLogic works with families to understand college opportunity and be sure they get the college outcomes they desire.

Hans
Founder CollegeLogic
Office # 203.470.3704

"If you don't know what you want out of college, then how are you going to get it?"

When we evaluate colleges for their progressive position in delivering education, we look primarily at 7 essential factors in determining if a college is staying up with the times. We suggest you do as well.

1. Academic excellence and diversification of studies geared towards future opportunities
2. Internship opportunity and co-op involvement within the local community
3. Study-abroad programs for promoting cultural immersion and diverse perspectives
4. Availability of and access to new, modern technology
5. Research projects of the school open to student engagement
6. Sophistication of the student-population
7. Sphere of influence of the college and its professors  

When college is done and over with, besides the education, the value of the college will often be evaluated and determined for its influences and resulting relationships.

CollegeLogic works with families to understand college opportunity and be sure families get the college outcomes they desire. This is just one way we help you get college right. It should not be left to chance.  

Hans
Founder CollegeLogic
Office # 203.470.3704