GLOSSARY OF TERMS - The Language of College Recruiting.
ACT/SAT: Standardized tests used by colleges for admissions purposes. Students must meet minimum requirements for these tests for the NCAA Eligibility Center and to meet individual college requirements.
Admissions Contact: Postcard, letter, email, package, and/or phone call directly from a college admissions department.
AP: Advanced placement classes offered by a high school. College-level classes. Placement of a college freshman in an advanced class based on work completed in high school. Most often colleges and universities use the College Board’s Advanced Placement Tests for advanced placement. Advanced placement may be given with or without credit hours.
Club Teams: Select teams of advanced high school, middle school, or elementary school players. Club teams are by invitation only and represent the top Baseball Players.
Contact: An exchange of information between a coaching staff or admissions department and a prospective student-athlete, Contacts include camp brochures, letters, questionnaires, emails, phone calls, and tape requests.
Contact Period: The period when a coach may have in person contact with a student or his/her parents on or off college campus. The coach may watch the student compete or visit the high school.
Core Courses: High school classes required by the NCAA Initial Eligibility Clearinghouse. These include English, Math, Natural/Physical Science, Social Science, Foreign Language, Religion, or Philosophy. Refer to the NCAA Eligibility Center regulations.
Cost of Attendance: The total cost of attending a school, the Cost of Attendance (COA) is an important factor in determining a student’s financial aid needs.
Early Action: Nonbinding plan that requires an athlete to submit his or her application in early fall (usually by November 1 or 15).The college lets the student know whether he or she is accepted by early January, but the student has the right to wait until May 1 before responding. This gives a student-athlete time to compare colleges, including financial aid offers, before making a decision.
Early Decision: A binding agreement whereby a student-athlete accepts an offer prior to National Letter of Intent Day. A student can apply Early Decision to only one college.
Equivalency Sports: Programs that fall into this category – all sports other than men’s basketball, women’s basketball, football, women’s gymnastics, women’s tennis, and women’s volleyball – can offer full or partial scholarships.
Evaluation: A coach’s review of a student’s athletic or academic ability. A coach typically evaluates a student either at his or her high school or during a showcase, practice, competition, club practice, or camp.
Evaluation Period: The period of time during which a college coach may watch students compete or visit the high school. There is no in-person contact away from the college campus allowed during this time. The coach may call and write during this time.
Free Application for Financial Student Aid: The Free Application for Financial Student Aid (FAFSA) is a form required by the government for application to any federal education aid program. The FAFSA is used to determine the expected family contribution (EFC) based on family financial information. A FAFSA is used to determine the specific Federal Student Aid programs that can contribute to a student’s total financial aid package and in what proportions. The Web site is www.fafsa.org.
Federal PLUS Loans: Unsubsidized loans made to parents. If you are independent or your parents cannot get a PLUS loan, you are eligible to borrow additional Stafford Loan funds. The interest rate is variable, but never exceeds 9 percent.
Federal Stafford Loans: Student loans that must be repaid and are available to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Financial Aid/Scholarship: Money received from a college or another source, such as outside loans or grants. This may be athletic, academic, merit or need-based aid.
FWS/Work Study: Provides jobs to undergraduate and graduate students, allowing them to earn money to pay education expenses.
Game Day Visit: An opportunity for a student to visit a campus to watch a college team play a game.
GATE: Guaranteed Access to Education (GATE) is a nonprofit private loan program offered through participating institutions in conjunction with Bank of America, Bank of Boston and the National Collegiate Trust (NCT). There is a minimal credit check and colleges can recommend whatever loan amount they’d like the student to receive. The interest rate is also rather low. Students and parents should call 1-617-639-2000 for more information about the program (in New York, 1-212-551-3650). See also their entry in the lenders area of the Financial Aid Information Page.
GPA: Grade-point average. The NCAA Eligibility Center only uses core courses to calculate this number. This should be cumulative over the entire high school academic career.
National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics: The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) is a separate association of colleges who compete in intercollegiate athletics. The NAIA launched the champions of character program in 2000 which is an educational outreach initiative which emphasizes the tenets of character and integrity, not only for NAIA college students, but for younger students, coaches and parents in out communities.
NCAA Eligibility Center: The organization responsible for certifying the academic eligibility for practice, competition, and financial aid of all prospective student-athletes for Division I and Division II.
NCAA Guide for the College-Bound Student-Athlete: An important reference book created by the NCAA for student-athletes interested in competing on college sports. This guide leads the student-athlete through eligibility, amateurism, registration with the NCAA Eligibility Center, financial aid, and recruiting rules. It is available at the NCAA Web site www.ncaa.org.
Non-Revenue Sports: College sports that do not bring revenue to the school.
Official Visit: Visit to a college campus by a student and/or parent paid for by the college.
Quiet Period: A period of time during which a coach cannot have in-person contact with a student or his/her parents off of the college campus. The coach cannot evaluate a student during this time, but can write or telephone during quiet periods.
Recruit Match: Collegiate coach database that matches qualified student-athletes with college athletic programs. Profiles or student-athletes are distributed based on coaches’ wants and need discovered through phone conversations, surveys and emails with college coaches at every level.
Recruiting Contact: Face to face interaction between a coach and a student-athlete or his/her parents away from the college campus, including high school competitions.
Recruit List: Athletes the coaches at an institution are actively recruiting. Typically, a student-athlete is not added to this list until the athlete has been evaluated.
Recruiting Materials: Information sent by a member of a coaching staff to a student-athlete. These include camp brochures, questionnaires and letters.
Red Shirt: A student who does not compete in any competition during a full academic year.
Regular Admissions: The process in which a student applies to a college by a midwinter deadline, receives word from the college in early April, and makes a decision and notifies colleges by May 1.
Revenue Sports: College sports that bring revenue to the school. These most often include men’s football and basketball, and women’s basketball, tennis, gymnastics, and volleyball.
Rolling Admissions: The process in which a student applies and receives an admission decision within two to six weeks. Applications are accepted until the incoming freshman class is filled. Most public universities and many private colleges use this timeline.
SAT II: Standardized subject test required by some of the most selective colleges.
Scout: An individual who is certified to evaluate, educate and empower student-athletes on the collegiate recruiting process.
Skills Tape: A fifteen to twenty minute tape of staged footage.
Student Aid Report (SAR): The document received after the FAFSA is processed listing all of the answers to the FAFSA. A parent should review these answers carefully to make sure they are correct.
Student-athlete: A high school student who is recruited to attend a particular college to play on one of its athletic teams or a student who reports for practice at a college. Your child becomes a college bound student-athlete the day he or she enters high school, is not sooner.
Unofficial Visit: Any visit to a college campus paid for by a student and/or parents. The only expense a student may receive is three complementary admissions to a home contest.
Verbal Commitment: A student verbally indicating that he/she plans to attend a college of university and play college sports. A verbal commitment is not binding, although it is a generally accepted form of commitment.
Video Instructions: Specific outlines for video footage to each sport.
Walk-on: A student who does not receive an athletic scholarship, but who is a member of the team.
If you have been evaluated, but not recruited you are among the ranks of most recruits. It's a holding pattern that is frustrating and tough, but if you've had some recruiting interest but no firm offers what 5 things can you do late in the recruiting process? Even if you are a senior, there is time to regroup and rebound.
1. Don't sit around and wait - Get busy, call a meeting with your family, do some more research on colleges where you would fit in athletically and academically. Develop a new list of potential colleges; EXPAND YOUR SEARCH to include schools in and out of state and at all different Division levels.
2. Do not give up - Believe that there is a college athletic program where you will be an ideal fit. Maybe, you had your heart set on playing for a D-I school; time to drop down a division or even two – and don’t forget about those NAIA schools. What is really important, getting a college degree and continue your baseball career or beating your head against the wall to play for a certain big time school? If you think it’s hard getting recruited by the big time school - it’s nothing compared to the amount of work it takes to keep playing at that school.
3. Be brutally honest about your abilities - For example, you may be the best pitcher in your school even in your town, but how do you stack up against the top players in your state and across the country? Keep in mind that you are competing nationwide for athletic scholarships.
4. Post your highlight video online - Post it on Twitter, Facebook, your personal athletic website and all the free profile services that you can. The idea is to make it easily accessible to the coaches.
5. Email the new list of coaches - Introduce yourself, attach your recruiting profile and include the link to your highlight video. This is a quick, inexpensive way to reach many coaches in a short amount of time. However make sure to personalize the emails to the individual coaches. Don't do the shotgun approach. And remember they will still need to see you play or workout – so if the school is far away expect a few road trips and a few thanks but no thanks.
If all else fails you can go as a walk-on and hope for the best. If that’s your plan try to be a recruited walk-on so the coach knows something about you ahead of time. And remember many top end athletic schools don’t even have open tryouts for the general school population.
Michael Pisaniello has been a scout, recruiter, coach and advisor for 30 plus years.