A Guide to Effectively Communicating with College Coaches (and Admission Offices) in the Age of Social Media
Like most other millennials, my formative years were shaped by the advent and ubiquity of social media apps and websites. Despite its numerous shortcomings, namely its potential for dubious information to be spread widely and instantly, social media remains an integral part of the athletic recruitment and college admissions processes. However, it must be used alongside more “traditional” communication methods such as email or in-person meetings. Here are a few things to consider as you begin this journey.
Complete a recruitment questionnaire prior to email communication with coaching staffs
One of the most common mistakes prospective student-athletes and their families make is to start blindly emailing college coaches. If you scour various Reddit communities devoted to college athletic recruitment, posters typically endorse something along these lines: email a bunch of coaches with an attached highlight reel.
This recommendation neglects to mention that the trajectory of an email message can sometimes take on a life of its own: it can be sent directly to a spam folder, blocked by the recipient’s school or department, or accidentally deleted. Think about your own cluttered inbox and assume that you’re not alone. Coaches receive a ton of emails every day with recruit introductions sprinkled in among athletic department communications, vendor inquiries, and other miscellany.
The recruitment questionnaire on the other hand is directly linked to both the athletic department’s recruitment platform and the admission’s office customer relationship management system (CRM), meaning that you’re now “tagged” as a potential recruit with key athletic and academic information in one place.
After completing the recruitment questionnaire, send a “targeted” email to coaches at schools you are interested in attending
If you’re approaching the admissions and athletic recruitment processes “holistically,” in which you are looking for schools that are potential academic, social, geographic, and athletic fits, initially filling out questionnaires and then sending follow up emails to only schools that interest you makes these processes much easier to manage.
What exactly do I mean by a targeted message? This could mean including specific information about the respective school/team as a complement to your basic information (name, school, school/club team, position/event, etc) or simply asking a question that leads to a specific answer.
“My lacrosse club is playing at the following tournaments. Will you or a member of your staff be attending?” or “I will be joining my older sibling on their campus tour to College X or Y. I’m also interested in this school and potentially playing tennis in college. Would I be able to come by your office and speak to you while I’m on campus?” are a couple of examples of questions designed to elicit a specific response from a coach.
If you don’t receive a timely reply from a coach, first determine whether the team is currently in-season (which would explain a delay in responses) then send another message a reasonable time (1 week) following the initial message. If still no response, contact the admission office to find out who the athletics liaison is and then contact them. Of all the staff members in an admission office, the athletics liaison spends the most time directly communicating with coaches.
Create a separate social media account for athletic recruitment (I recommend Instagram)
Of all the current social media apps, I recommend prospective student-athletes to use Instagram because of its widespread accessibility and use of both video and photo content. Using an account for all things athletic recruitment is a great way to keep personal and “business” content separate.
For this account, you should include all relevant sport information as well as specific academic data points (GPA, number of AP or IB courses, etc.) in the bio. Additionally, you should follow accounts from not only specific teams but their general athletics department and college/university accounts as well. This allows you a more in-depth look into team culture and the accomplishments of team members on and off the field or court.
Watch games/matches via livestream
One of the most significant changes in athletic recruitment and college admissions throughout the years is the sheer amount of information available instantaneously, specifically the increase in livestream broadcasts of sports across all divisions and conferences. In the recent past, you would only be able to watch the big-time Division I football and basketball programs on television, but now even Division III athletic contests are broadcast over the Internet or on a specific streaming app.
You can be a basketball player from Southern California who is interested in liberal arts colleges in New England and watch live games without having to travel thousands of miles. You can see first-hand how the coach interacts with players and officials, how the bench supports the starters, and the offensive/defensive schemes employed by coaches before you “commit” to a program.
Don’t forget about communicating with the school’s admission office
Finally, remember that if you are specifically looking at colleges and universities that do not award athletic scholarships, your application will be reviewed by someone who most likely has no direct connection to the athletics department. This means that you don’t want to come across as simply an athlete who is applying to their college/university but rather as a multifaceted applicant who happens to be recruited to play a sport.
Determining your admission representative is generally easy, with most colleges/universities assigning applications based on a high school’s geographic location or specific major/school. Regardless of whether the colleges on your list are Division I, II, or III, it is always beneficial to at least know who your admissions representative is and use them to ask non-athletic questions about their schools.
