College Athletes

For high school athletes, what are the odds?

Posted on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 14:53

What is the probability of a student competing in a sport beyond high school? The NCAA crunched the data for student athletes in six different sports to illustrate the percentage of high school students who go on to play in NCAA athletics and beyond. You can see the table here. And the odds are revealing.

If you're trying to evaluate how your skills and talent fit within the programs a college offers, MIT Dean of Admission Stuart Schmill has some great advice from College Admission: "Listen to what the coaches are telling you objectively, without projecting your own wishes onto what a coach might say." And remember there are many ways for students to participate in athletics at the college level from NCAA Division-I, II and III, to NAIA, and club or intramural sports. 

What Coaches Want in the College Recruiting Process

Posted on Thu, 08/22/2013 - 15:49

Latif Thomas of Complete Track and Field: Practical Training Information for High School Coaches recently published a round-up of responses from college coaches to the following question:

In your opinion, what is the #1 thing HS athletes need to do to put themselves in the best position to be noticed by and therefore ‘recruited’ by college coaches/programs?

The responses come from track and field coaches, but there's lots of good advice for any student athlete interested in playing at the collegiate level, such as the following:

As much as we try, we do not know the name, phone number, email address and personal best of every athlete that could help our program. Don’t be afraid to directly contact the coaches of every single school that interests you. Email and call. 

Read the whole post here.

More Resources…

Posted on Thu, 08/09/2012 - 13:07

Don't forget to regularly check Resources under the Book tab here on the site. We're constantly updating and adding books and websites for navigating the college application and admission process. What's more, these resources have been recommended by deans of admission and college counselors and vetted by us. We know there's lots of bad information out there, so we're very particular about who makes the list. Recent additions include information for students with learning differences -- http://www.ahead.org/ and http://www.ncld.org/; for athletes -- http://www.playnaia.org/; and for scholarships -- http://scholarshipedia.org/.