college recruiting consultant

[Anonymous]

for those of you who have been through recruiting process for swim or dive.. did you use a consultant?
We are coming off of a hard recruiting period after being told we could do it on our own
in the end keeping up w all the emails branching out beyond D1 and following the path of teammates was not all we expected it would have been and wonder if it would have been easier if we hired someone to help our DC navigate

[Anonymous]

We did not. Things to consider-

1) is your coach approachable/helpful? Do you have an honest opinion of what conferences make sense for your swimmer?

2) Academics and College Admission. My swimmer was my third (first 2 were non athletes), so we understood the College Admissions landscape.

[Anonymous]

You don’t need a consultant. Pay the $29 one time fee for swimcloud.com. Click on a variety of schools and use the “see how I fit” feature. You can see your swimmers times compared to those already on the team.

Make a list of schools that match both academically and swim-wise. Fill out the athletic recruiting questionnaire and send a introductory email to ALL of the coaches on that team. Also make note of when their fastest swimmers in your swimmer’s primary events will graduate and look at who is joining the upcoming year.

Also remember that some D3s are faster than D1s. And some schools won’t start seriously talking to you until you have been offered admission. Spots for men are more competitive than for women.

Dive is slightly different but create a YouTube page and send the link to schools your diver is interested in.

Finally, make sure your swimmer/diver knows how to behave on deck. They should assume a coach is always watching.

[Anonymous]

parent of a diver here
we used one after a rough recruiting junior year being strung along by coaches and recovering from injury so performance didn’t match past performance. Started senior year w no options after one coach finally told them there was no spot for them (after months of us telling them to move on)
found a recommendation on facebook group and called them to start to pick up the pieces. It was eye opening. former swim coach in the mid west who was starting to focus on the divers. He ginned up interest in thek, prepared for calls, worked up a thank you no thank you email l, spoke to them twice a week and ultimately helped where they committed to a D1 power 5 program. clincher for me was working the transfer portal if necessary and helping guide them through the first year of college and competing.
I thought our kid had it bad but there are still a handful of really good divers graduating now still looking for a home. A lot of coaches DO NOT help w college recruiting and honestly the the changes to the transfer portal are going to make it harder for future freshman recruiting classes as coaches go in and grab proven student athletes over incoming freshmen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:parent of a diver here
we used one after a rough recruiting junior year being strung along by coaches and recovering from injury so performance didn’t match past performance. Started senior year w no options after one coach finally told them there was no spot for them (after months of us telling them to move on)
found a recommendation on facebook group and called them to start to pick up the pieces. It was eye opening. former swim coach in the mid west who was starting to focus on the divers. He ginned up interest in thek, prepared for calls, worked up a thank you no thank you email l, spoke to them twice a week and ultimately helped where they committed to a D1 power 5 program. clincher for me was working the transfer portal if necessary and helping guide them through the first year of college and competing.
I thought our kid had it bad but there are still a handful of really good divers graduating now still looking for a home. A lot of coaches DO NOT help w college recruiting and honestly the the changes to the transfer portal are going to make it harder for future freshman recruiting classes as coaches go in and grab proven student athletes over incoming freshmen

Is that the Rick Paine (I think) one? He seems super helpful with responses in the facebook group, so I was curious about it. Do you have an idea of cost?

[Anonymous]

yes his group. the person we used worked w ACC at the time.
their group though for swimmers is totally legit and definitely worth the investment for those swimmers who can find themselves overwhelmed or just not having as easy of a time as others

[Anonymous]

cost i think can vary but it’s not as inexpensive as a swim cloud account. we didn’t feel pressured at all when we first spoke to them and they took a lot of time to talk through all they do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:cost i think can vary but it’s not as inexpensive as a swim cloud account. we didn’t feel pressured at all when we first spoke to them and they took a lot of time to talk through all they do

Thank you!!