Diving - College Recruiting

[Anonymous]

Anyone here have experience with college recruiting for diving? My understanding is that talks with coaches can start as early as summer between 10th and 11th, which is next summer for my DC. They seem to want to continue in college, and I want to support them to be in the best position once that time rolls around. But, DH and I have no experience with college admissions in the 21st century, and no experience with athletic recruiting in any century. Any lessons learned anyone can share? In case it's relevant, DC is pretty "high stats" - not 4.0/1600, but not too far below. So, for many schools, I assume that would make them an attractive candidate too.

[Anonymous]

DD is being recruited for diving. First, know that swim/dive money is combined and diving gets a very small piece of the pie. In other words, unless your diver is placing at nationals, don't think about money.

Overall recruiting for diving is no different than for any other sport. Create lots of film. For DD, her biggest connections came from her club coach. Her coach reached out to her college coach friends and let them know they should look at her.

[Anonymous]

OP- Definitely reach out to the club/HS coach for which level/conferences to consider. Many of the top S & D programs are also top schools, so it is important to have great grades and test scores. Top D1 schools for S & D are UVA, Florida, Texas, Cal Berkley, Stanford, Mich, Indiana- Top D 3 schools are Emory, MIT, Chicago, NYU, Kenyon

[Anonymous]

Your club coach is the place to start. Other things to do right now:

Start looking at rosters of teams that your DC would be interested in to understand how many divers they actually take. It’s going to be a tiny number: 1-4 total, not by grad year. Look at your kid’s AAU and USA Diving placements and see who is a year ahead of them by grad year and who placed near them when they were in the same age group. Compare dive lists on divemeets.com. Think about if your diver wants to focus on just springboard or if they have a platform list. That will change where they can train and what teams are a good fit. If they’re a top diver, lack of a tower isn’t necessarily going to keep them from competing it in NCAAs- I can think of a diver at an Ivy with just springboard facilities who came from Mission Viejo and competes platform at NCAAs. But you know if you have a diver at that level. Go to camps this summer.

It’s really important to know that your diver could train all 4 years and never compete at a meet if they’re on a top team. One of our kids’ teammates is at a former PAC-12 swim and dive powerhouse but she has yet to be rostered for a meet.

[Anonymous]

This is OP. Thanks. I'm not assuming any money, and in some ways I think no money could be better (assuming all is affordable, of course). They want to dive in college, but I don't want them to feel pressure in terms of keeping a scholarship or being let go from a team because of funding. We know of some of the big schools based on where big names have gone. I'm guessing my DC is not a candidate for those, but is a candidate for lower Div 1s/higher Div 3s. Who knows. This years spring/summer circuit will probably create more clarity, I think. DC does have experience at Nationals, but not yet in Group A (16-18). So this year (2025) will be a new experience.

Will definitely be talking to club coach as spring rolls around!

[Anonymous]

Register your diver w ncaa clearinghouse
Start to create film and your diver should have a public diving instagram for coaches to see
Talk w your club coach. Power 4 s hooks are going to start to moon very different next year w the NLI House settlement. Caps in teams going into effect for 2025 which is really hurting the 2025 seniors right now ..be sure to follow it. My kid is freshman P4 and started talking about next years caps in sept..they all know cuts are coming
Mid major d3 and d2 have great schools and some great divers too
Also there is a recruiting service focused on diving called ripple effect.