Already have a major/degree field in mind?

My DD (now U18) decided on a fairly niche engineering major to pursue, so we have used that as the initial filter for narrowing the potential list of colleges and VB opportunities to pursue. There only 25 schools that were ABET-accredited for my kid's choice. Of those, less than 20 had women's VB. Given that DD isn't a 6-foot all-world prospect, we came down to less than 10 potential schools that had a current roster of players with similar heights at her preferred position. She's currently sitting on two D3 offers for roster spots, since D3 doesn't give athletic scholarships.

As for what you and and your player can do, you may want to create a profile on FieldLevel and on HUDL/Balltime (if the HS/club uses this service). Create an NCAA profile as well. (Note that NCSA and other for-profit platforms may have a similar acronym. I do mean the real NCAA.)

Get as much video of gameplay as you can. Have your player start generating highlight clips and posting them to Instagram/YouTube. You don't want to be in a situation where you need gameplay footage and you don't have any.

Thanks for great advices.

Anonymous wrote:DD has made to a local VA club (mid-range) 17's team. She obviously is not D1 material but has potential and really want to play volleyball competitively in college. Are there D2/D3 recruiting resources available to help her seen by those colleges? Thanks

The process for D2/D3 is pretty similar to D1. There are some good posts on this thread with some helpful information. https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1284939.page

Getting seen by college coaches can happen in a few ways. The player initiates contacts via email or another means and the player invites the coach to come watch her play at a tournament, the coach sees a player at a tournament/showcase and gets in touch, or sometimes a 3rd party (like a club director/coach) that has a relationship with a college coach makes the connection.

While it does happen that coaches will find players, if a player wants to play in college they should not just sit around and wait for a coach to find them. Have your DD make lists of school they’re interested in, and reach out to the volleyball coaches. Make the first list over inclusive and narrow it down based on what coaches express an interest.

In terms of differences from D1, D3 has far fewer restrictions on the timing of player contacts. But most D3 programs tend to recruit later than D1, so there isn’t this rush to be committed in junior year of high school. Finally, you’ll see lots of discussion about high-academic D3 and it’s true that some excellent academic institutions have solid volleyball programs (e.g., MIT, Emory, Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, etc, etc), but don’t think that means that an athlete doesn’t need to be academically qualified to be accepted to that school. These schools with 5 or 10% acceptance rates turn away many qualified applicants every year - being a recruited athlete might help get a student into the “yes” pile if they are otherwise qualified, but it probably won’t make up for low test scores or GPA.

Shouldn't your club (which one btw?) be able to help?

DD has made to a local VA club (mid-range) 17's team. She obviously is not D1 material but has potential and really want to play volleyball competitively in college. Are there D2/D3 recruiting resources available to help her seen by those colleges? Thanks