3 Types of College Visits For Athletes + Tips How To Make The Most Of Them

In today's episode, we're going to be covering the three college visits that you could possibly be going on as an athlete going through this college recruiting process. Two of them are coaches led visits and one is led by you. I'm going to explain all that here in a second and also what to expect on these college visits so you are prepared and ready to go. And should parents be going or shouldn't they not be going? What questions to ask these college coaches when you on campus with them and what should you be wearing? Does it matter what you wear? We're going to cover again all of that. And if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm A former Division 1 college baseball coach, scout and recruiter with 11 years experience. Done a lot of these tours and now what I do is help high school baseball players and their parents navigate this college recruiting process and put them in the best possible position to play at the next level. And if you get anything from this episode, please smash that like, button right down here and subscribe to my YouTube channel if you're watching. But if you're on the podcast, that's great too. You can listen on the Go There premier athletes wherever you find podcasts, and please write a review and subscribe there as well. Now let's dive into the college visits. The first one is led by you, by the athlete and by the parents. What does that mean, you being proactive? Maybe we're early in this recruiting process or maybe we're not getting any traction right now, but we know we need to go start visiting schools or again, start a little bit earlier to take a look at especially maybe local schools. And you can go on a college visit. You can literally walk around colleges or you can set up a tour with the admissions department at the school. They host tours all the time, every single week by typically students there. And you can ask questions there. You could also stop by the baseball coaching office and introduce yourself. It's a great way to kind of spark and maybe if you're in the spring or in the fall, you could stop by a baseball practice and watch the team practice and hey, say hello to the coaching staff, especially if you're there early or if you're there after practice. Again, a great way to get kind of traction and get on radars and introduce yourself, especially if we haven't had any traction yet. So that is the first one is making sure that you're proactive in this process and it's led by you. Okay? That is A big thing. And then the two other ones are coaches, ledgers. An unofficial visit and then there's an official visit. The unofficial visit is the coaching staff invites you and you pay your way. You pay for everything. They can't pay for this. As far as a visit here, if it's labeled as an unofficial visit, an official visit is the coaching staff pays for everything. Your travel, your gas, your food. Food. Maybe you stay overnight. Okay? And that is the biggest difference between an official visit and an unofficial visit. Sometimes the official visit, you stay overnight with a player. The unofficial visit typically is like a half day or a full day where the coaching staff shows you around. So whether it's an official or an unofficial visit, it usually starts the same where you meet the coaching staff, they set it up, they invite you to come visit campus. You typically meet them at the baseball office and they're going to show you around. They might show you around the baseball facility first and then the school, but you're going to see everything. All right. A good college visit from the coaching staff, whether it's unofficial or official visit, they show you everything. So you get a really good feel of what it's like being a student and a student athlete there. So you'll go see classrooms, you're going to go see the dormitories, you're going to see the baseball facility, you're going to see the locker room. You're going to see everything. As you go through this. And this is the time to kind of take it all in and also ask questions. But before we get to the questions, should parents be going? Absolutely. Parents should be going to help. One, you get a good feel and get your intuition about the school and the coaching staff and for you to ask questions as well. As we go through this, especially typically on unofficial and official visits, most of the time at the end of the visit, the coaching staff are going to bring you in and typically hand you off to the head coach. Every program does a little bit differently. But the ones that I've been at, which is Jacksonville University, Georgetown University and Ole Miss, the head coach will take over and present and then eventually offer the athletes with the parents in the room. So everybody's on the same page as we go and what that looks like. But what's some questions that you should be asking this coaching staff when you are on that visit? Again, good coaching staff will kind of beat you to this, hopefully. But you want to express interest in shows, like, ask them what is a day in the life like as a student athlete, as potentially a Baseball player in the fall or like the first day that the first week. What does the first week look like? All right, so you can get in, help prepare. You might have a conditioning test, you might have a strength test. You might have to have things that you need to be prepared for. And then what does the fall look like? What is the winter breaks look like? What is, of course, the spring look like leading up to the season and then the summertime and as well, let the coaches kind of explain so you can get a good picture of what the year will look like for you. Also, what are you looking for in my position? How can I come in and make an impact right away? Let them talk about that. Also, is there any academic help? Is there study hall? Are there tutors available? What does again, an academic side of things are guys taking classes at particular times? What is typically the most popular major on the team? So you just can get a feel for that as, as well, because majors can dictate if you're in engineering, which nothing wrong with that. It's very demanding. An engineering degree is very demanding, but being a student athlete is very demanding. So they're going to have to play around with your schedule as you go through that. So that's, that's in a visit as far as an unofficial visit and typically official visit, then if it's an official visit, they're going to hand you off to the players. You guys will go out, you'll stay in either the dormitory, typically with that athlete, and you get a kind of day in the life as a student athlete and what you do. And you can ask the players, how's been your experience on this year? How's your experience with the coaching staff? What are practices like? What are games like, days of games and how we prepare for that? What does your summer look like? All those that you hear it from the athlete as well. So those are some questions you can dive into. And then what should you wear on these visits? All right. Does it matter? Yeah, first impressions matter. Now, you don't have to come full suit. I would recommend just khakis if it's in August. All right, you can go shorts, khakis, you know, tucked in, polo shirts. It doesn't always have to be tucked in, but look presentable. Look presentable. First impressions matter. Okay? As you go through this and obviously express your interest in the school and thank them, show gratitude. If they're taking the time out of their day to show you around, this is a very good sign that they are highly interested in you. So make sure you express your gratitude and leave doors open. If you don't get an offer at the end of the unofficial or official. That doesn't mean that you're not going to get one, but this is a good sign to get traction going. And please, if you have any questions, please let me know down in the comment section and I look forward to seeing you in the next video. Take care.