Alex Swenson breaks down how to target colleges for baseball recruiting. Build a list of 30 to 40 schools across reach, target, and safe categories by checking position need, athletic fit across division levels, academics, location, and financial aid. A strong process matters more than goals alone.
Questions this video answers
Approximately 5 to 8, possibly up to 10.
At least 10 target schools.
About 5 to 8 safe schools.
Roughly 30 to 40 schools in total.
Chapters
Hey, guys, Alex Swenson here. Hey, thanks for joining me today. I want to make sure that you are targeting the right schools, okay? Very important that we have goals and that we have targets, all right? And that's plural for this case. So we're going to have a bunch of target schools that we want to go after. But here's the thing, okay? Having goals and having targets are important, but they're not the most important thing, okay? This is my opinion. This could be controversial, but. But I am pretty sure of this going forward, okay? Because think of it this way. So if you think of an MLB team, maybe think of your favorite MLB team and then think of all 32 MLB teams that we're getting started here today. Opening day is today, okay? All these teams have a goal of winning the World series, right? All 32, but only one will do it, okay? And how they do it is about their system and their processes and their habits, of course, their talent and things like that, that's within. But how they practice their work ethic and the methodology that they go about getting to that target, getting to that end goal is ultimately what's going to get them there, okay? The other 31, they didn't have as good of a system, okay? They didn't have a good of a process to get to that certain point. And yes, you could definitely fine tune that in different layers, but the reality is how they got there is a part of a system, okay? And we can have a goal, but if we don't know how to get there and it really doesn't matter, okay? And again, I don't want to minimize goals and targets, but we have to have a good system. I talk to my guys in my program about this all the time is following the system, okay? Following the process to get to that endpoint and getting to these target schools. So let's go over this today about how to target the right schools. Hey, real quick, before we get into targeting schools, if you get anything from this video, please select that, like that thumbs up button and subscribe. I put out a weekly video recruiting and how to improve our game and also how to improve ourselves off the field. All right, let's get into it. The first thing that we want to do when we are targeting schools is to make sure they're in need of our position, okay? If they're not in need of your position, we are wasting time and money and we do not want to do that. And just because you get a camp invite from a school doesn't mean that they're in need. There's some cases absolutely they are, but there's some cases they just want you to come to camp and really just swipe the credit card, your parents credit card, okay? So make sure you're doing your homework. Have somebody help you. Whether it's me, I do this in my program. Help guys target schools and make sure that when we're targeting schools that they're in need of our position, okay? Have a summer ball coach. If it's not me, have a summer ball coach or somebody that knows what they're doing with college baseball help you with this, okay? And you could also do things like look at their rosters, okay? Look at their recruiting and see if they're going to be in need of your position. If you're talking to a coach, if you're already to that level, they are in need of your position. But if you're not, which most of us are not, especially when we're starting this recruiting process, we need to figure out who's in need of our position. Okay? The next thing is a good fit. All right? With these four categories athletically, we got to make sure it's a good fit. Okay? Now there's reach schools, target schools and safe schools, which we're going to get here into a minute. But we need to make sure that it's a good fit. Athletically, we can project a little bit. There's no doubt about it. But there's all different types of levels, okay? Of course, there's D1 and there's three tiers in D1. All of them are legit. Okay? There's D2, there's a couple tiers in D2, there's a couple Tiers in D3, there's junior college and there's NAI. There's all different levels. You want to be realistic with where you're at, okay? Depending on your. If you're a freshman or a sophomore and you're projecting, that's totally fine. Have somebody help you with that. Have a coach that's non biased that can tell you truthfully where they see you fit. Plus add a little projections. I'm not telling you not to go after and have big dreams, okay? But I also want you to be successful and target the right schools academically. We need to make sure we're fit academically. Especially if we're going after high academic schools and they're going to be looking at gpa. There's standards for that certain schools. There's standards for test scores and there's standards actually for most of these schools and especially NCAA having a certain GPA to play at the next level geographically. Hey, do you want to go locally to school? Do you want to stay within three to four hours from home? Okay. Do you want to or do you care? Would you go across the country? That opens up a lot of doors as well. Look@college baseballhub.com I have no affiliation with them, but they're a great website. They give you a map of all the D1s, D2s, D3s, a bird's eye view of all the schools. And it's just a cool feature to see where all these schools are. So make sure you fit geographically. You're going to know that where you ultimately want to go. I always suggest expanding out and then figuring out, oh, maybe I don't want to go that far and then sinking it back in. Okay. Rather than, you know, casting a small net right at the beginning around your house. Okay. And then financially, of course. Okay. If you're a parent watching this, we want to make sure that we fit financially. The black and whites of finances. And if you're a student athlete watching this, talk to your parents about what we can afford. Sometimes it's a great option just to stay in state for in state tuition. Sometimes we can go out of state. Okay. And whether it's academic money, scholarships and things like that. Look at some of the older videos about scholarships and I go into detail about that. And then we want to create this list. Okay. Having a list and having these targets are super important. Reach schools have anywhere from 5 to 8 to maybe 10 reach schools. What are reach schools is. We don't feel we're quite there yet athletically or maybe academically. Okay. Most of the standards is for athletically, but we don't feel like we're right there. But we feel that we might have a chance to get to that level. Okay. Those are reach goals. Target schools is like, hey, we feel like we're going to be a good fit there. Maybe a little bit. Projections. But hey, I've seen those guys play. I know what they look like physically. I know what their measurables are. I know how athletic those guys are. I also know my athletic ability. This is the target list I feel I can go after and be successful at. And then there's safe schools. It's kind of like, hey, I really feel kind of no doubt in my mind I could definitely play at that school. Okay. Or at those schools. Target schools. We want to have at least 10 here. Safe schools, five to eight here. You know, 10 to 15. So we're talking like 30 to 40 schools that we want to have on this list and start targeting and getting after. Okay, look over your school list. If you have have it already and if you haven't, use this format to help you be successful at reaching those schools. And then remember about your processes and systems. Let me know if you have any questions. Hope you enjoyed this video. Hope you got something out of it, and I will see you in the next one.
