Top Questions College Coaches Will Ask (Top 5)

Hey, how you doing, Alex here. Thanks for joining me. In today's episode, we're gonna be talking about the top questions to be prepared for from college coaches as things get serious in this college recruiting process. You want to be prepared and ready to go. Plus what to be doing when setting up a call with a college coach. Because things are getting serious when you're talking to college coaches over a phone call, over Zoom or even in person, of course, maybe when you're on a college visit or maybe when you're at the field. So we're going to talk a little bit about that and specifically phone calls because really how the process happens is you're communicating with them maybe through via email or maybe through via text and then a call is being set up, whether that's from you, which is great, you want to be proactive in this recruiting process or from the college coach. They want to set up a call with you and you can initiate that as well. And if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm A former Division 1 college coach, scout and recruiter with 11 years of experience. And now what I do is help high school athletes and their parents navigate this college recruiting process and put them in the best possible position to play at the next level. So if you get anything from this video, please smash that like button that thumbs up right down here. Subscribe to my channel or podcast. I know a lot of people like to listen on the go, whether it's in the car or at the field and definitely subscribe to that and leave any questions down below. I will answer those. So let know me, let's talk about setting up a call. Remember you being proactive in this recruiting process. Sometimes these college coaches will say, hey, hey, give me a call over the next couple of days. That happens with a lot of my guys in this recruiting a process that I work with or they're setting or you're setting something up as we're going. So as far as not to leave anything open ended, what I mean by that is so you guys aren't playing phone tag, all right, that's really important. We want to be kind of direct and streamline this process. Alright? So when that happens, when a college cook says, hey, give me a call over the next few days or I'm going to give you a call, it's like suggest a few times in days that works best for you and ask them which ones work best for them. They're going to give you. Give them at least three. All right? Give them a list, three, so they can pick something that's going to work for them. Where typically you want to go? If it's during the week, you want to do closer to the evenings. Maybe Saturday, 6, 37 or 8. Why is that the case? Because usually you might. If you're in high school and you're in class one, you're not going to get out till two or three and then they're in practice around two or three. Typically for most sports in that afternoon because the college athletes have classes from anywhere from 8 or 9 in the morning to 1 or 2. Depends on of course, the schedule and the year that the athlete is. But anyway, practice start in the afternoon, go to maybe six or seven. Depends. So after that is the evening. That's when I talk to a lot of my recruits in the evening because I was done with practice and things like that and you were out of high school. Now if it's in the middle of the summer where you're not in school, it's a little bit more flexible from that. On the weekends, practices will happen typically in mid morning to mid afternoon. So again, same type of thing. It could be a little bit earlier from there. So again, just to give you some frame of reference and some guidance there, but you being proactive. All right. Make sure you know the time zone they are in. Okay. So if, if you are an east coast and this is a west coast team, obviously you want to know that and call at the right time. So make sure you are doing your due diligence. As we go through that, set a reminder for yourself. Obviously you want to make sure that things can get busy, you can get distracted. And especially if a coach is calling you, the last thing you want to do is not pick up the phone. So make sure, especially with phones these days. I know I have at least on my phone that if you call from a number that I don't have saved, it goes straight to voicemail. Okay, so that is. That's important too. So make sure. If you have that feature. Turn that off. Right, Turn that off. All right. Because if you don't have the coach's number from there, then prepare a few questions that you want to ask. Again, you want to be prepared in this. You want to have a good first impression. One of my favorite sayings out there is the five Ps, right? Proper preparation prevents poor performance. All right? Be prepared. Be ready to go. All right. Some questions that you could think about asking is what's the day in a life like as a student athlete in your program, what's it like in the spring? What's it like in the summer? In the fall and the winter? What do you guys do from academic support? Is there opportunities for freshmen to come in and actually truly compete for a starting job? No coach will ever guarantee a starting job. Okay, but you want to at least look at track records and hear from the coaches. Do freshmen have at least an opportunity to come? Because I know a lot of guys don't want to sit for two or three years, okay? They want to come in and contribute right away. And also that specifically looking at the right programs, right. For your athletic fit. So things like that as we go through that and then questions to be ready for. The college coach will typically lead this discussion as we go, and they're going to start off with kind of like an icebreaker. How's your spring? How's your summer? Of course, whenever the time is during this phone call is the fall, the winter, and you want to be prepared. Like, hey, how are things going? What are you doing? Right? Are you training? Are you in the middle of the season? Are you in the off season? What. What are you doing in the offseason? What have you been doing in the in season? How's the team? Talk about the team. Don't just talk about you individually. College coaches are looking for team guys not so individualized, all right? Talk about the team. And of course, if they ask you more specifically about you, it's perfectly okay to talk about yourself, but don't forget about your team, all right? Because ultimately, that's what really matters at the college level is that collectiveness and going after that championship. And that's how you build. You see it every year, right? Teams that might not be the most talented, but they win because they're collective, right? They're going one mission as we go. We see that every year. Okay? Next thing is, how's school going? They're going to ask about academics. They're going to maybe ask you about your transcript. You can have an unofficial transcript ready to go. So be ready to talk about your gpa. And if you're a good test taker and you're taking tests, talk about that as well. And they might be asking you, have you taken any advanced classes? Especially if we're talking high academic, what are you looking for in a school and athletic program? So they're going to ask you, typically, what are you looking for from that aspect of it, do you know what major you want to study? It's okay if you don't know exactly but you might want to have a general start thinking about it. I'm thinking about business. I'm thinking about, you know, whatever engineering or whatever communication, whatever it may be, you want to start thinking about this stuff. It's important. And then from an athletic program, what are you looking for? You know, you want to think about, hey, a program that. Where I can come in and compete right away and that's going to be a good fit and that has a good history. From a coaching staff that's been there a while. There's always. Sometimes coaches are leaving all the time. You want to look at the history of the coaching staff as well. Have they been there a while? Are they moving in and out all the time? All right. Are you talking to anyone else? As a college recruiter, I wanted to know who they're kind of talking to, what's going on, who's my competition as we go. And it's okay for you to let college coaches know who you're talking to? You can keep it general if you want to, or you can keep it. Be specific. So, coach. Yeah, I'm talking to a couple schools in this conference or in your conference here and. Or just very specifically what schools that you are talking to. That gives you more leverage, by the way too. So don't be shy about that. Alright. As far as who you're talking to. And then they might ask, just have your schedule ready to go. You know, not necessarily. Maybe on the call you could have it in front of you, but be ready to go, whether it's an unofficial transcript or your schedule. Because they might ask like, hey, we're going to come see you. We want to come see you play. We want to. The next kind of next step is to see you one more time in person and then maybe we'll get you in a college visit here, which is a big step as well. They also might have just seen you and they're confirmed they're ready to go and they're going to ask you for a visit. So you need to just be prepared for that and be excited about that. And real quick. So I get a lot of questions too, as far as schools that reach out to players, my guys and things like that, and just out there in general that they might not be interested in the athlete themselves. I always suggest engaging with those college coaches because you can always say no later. You don't necessarily need to shut a door right away when there's no reason necessarily to shut it. You could ultimately end up liking that coaching staff and eventually that school especially if you haven't done any research. Just because you haven't heard of the school name or anything doesn't mean it's a bad school or bad program. There's over 1600 college programs out there. So there's a lot out there and a lot of them are good and kind of under the radar, honestly. Of course, you hear about all the big time schools and things like that, but there are a lot of under radar. So schools as well. But that is, I believe, the last one. So that is the last one. And if you guys have any questions or what you would add to this, please let me know down in the comments and I'll see you in the next video. Good luck.