Turning College "Interests" Into "Offers"

Hey, team, Alex Swenson here. Hey, thanks for joining me today. I want to talk about how to take college interests and turn them into offers. Because ultimately, that's what we're trying to do, right? That's our end goal, to get offers so we can make the best decision possible to go on and play at the next level, get our education. Okay. I do this right. I do this for a living, to help student athletes and their family get to the next level. Because I know how rewarding it is, one, to get there. But also everything that you learn when you are a college athlete, not just on the field, but off the field, the friendships that you make, the experiences that you have. And yes, of course, playing baseball and playing as long as you possibly can, but there is so much that comes with it and so much that you can take throughout the rest of your life. Okay. Again, from those friendships and those experiences that you learn from and that you continue to grow as a person. And again, it's just not all about baseball. Trust me, I do this for a living. Baseball, I love baseball, but there's just. It's so much more than just baseball. And that's why I want to help you get those offers so you can make the best decision possible. And I talk to a lot of families, parents, and student athletes that are in my program and that sometimes feel that offers just fall from the sky. Right? And that's not the case because, you know, you see on Twitter all these kids, you know, across the country saying they got offers and commitments and things like that. I really try to focus on and tell my student athletes in my program, you got to keep blinders on. You got to focus on your personal recruiting program and follow the steps on what you're doing, and things are going to work out. Okay? But let's first dive in. Before we get into how to turn interest into offers, let's talk about what interest is. Hey, real quick. If you get anything from this video, please select like that, thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. I'd love to have you part of this community where I can help you get to that next level. I put out a weekly video on recruiting on how to improve your game on and off the field. But enough of that. Let's get into interest. And what does actual interest mean from a college coach? Okay. Interest means that they've seen you play or seen video, and frankly, for division ones, they've seen video of you because it's been over a year since they've been able to see you play. Okay? So I am very confident that this summer, the dead period will end and they'll be able to see you play this summer. June, July, August, September, in October. But D2s and D3s are able to go and watch. They haven't been in that period that long, but it's the spring right now, okay? And they're in their season, so they're going out as much in person right now. So recruiting video is just so important. You want to make sure that you have a good recruiting video to show you best attributes and that it's concise and that you're showing all the different angles and everything that you need to show them, depending on your position and that they want to see, okay? If you have any questions on the a recruiting video comment down below, I'd be happy to help you during that process because it's just so important right now. Or a college coach has gotten information from a trusted source, okay? Maybe that trusted source knows something about you, a little bit about you as your coach, and they reached out to the college coach and said, hey, this guy might interest you. He's super talented in this and this and this. And they put you on their board or they put you on the watch list. When you're on the board or on the watch list, that is interest from their eyes. Now, the thing is, this is the tricky part. You might not know that you're on their board, okay? But some of you will, okay? Because there's different levels of interest as far as in the recruiting process as we go, okay? Some might be on the lower level, some might be in the middle, and some might be high, okay? And how they have it on their board is like they might have a star by you. That's high interest, all right? High priority. Some might have a dash, and that's middle priority, and some might not have any dash, and you could be on that. And I've seen many guys, if you're on the board and watch this, that's a big deal, okay? And I've seen those guys that they're not so sure of move to the top of the ranks and eventually get offers, okay? So you might not actually know that you're on the watch list, but we're going to talk about that here in a little bit. But if coaches are communicating with you, then you're usually on the middle to high, okay? Because if you're not going to communicate, they need to come see you play a couple more times to make sure. Determine what they saw either on video is the real deal. So they can move forward with you. But there's different levels of communication. So there could be email, right? They send you an email. It could be a personal email. They could be inviting you to camp. You got to be careful with camps because they blast camp information out. But there might be some of them that are genuine interest that want you to come to camp. We can talk about that in another video. Then they might be texting you. That's very high level or a very high interest. Or they might be calling you or setting up a phone call, okay. Because depending on your year, they can't call you. You have to call them. That's another video. Okay. That we'll get into. But the call is the right below the offer. Okay? So let's talk a little bit and let's dive into the first one as far as taking interest to offers. The first one to taking interest to offers is be really, really good with your skillset at your particular position. For example, if you're a catcher, you need to be super, super good at receiving, alright? Because that's the first thing. If you can't catch, okay. And you can't receive, then you can't be a catcher. Then of course it goes into blocking, in throwing, pop time. We just need to be really, really good and efficient at that. And then the secondary skills with that. What if you're a good defensive catcher and you run well, that stands you out, okay? So that can be important right there. Just really trying to develop your skill sets for your particular position, okay? Then your secondary stuff that helps you stand out from the pack. So that might be a first baseman or third baseman that can really, really hit. Okay. But then also can run a little bit, okay? So that also helps stand you out from the back. Because I'm going to be honest with you, there's somebody comparable across the country that is very comparable to your skill set. But if you can stand out in a particular skill set, that can take you over that edge and that's where you can get those offers. Okay? Now if you're a pitcher, obviously, yes, coaches are looking for high velocities. But say you got a really good change up and you need to really have good command, okay? So you got good velocity that they're looking for. Depending on the level. Because depending on the level the velocity can change, okay. But you have really good command as well and you got to change them, okay? Not a lot of guys in high school have a good change of. Yeah, they might have a good breaking ball. You need to have a Break ball, throw it over for a strike. But. But there's just another skill that you can add to the list that helps stand you out. I hope that makes sense. So really work on your skill set for your particular position and then that secondary skill, let's improve those as well. All right? Hey, number two, are there any red flags? Are your grades not as good as they should be? Right. Are your SATs or test scores not as good as they should be? Depending on if you're looking at a high academic school, Right. And then off the field, do you have things going on that are red flags off the field? Because they will look into that. What about on the field? Do you have a bad reputation? Do you have a bad attitude? Do you talk back to your coaches? Are you not a good teammate? Are you a bad leader? Those things they look at, okay, they check off the marks as far as all of the athletics things, the measurables, right, the athleticism, the projectability. And then they're going to look on as far as, are there any red flags, okay, that they. That could hold you back from an offer. So you need to really lock into that and see and be honest with yourself and evaluate. Now, most of you guys are not going to have this, but some of you guys will. And you need to make sure that you are doing your best job and being intentional about correcting those things. All right? Don't have any red flags because that's just holding you back from offers. Number three, where do I fit in the recruiting class? It is perfectly okay to ask that to a coach. If you have had frequent communication with these coaches, if you're pretty far along the communication with this coach, it's okay to ask that. Okay? Now if you just started communication with this coach, probably not a good idea because this coach wants to get to know you more, wants to talk about your academics, and again, wants to get to know you more on and off the baseball field. So don't just jump right into that, but perfectly okay to ask to get some honest feedback of where you're at. And these coaches, for the most part will be straight up with you. They might tell you, hey, we want to come see you play one more time. We're going to come see you and then ultimately make a decision or we're going to talk amongst the coaching staff here or hey, we might. We want to see you clean up something in particular with your game. And that's great feedback right there too. So it's constructive that you can go improve on. I just helped a guy recently one school told him, hey, he wants to clean up a little bit more on his arm path to see some improvement with his arm action. Boom, he did that, improved and they got an offer from that. So some of that constructive feedback is great because it can give you a target to what to work on. Okay? So perfectly okay to ask that again if you're farther along in your communication. Let's get to number four. Number four, understand where these schools are at with your position. So what I'm talking about is if you're a right handed pitcher and the schools that you're talking with are only bringing on one, two or three right handed pitchers, well then that's kind of hurting your odds versus a school that's bringing on three, four, five, six right handed pitchers. You want to go after schools like that because that's going to help your odds of getting an offer. So understand where these schools are in need of for your position, what their numbers are. You can look at their rosters, you can look at their recruits and who they're recruiting. It's hard for you to understand like who they're actually recruiting. You actually won't know that but, but who they've signed in the past is important as well. Okay? So look at their rosters and have an idea of what they're in need of. I hope that makes sense. Number five, focus on lower levels. So if you've been talking to a school at a higher level and nothing's really happening, focus on some schools that are lower level to get some offers going. Once offers start coming out, that hey, this guy Johnny has one or two or three offers from this school validates you more and schools can move on you quicker. Okay? So don't exclude lower level schools. Actually focus on lower level schools and work your way up. Please do that guys, because that can help so much. Because again, it validates you more. Hey, last one. Go to a camp or visit campus. If you're talking with a school and a coach and it's gone on for a little while and you feel like you're close to an offer, go to a camp or, or go visit or do both, okay? That way you can get interaction, face to face interaction with that coach and with that coaching staff. They can get to know your personality. You can have a heck of a day, right? You can show them your skill sets, what you've been improving and that can really lead to an offer. I can't tell you how many times I did it when I was a coach and I've seen it is guys go to a camp, they do really well. They interact with the coaches. The coaches really likes the kid, not only as a ball player, but the kid itself. Okay? That can make offers happen really quickly. I can make offers happen right at camps. Okay. Right after camp. It usually happens right after camp. They hold you back and they want to talk to you and show you around campus. They bring you to the head coach's office and they offer you there. Okay? So those are the top six that are going to take interest, okay, into offers. Okay. Not in any particular order there, but look over that. See where you can improve and where you can help turn your interest into offers. Guys, if you have any questions at all, please let me know. Go on and comment down below. I'll leave my email in the description as well. You can reach out to me there. But hey, please like this video and subscribe and I'll see you in the next one.