What to Expect on a College Visit (For Athletes)

Hey, how you doing? Alex here. Thanks for joining me. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about what to expect on a college visit, which is a very exciting time. This is a big step ultimately to the goal to getting an offer and committing to a school. And a little quick overview. What we're going to be talking about is the type of visit. What does a college visit exactly mean for a student athlete? What to expect, of course, should parents go or should they not go? What questions you should be asking or at least considering while you're there, and what should I wear? So a lot of my athletes that I work with right now are going on college visits, and I figured that this would be good because there's a lot of questions for this for people that are out there that don't necessarily work with me. And if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm a former Division I college coach, scout and recruiter. Now, what I do is help high school baseball athletes and their parents navigate this college recruiting process. And right now we are in a busy time of recruiting. Busy time for college visits. Now that college coaches are on their campus, the student body's back on camp. It's very lively. It's a great time to visit schools. And as a recruiter and as a coach, you want to bring athletes in during this time because it's very attractive to see possibly their future school. So let's talk a little bit about, like, all right, hey, well, how do we even get to this point of a college visit? Okay, well, the first thing is they have to. To know about you. There's a lot of different ways that they can get to know about you. There's really seven to eight steps that I've gone over on my channel. Make sure you subscribe and like, if you're interested in this. But they get to know you, all right, they maybe watch some video of you and they get to hear about you from coaches or people like me. And then they come watch you play. They might watch you 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times, and they might be communicating with you. And then ultimately they want you to come visit their campus. Now, there's type of. There's unofficial visits and then there's official visits. I'm not going to go into detail of those right now. But think of unofficial visit is a coach does invite you, but you are basically paying your way. An official visit. Official visit. The coach in the university of the baseball program or whatever program it is. From an athletic standpoint they're paying your way, they're paying for your travel, they're paying for your food, they're paying for everything. So you don't have to worry about it. Don't get caught up in whether it's unofficial or an official visit right now, because both are a really, really good sign. And a lot of guys start off with an unofficial visit, especially when we're talking about D1, D2 and D3 schools. So the coach really likes what he sees, and then he invites you to visit the school where they will lead, the coaches will lead. There will be sometimes just one coach or there'll be multiple coaches. When I was at Ole Miss, in Georgetown, in Jacksonville, we would like to have a number of coaches there so we can talk to the parents, we can talk to the athletes. And you're getting different points of view from the coaches, but sometimes it's just one. I've done visits before where it's just me as well as the coach showing around the student athlete and the parents, which I'm answering the question, should parents go? Yes, absolutely. Parents should go. Parents are almost expected to go that way. You can see this is a big decision for your family. It's obviously not just the student athlete and the player making that decision, but as a family, you want to make sure it's a good fit, all realms, geographically, culturally, financially, all those things. And you'll be able to get a feel of the coaching staff, too, because it's got to be a fit there as well. So the coaches will lead this. All right. And typically, you arrive at a certain time, they will let you know where the time and the place. Usually it's at the baseball office, it's at the baseball field and. Or at a certain location at a certain time. And you're going to go and they're going to show you around campus. This is the majority. Everybody has a little bit different, but this is in general what a college visit looks like. So you'll come in and you guys will talk. You know, honestly, they're going to say that they're excited to see you. Glad you're going to hear how the last couple weeks been, all this. And then we will take you on a visit around campus. Some might start with the baseball facility, some might start with the campus, but they're going to hit everything. And they'll hit. We would, you know, at Ole Miss, we would go around the football stadium and show everything to the school, type of schools and majors and where. Where the student body really hangs out and is Popular to the Grove and then Georgetown, we would do the same thing, would show what it would be like as a student at the university. Okay, we'd go into classrooms and hey, hey, if you're interested in business or if you're interested in this major, you'd go to that certain area. This is like, we're trying to give you a visual of what it's going to be like now, the day in life where it goes to the cafeteria and then we're going to take you to dorms. You'll get to see the dorms and where you're going to live, and we're going to take you to the very best ones. So another thing is, when you're on this visit, hopefully this takes some weight off you. They are recruiting you. This means they really, really like you. College coaches don't just ask anybody to come on a visit. Their time is very valuable. So when they ask you to come for a visit, this is a really, really good sign. They are pretty much saying that they are highly, highly, highly interested in you and they're trying to recruit you to come to their school. So take some weight off and this is a good sign. They really, really like you. Okay? So I want you to take. It's not going to be like a stringent interview. Now. You want to present yourself well and all of that, but this is a really good sign of that. They like you anyway, so they're going to show you around. So again, campus, school rooms, dorms, and they're going to take you to the baseball facility. Should see the locker room. You're going to see the field, you're going to see everything from that side. You're going to see equipment, all of that. They're going to see team meeting rooms. If you have a meeting room. How is the day in the life of a student athlete? So this goes into what questions you should be asking is, hey, because they're going to ask you, you got to have any questions, anything. If it's like, hey, yeah, what's the day in life of a student athlete in the program in the fall? Because it's going to look different in the fall than it will in the spring. Because in the fall you're not going to really have any games. You might have a couple games, but it's nothing like the spring. What's the difference there? What about wintertime? What is the day in the life of an athlete during the wintertime and on break? How do you guys structure that? How do you structure summer? Do you structure summer ball and all of that. Do you place us in summer ball? And then you can ask academically, is there academic support here for any areas that I might need help with? Basically, you're looking for support and things like that to give you a picture of what it looks like and the support that you have. Also you want to maybe talk about, is there any type of conditioning and physical tests? Usually there is. It can kind of give you just a sense of, all right, alright, what do I need to prepare for? Especially if you commit to this school. Because a lot of like at Ju, we had to run a mile under six minutes right when we showed up. And if you didn't, you weren't practicing, you weren't playing until you did. And Ole miss, it was two miles under, I think 13 minutes. And so. And that might have changed actually, but we're right around there. Like, you gotta be moving, you gotta be moving, you gotta be conditioned. And then there's all these. There's the Omaha Challenge at Ole Miss. The. That is really competitive on that side of things. And then any personal questions that you feel like in the sense of. To make you feel comfortable and to make sure that you're walking in and getting into a program that is going to be a good fit for you. Because you want to avoid the transfer portal. Okay, the transfer portal is happening a lot right now, but you want to make sure that you're doing your due diligence to avoid the transfer portal because it's such an interrupter. Right? If you get in the transfer portal your sophomore year, you're interrupting your college experience where a brotherhood that you might just have developed with the guys. Now you're transferring and going to a new school and you have to redevelop all of those brotherhoods and you don't have that much time. So we want to make sure this is a big decision, that coaching staff, the environment is there and you definitely want to get on these college visits. What should I wear? Just be presentable. You don't have to go, you know, all out, tie and suit and everything. But just be presentable. Like sometimes short khakis and a polo tucked in, Just be presentable. And if it's not tucked in, that's fine too, but you don't have to go crazy. But again, just be presentable. Make sure you're looking these college coaches in the eye. Make sure you're shaking their hands. And when you're shaking their hands, you're looking them in the eye. Make sure you're thanking them for. For their interest in you because this visit is that they are very interested in you as we go. But that's some things that what to expect going forward and parents, yeah, absolutely. Again you should definitely go from this side and it usually would be a half day. Sometimes it's a full day if it's an official visit where they'll have breakfast with you and then show you around the campus and then they're going to have lunch with you and then you're going to watch a practice and then you're going to do something else maybe after practice you're going to stay stay the night with a player. That's an official visit. So there's things like that that you can take a look at. But if you have any questions please comment down below. And if you want to see anything, any topics that you want me to cover, please comment down below and we'll go from there. Have a great day.