What's a post-grad year? Plus why it involves recruiting

What's up team? Alex Swenson here. Hey, thanks for joining me today. I'm A former Division 1 baseball coach and recruiter with 11 years of experience and I'm here to help you play at the next level. And in today's video we're going to be talking about the post grad year, AKA the gap year, whatever you want to call that. And what exactly is that? Eligibility standards that we need to make sure that we are up to par with the pros, the cons, all of that aspect so you can determine whether you want to put it on the table as far as consider it or you don't. So this is up to you. Make sure you do your research. This is a big deal and a big decision and if you're going to decide to do this, you want to make sure that you are making the right decision. So we're going to get into this. It might make sense for some players and student athletes to do this and it might not make sense for you to do it. And why I bring this up. I actually did a video about this last week, but I've had a lot of parents and student athletes I've gotten on the phone with really the last month or two about this and questions about the post grad year and why is it coming up? Because there is a bottleneck to get into college baseball with the NCAA rules, with the new transfer rule, the new one time transfer rule, which again I did a video on where players, student athletes in college can transfer from university to another university without penalty and another year of eligibility for those student athletes in college. Whereas there's just not as many roster openings and spots at the next level. So that is why a post grad year has been brought up. And let's see if it's going to make sense for you. So let's get into that. If you get anything from this video, please select that like button that thumbs up and subscribe. I put out a weekly video on recruiting and just how to get better on and off the field. Alright, let's get into it. Think of the post grad year as a year in between high school graduation and starting college. And the year is important because according to NCAA's you have one year to figure everything out for the reasons that you took a post grad year or a gap year to start college to be enrolled in a college. And if you take longer than a year, your eligibility clock starts and that is a big deal. We do not want that to happen. One of the major reasons why we're taking a post grad year is. So our eligibility clock does not start and I'm going to get into that here a minute. But that is a post grad year. Now let's get into what you can do during that year. The way I look at it is you have three options to pursue your post grad year. The first one is you can go to an academy. And one of the most popular academies in the country for post grad student athletes is the ING Academy in Florida. The second option is you can go to a prep school that focuses on post grads. And the third option, really the last option in my eyes of what I look at is it can be self guided. Now what can you be doing? What is allowed during this post grad year? Well, you should be focusing on your athletics. You can focus on your athletics. You can train. If you go to academy or a prep school, you can actually play games and you can actually play against other colleges, meaning junior colleges or D3 programs, even sometimes D2 programs. Now you cannot play for those programs or your eligibility class starts as you go, but you can play games and that is a big positive. You need to be training, right? This is one thing that you need to be doing is getting better is one probably reason why you took a post grad year. You can also focus on your academics. You could retake the ACT or the sat. You can actually take college courses. You can take up to nine credits per semester. You have to basically be a part time student in college. You can do that. Now you, if you take 12 credits or more, that is a full time student and your eligibility clock would start again. We do not want to do that. And that's again one reason why we are taking a post grad year. So we don't have our eligibility clock start. So those are the things that you can be doing. Basically it's training, playing games. Focus on your athletics, improving your game, focus on your academics, improve your academics. If you need to actually take college courses if you need to so they can transfer into the college that you go to, that is what you can be doing. All right. Hey, let's look into and let's get into the positives and negatives of a postgrad year. We're going to start with the negatives. And the first one I want to go over is it breaks up the natural flow from high school to college. You're intentionally breaking that up. And there's something about going from high school into college. There's an excitement about it, right? I think most student athletes look forward to going to college. Well, you're taking a year off and yes, you can take college courses at a junior college or maybe even online, but you're not getting that college experience. So that's a negative in my eyes. Okay, it might not be a negative for you. And these are my opinions as I go through this. The second one is it's money. If you decide to go to an academy or a prep school, it is money money. And a lot of these academies are a lot of money. Almost like a college tuition. Now self guided, I'm sure there. It's definitely lower than going to an academy or a prep school. But you're going to be training. You should be getting coaches and personal trainers and specific coaches to help you with your position and retaking the test. And if you're taking college courses, it's going to take. It's going to cost money. Okay. In addition to the college that you're going to go to for the next four or five years after that. So just think of that aspect of it. And the last one I would say is there is no guarantee that you're going to be recruited and play for a college team after taking a gap year. There's just no guarantee. And I definitely want to give you caution as you make this decision on your own. If you're thinking about doing this is if you are not getting any interest from junior colleges, NAIA, Division 3, Division 2, Division 1, you're not getting any interest. It might not be a good idea for you to take a gap year because there's gotta be a big improvement for you to get interest in this next year, if that makes sense. Okay. I just want to be real with you. I want you to be realistic about your own ability and realistic with your recruiting process. So if you are, and this is one thing, if you are just looking at division ones and power fives guys, you need to expand your list from lower Division ones to D2s, D3s, NAIA schools, junior colleges. Expand your list to see what your interest is, see what coaches are saying about you. Get evaluations from these coaches. Go to showcases and camps. Especially if you're 20, 22 right now or junior or going into your senior year or, or you are a senior, a lot of the division ones are done, okay. And D2s and D3s. There's definitely a lot out there that are recruiting and NAI schools. But you need to be realistic with what you're doing. And if you're not getting any interest at all and no high school Coach has really said to you or told you like, yeah, you definitely can play at the next level. You haven't got a true evaluation. I don't know if a post grad year is going to exactly help you. Okay? So I want to be honest with it now. Let's get into the positives of taking a post grad year. Now. The positives, and we're going to flip it right here, say that you are a super good athlete and you have gotten some interest or you truly feel that you definitely can play at the next level and you just haven't done your due diligence in the recruiting process to help your exposure and find a good college fit. Well, a post grad year gives you another year to be recruited, all right? And it gives you another year to work on. This is another positive. Work on your athletic ability, work on your strength and conditioning, work on your academics just to help your profile as a player and student athlete. It helps you get just a full year. And again on the other side of the con, the positive side, a lot can happen in a year, okay? I do want you to be realistic. That is very important to me. But if you are in a fringe and you've gotten a little bit of interest from schools or hey, you do have certain measurables that match certain schools from a Division 3, Division 2 or Division 1 aspect. But again, that bottleneck has been really tough on you this year and schools are like, hey, we just don't have any more spots. We're interested, but we just don't have any more spots. A post grad year might be a good option for you and you can get ahead of taking some college credits if you want or retake an ACT or ACT course to help improve your test scores. And I know not a lot of schools are taking those stores, but it does help if you have that and you do a good job on those scores. It can also help with your GPA if you need to take an extra year as far as helping take college course and you do a good job. That helps a lot with admissions in these college coaches. And another aspect of it, it just helps you mentally. I, I think you maturing another year can help and be a positive. So from an athletic academic, a physical side and a mental side, it gives you another year to improve, which is a big, big positive. But that said, you gotta have good self awareness and awareness of the situation at hand. What have you done in the recruiting process? If you've been super proactive, if you have been reaching out to schools you've been really exposed. You've sent out your recruiting video. You've. You've talked to these college coaches and you just haven't got anything back. Might not be a good idea for you. You might just want to go to college and be a student there. Now, if you have done, or maybe you haven't done any of that and you do have certain tools and coaches have told you you have certain tools, it might be a good idea to get everything checked in line and go through this recruiting process. That is what I got for you today. Hopefully you learned something here. And if you have any questions, please ask below in the comment section or email me. If you and I would be happy to answer this for you. I hope you got something from it, and I'll see you in the next video. Take care.