When should you start the college recruiting process?

One of the top three questions I receive about recruiting from parents or athletes is when should I start the recruiting process to get the ball rolling and to make sure that we're not behind, if you will. We don't want to be behind the eight ball. So we're going to be talking about a timeline perspective because there's two things that we are fighting in this recruiting process. One is time. There's only so much time you or your son is in high school and in the window of, of recruiting and number two roster spots available, there's only so many guys. These college coaches, these teams are bringing in guys. There's only so many roster spots. So you want to make sure that you're getting on the radar of these college coaches sooner than later, because if it's too late, they could be full at that point. And if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm a former Division I college coach, scout and recruiter with 11 years of experience. And now what I do is help high school baseball players and their parents navigate this college recruiting process and put them in the best possible position to play at the next level. I help them with the exposure process of getting noticed, getting seen, getting on the radars of these college coaches, the communication in this new landscape of recruiting to finding schools that are recruiting their position. Because not every school is in need of every position each year and actually have my program opening up here pretty soon. I'm going to put my website down right here and if you learned anything, please go on and subscribe to my YouTube channel or visit my website if you're interested in more personal help. Because I'm going to have some spots open here pretty soon as we're ramping up in this recruiting process. If you have any questions, please comment down below. So let's go on and start with freshman year. Freshman year is typically for 95% of high school athletes, a little too early to start the recruiting process. As far as the recruiting process, in the sense of, hey, reaching out to college coaches and things like that, you really just want to focus on skill development, weight training, academics, of course, mental strength, because you're going to hit some adversity going through this high school and baseball just in general, it's a game of failure. And just get acclimated with your high school and your high school team and what your high school coach needs from you and provide that to the team and the coach going through. All right. It's very rare unless you're just an elite of the elite, like throwing super hard and hitting home runs freshman year that. Yeah, you know, some of these bigger schools in the SEC ACC might want to get eyes on you to learn more about you because they will start watching you. These college coaches watch the athletes not just once. They don't just watch one player once and then start moving on them. Right. And then offer them. No, they're going to watch the athlete several times. I've seen it up to eight to 10 times from an athlete there going through this recruiting process. Not typically that much, but there's instances where that's been the case. Now we move to sophomore year. Sophomore year is when I recommend definitely get the ball rolling because most college coaches, specifically at the Division 1 level, they're going to start watching players, getting to know the players more. And hey, there's limitations on what they can do and say. Right. They can't offer you until August 1st at the end of your sophomore year, but they can come watch you play. They can look at video, they can see certain aspects of what you are doing academically, transcript wise. They can communicate with you at their camps and showcases. So there's like some gray area up there. They just can't offer you until that August 1st date after your sophomore year. Okay, so getting on the Raiders and these college coaches having a good target school as while also focusing on your skill development, your weight training, your academics, your mental strength. But hey, you need to start looking and considering schools and having a strategic plan to go after those schools to be proactive. All right. By junior year, we want to be well on the way through this recruiting process as far as having a good stable school list, starting to narrow down those schools, understanding where we fit athletically, academically, maybe geographically where we are looking. We should have been reaching out to these college coaches. We should have been in front of some college coaches, at least at this time frame. And this is when things get really, really hot, like as far as going through this. And it's better to get on the radar of these college coaches, you know, a little bit earlier as we go so they're ready to see you and watch your progression as we go. So junior year is hot. Senior year would be definitely considered super late through this. And most Division 1 schools will be done with seniors, if you will, at that time. They usually Division 1 schools wrap up or start bringing on guys, depending on the level. So there's power, force, conferences, SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12. They'll start on that August 1st date of signing guys and work all the Way through junior year. And of course, you know that August 1st date, there's a misconception a lot of people like, hey, I'm going to get the ball rolling then. Well, if they're offering you on that August 1, they have seen you a few times before that. That's why that sophomore year is important, to get the ball rolling. And then as they go through junior year, they start wrapping up all their roster spots in their class, depending on what their needs and positional needs are through that. And then senior year, the division ones, are they all done? No, not necessarily all, but a lot of them are done at that point. And then some of them that start D2s, D3 jucos nai can start, you know, junior year for sure. But they work into that as senior year as well of going through this. So that's kind of the timeline perspective of when you want to get going. That window is that sophomore, junior year through that, you definitely don't want to get started senior year. So don't wait till senior year going through that. And understand just the foundation of the college recruiting process is your skill development, working on your skills specifically at your position. I get a lot of questions. Should, is it okay to be a multi sport athlete? Yes, absolutely. Take some break from baseball for sure. Okay. You need a little bit of a break and coaches love multi sport athletes. And that said, if you are all in on baseball, that's great too. Just make sure that you are taking some breaks here specifically to rest your arm. So skill development and then weight training. Physicality is just so important, being physical. You watch these guys on TV at the Division 1 level, D2 level, D3 level. These guys are super physical. All right. And they're a little bit older. So we need to be super physical. Then of course, academics, making sure that we're in a good position. We never want to be in a position where it's, it's going to stop us getting the next level where our academics are not where we're where we want to be or the college coaches and the schools is not where they want it to be or need it to be. And then for mental toughness, you know, just day in and day out we see guys that really struggle with this and honestly don't. Just don't make it because they haven't learned how to be mentally strong through all the adversity, all the failures and that come at the next level. You usually see this a lot with some of the top athletes that never saw failure. Right. Really good athletes in high school that were, like, the best, but when you get to college level, everybody's just as good as you or better going through that. All right? So when in doubt, get the ball rolling. Freshman year, don't be so worried about that. But when you're finishing up, graduate freshman year. Hey, let's get the ball rolling. If you have any questions, let me know. Take care of.