Alex Swenson, a former college coach and recruiter, walks through five steps to find your college fit as an athlete: list your priorities across academics, athletics, location, and finances; get honest feedback on your athletic and academic level; research all program types from D1 to JUCO; imagine yourself at each school without playing; and contact coaches with film and grades.
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If something were to happen and you couldn't play baseball anymore, would you be happy at that school? What's up, team? Alex here. Thanks for joining me. And in today's video, we're going to be talking about how to find the best college for you going through this recruiting process. And if you follow me at all, you've heard me say that this is one of the top decisions of your life. Of course, in my opinion, right behind the person you decide to spend the rest of your life. And if you're new to this channel, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm a former college coach and recruiter and I'm here to help you go through this recruiting process each and every week. So if you get anything from this video, please smash that, like, button that thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. Again, I put out a weekly video. But before we get into today's topic, I have a trivia for you. And that is who invented baseball? One more time, Inventory. Who invented baseball? Was it Wilson Smith, Babe Ruth or Abner Doubleday? What do you think? And the answer is Abner Doubleday. Hopefully you got that answer or you at least learned something today. All right, let's get into today's topic. Being a student athlete in high school and aspiring to be a student athlete in college. There is a lot to consider going through this process and you're going to want to think and write this out. Okay? That is number one, is think about this. Put your phone away and write down so you can articulate your thoughts. And some things that you're going to want to write down and consider going through this process is academics, of course, gpa, test scores. Hey, are you looking to go at a high academic Ivy or you go in middle range? Your field of study, your majors, what are you interested? Art? Do you even know? It's okay if you don't know. By the way, that's perfectly fine. You don't have to have it all figured out right now, of course. Athletically, what are you looking for? Athletically, what's going to be best for you? Athletically, what about geographically, area? Do you want to stay local? Do you mind going out as far as around the region or do you mind even just going across the country, whether it's east coast or West Coast? So think about that. Financials, talk to your parents. Are they going to be paying for this? Are you going to be paying for this? There's all these things that you're going to want to consider socially. What type of campus environment do you Want to be in. Do you want to be in a city? Do you want to be out in the country? Okay, think about this stuff. This is. And again, write it down. What do you want? Because everybody's going to be a little bit different. Number two is take an objective look at yourself athletically and academically. Where do you stand? Where can you improve? Where do you need to improve? Have a coach help you with this, too. Hey, your high school coach, your summer coach, your trainer that you're working with, give an honest assessment of where you stand. And it's not all about metrics, guys, as well. That's just one piece of the puzzle as far as arm strength, 60 hitting, as far as exit velocity and average and batting average and power and all of that. But it's also actions. You know, how athletic are you? Where can you improve in certain areas? Maybe your foot speed, your coordination, or also maybe it's physicality. Do you need to improve in the weight room? Do you need to get stronger? Take a look at that and see where you need to improve. Have you taken a look at the schools that you might be interested in at certain universities? What are those guys doing? Where are those guys out and see, hey, where do you need to get to? Up to this point, we've looked at ourselves. We thought about what we think we want. We've written it down. Number two is we've taken an objective look at ourselves. And real quick to rewind. Going back to number one, just make sure that you don't think or go in the mindset of, like, you have to have it all figured out. Think broadly right now, because a lot of people can. I did this in the past. I've done this in the past is, you know, I think I got to have it all figured out. I got to know exactly what I want and I can get stuck. People can get stuck thinking that way. Whereas, think broad, think of just interests, right? And then as you go through this process, that's going to narrow down and you're going to kind of figure this out through time. So just get to writing, get to thinking of what interests you from like a major standpoint, a field of study standpoint. So number three, let's get into number three. Now we start looking outward and start doing our research on schools. So there's over 1400 baseball programs in the country. There are a lot of programs and universities and colleges, okay? And doing our research is a big part of this. And finding schools that really, it comes into what we are interested from number one. And then where we fit athletically and academically. But there's a lot of schools from Division 1, Division 2, Division 3, NAIA and JUCO. And all of these programs are amazing. They're awesome. Okay. D1 gets all the limelight and that's great and all. And I think there's too much mindset of D1 or bust, which I just don't agree with at all. D2 and D3, Nai and Juco are fantastic. Junior college is a great option for a lot of guys. Okay? And junior college is two years, and then you can transfer after that and go to either division, 3, 2, etc. From there. But it's a really good option because it can give you a chance to work on developing your skills, academics if you need to. But it's a really good option. You should look at all of these again, see what best fits you. Not all of them are going to be a good fit for you, and that's okay. That's why we're doing this. But doing your research on these schools, divisions in AI and juco, number four is really two things. I'm going to call it 4A and 4B. But while you're doing this research, think about this question. If something were to happen and you couldn't play baseball anymore, would you be happy at that school? And if the answer is no, it's probably not a good fit. So think about that. And 4B is be organized. Going through this process, there's nothing worse, at least for me, of doing all this work and then it's not organized. And you almost got to redo all of the work because things are everywhere. You didn't put it on your phone. You didn't put in your notes or Excel sheet or a Word document. So be organized with your research and categorize school. Categorize schools of some of your top options and maybe your B options and your C options or your reach schools, your target schools, your safe schools. Organize this so you can go back to your notes or a Word document again or Excel sheet and see and take a look at that, Add to it, take out, update it as you go. Number five is short and sweet, but super, super important. And that is contacting these coaches and getting experience, exposure to them. These college coaches are going to want to see you play. They're going to want to see your actions, they're going to want to see your physicality, they're going to want to see your metrics, all the pieces to the puzzle that they're looking for. They're going to want to see your grades. Eventually they're going to see and want to know you and your character and etc. From there. So contacting and getting exposure so you they need to know about you need to see you play before they can recruit you. So hopefully you got something from this video hope something you can take away that helps you find your best college fit. And I hope to see you in the next video. Take care.
