Choosing the right junior college or prep school

So junior colleges and prep schools are great options. The issue is you can run into a lot of things that can cause those great options to become terrible decisions that completely crush your chances of continuing your college football career. So I want to talk about how to avoid those some things I've learned in my journey, and hopefully that way you can apply them to yours and make sure you don't make the same mistakes. And so my name is Trent Ware. I'm a former college quarterback. I run your first scholarship, where we help families get their first scholarship and more. And so the biggest thing it comes when going junior college route or the prep school route is making sure to pick the right one. And this is definitely not something that people overlook. It's just there's such little information out there about junior colleges and prep schools and which ones exactly are aligned with what. What the difference is between each one, and exactly how that can even impact your recruiting in the first place. I think it's such a important that just, honestly, most people just don't have the information at hand to do it. They see a couple things on Twitter or Instagram and they talk to those coaches. But of course, the coaches that are trying to recruit you there have their own bias, and the coaches that maybe talk to you at other schools have their own bias. So it's hard to separate that and process the information and make the best decision for you. Let's go into it. I know the junior college process very well. I will say the prep school one. I am still learning. I think it's a very interesting route. The biggest thing is, again, like, I talk to a lot of people. I will say the significant majority of people that go to prep schools that I've talked to, and probably it's a little bit biased because the people that go to good prep schools probably don't need help with recruiting as much. But the people that went to these bad. I've talked to a lot of. A lot of them that have just dealt with horrible situations, and I've had friends that have gone through some bad situations. And so I think the biggest thing is like, making sure that, um, as far as prep schools go, probably talk to players that have gone through that prep school or. Or just have some more background on it, because it just seems like most of the time, most people aren't happy at the prep school and they just kind of push through it because they don't really have much of an option once it gets to, you know, August, September. But if you can talk to people that have gone through it, former players, et cetera, you'll get a good feel for it. Now, the reason why it's so important is because the. From the horror stories I've heard, as you start getting into big issues of, you know, maybe you don't even have any film, maybe you don't even have any film worth sending, maybe you're playing really bad. Competition facilities are horrible, the coaches are bad. All these things can cause big issues in terms of just the playing ability on the field, as well as, you know your chances of getting recruited. And so you want to make sure that that is all maximized as much as possible. Of course, you can only control as much as you control, but ideally pick it right in the draft so that way you don't have to fix it later. Now let's go to the junior college, because I know that a little better. I'll talk about that more. And you can apply some of this to the prep school stuff. Now, I'm not going to get super in depth on JUCO stuff because it can get very granular. But basically you have to understand there are two separate associations of junior college. So there's a 3C 2A, which is California, and then it's NJCA, which is basically everybody else. And so with that being said, NJCAA being more national, that is where like Independence is, Eastern East Mississippi, Iowa, Western Iowa Central, all those schools. So you have a lot of talented schools that are all around there. They all have generally pretty big rosters as well. And the thing that you run into is there's just a lot of talent overall. And so it becomes this issue. And it's the same thing with the 3C 2A. The 3C 2A breakdown is essentially that there are two separate divisions in the 3C 2 way. It's not very clear, but essentially there's the national division, which is the top schools, the American division, which is the bottom schools. And so there's little conferences within those. And it's also separated by Northern California and Southern California. And the only time a SoCal school will play in NorCal school is within the playoffs. Generally. That's a little bit of a breakdown there. And not to get too much bogged down into the details, but what you have to understand is that, you know, what do you choose? Do you go to a good school that they constantly produce good talent and that you'll be competing against good players, or do you go to a bad school? Or I won't say bad school, but a worser school where you have more of an opportunity to play that, that becomes a little bit of a situation that is more personal to you, I will say. And again, you have to realize that risk is essentially pretty low when it comes to junior college because it is of my belief of what I've seen and what I've experienced and also the people I've worked with that generally, if you're. If you're a relatively good player and you're getting solid practice film at the bare minimum and just a little bit of game film, you should be able to go division too. And this is under those guidelines of, like, you're a relative solid player, your measurables are relatively solid, and you get at least a little bit game feel, I'm talking a minute. And then you at least have some practice on the supplement a little bit more. And so the risk of going junior college and going to a bad school, you should be able to still pull it out. And that's also on the side of, like, if you go to a good school and you don't really play a ton, you should be able to get somewhere. And so really, to me, like, you probably should, if anything, push yourself more that, you know, hey, if you feel like you're a middle juco starter kind of guy, I could give examples to schools, but it's not really relevant. It would make a little bit more sense to push yourself and maybe go to a little higher level because at least you'll continue to be around really good players. You'll push yourself, you'll be competitive, because you have to realize that the really bad jucos, they're bad for a reason. There's something going on there, whether it's culture wise, whether it's coaching staff wise, and oftentimes there's just a lot of issues around that. And you can fall into a very bad situation very quick. You may say, like, oh, what? What could happen? I've seen things with schools that programs fold in a year, programs forfeit the rest of the season because of ridiculous things, and the last thing you want to do is fall into one of those situations. So generally, you want to make sure that at least the program is stable from, you know, a full core standpoint, but also want to make sure that you're putting yourself in a position where you'll be pushed, you'll be having competition against good players daily. So really, with that being said, it does depend on your situation, where you're at, what your talent level is, but I would generally say it makes more sense to go to better junior college programs that you know, are relatively stronger and have a better background because you're going to be pushed at those programs as well as coaches are circulating around there. And even if you aren't starting, there's a good chance that you could still get recruited regardless. So that's pretty much all I'll say on that. Again, I could get more granular, but I won't, I won't bore you guys with that. So hopefully you got something from this. If you like this, if you got something from it, like, and subscribe and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.