From sending college coaches emails between homework assignments after school to parents recording hours of game footage on weekends, the college recruiting process takes a lot. As a young adult balancing the dynamics and academics of high school, student-athletes essentially start a campaign, selling their skills and themselves as early as their first year of high school.
While students who are not pursuing athletics look at the commitment posts from athletes on Instagram and envy the security of knowing where the next four years will be spent, the process is stressful and hard work, just like the normal college process. Sophomore volleyball player Megan Harrison said her recruiting process was a grind.
“People think that [the college recruiting process is] a lot easier than it actually is,” Harrison said. “It’s actually super competitive. … It’s a bunch of emailing and you have to get video. … I made all the highlight reels myself. … I kept all my emails straight. … If you really want to get where you want to go, you’ve got to put in the work and start planning early.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, starting early allows time for error — what originally sounded appealing at 14 years old may no longer be what the student wants as a senior in high school. For sophomore rower Violet Morgan, this was the case.
“It was really helpful to start early. … I kind of had an idea of where I wanted to go and then after going on my [official visits], I realized that that really wasn’t what I wanted. Then I was left scrambling and kind of wished I’d started the process earlier,” Morgan said.
Kids, especially those looking to play sports at a college level, need to work on the entire package from a young age. They have to do everything right athletic performance-wise while maintaining the grades to be admitted into their college of choice. Once they’re admitted, it doesn’t get any easier. At most NESCAC schools, the support can be minimal, as academics are emphasized as the first priority while sports come second. Admission is not guaranteed, considering that when athletes commit to a Div. III school, they are encouraged to use the verbiage “committing to the admissions process” rather than simply announcing their commitment to the school as if they have already been accepted. Morgan said that in her process, admission was specifically impacted by her choice to apply in the early decision round.
“It was really important for me to tell them whether or not I was going to do early decision,” Morgan said. “If I didn’t do early decision, I probably wasn’t going to get in. … [Director of Rowing Noel Wanner] was really honest. He told me, ‘You probably have the best chance if we support you in ED1, but we can’t promise that support for you if you decide to wait.’ … Knowing what schools are your top choices by the time the process rolls around is really helpful.”
While a lot of the recruiting for nonlocal students takes place online, the pandemic gave athletes who wanted to get recruited no choice but to become tech savvy. Many high school students took to Twitter, Instagram and Youtube to showcase themselves virtually. Incoming first-year softball player Lucy Brucker went through high school and the recruiting process in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, visiting campuses during COVID-19 did not necessarily display the best that colleges had to offer. A typically vibrant campus life instead resembled something more similar to a ghost town. Brucker said Tufts was unique in her process, since she was interested early and visited early.
“I think it was harder to make a decision because when we went to [campuses], there wasn’t really anyone there,” Brucker said. “So I was lucky with Tufts because … I went early. I went my sophomore year before [COVID-19], so I think that’s part of the reason why I chose it too because I actually felt like I knew what the campus was like.”
First-year field hockey player Rachel Hart worked around the 2020–21 academic year COVID-19 protocols by taking an extra year at a boarding school. While obviously advantageous to avoid an isolated first-year experience, taking an extra year at boarding school — as several New England college athletes do — has other benefits.
“Not only did I have an extra year to develop as a player and be older, but I also decided to repeat for my own reasoning too, just because I wanted to go to a boarding school,” Hart said. “I didn’t want to also go to college when there was [the COVID-19 virus] going around. Taking the extra year was very nice and definitely helped me get better as a player and gave me extra time and definitely helped me make the team.”
When the hard work pays off, athletes are no longer in the recruiting process but now in the decision process, and the momentum tends to shift. A coach sold on recruiting a kid now wants to sell themselves, the team and the school. Either before or after committing to a college, visits with the coaches and team impact an athlete’s decision-making process. Sophomore football player Edward Iuteri shared an anecdote about his visit that sold him on Tufts.
“The culture of family really drew me to school,” Iuteri said. “The coaches and players all really made me feel welcome. ... I’d done a couple different [overnight visits] at a couple different schools, but this school was the only school where the player I was staying with let me sleep in his bed, and he slept on the floor. That’s one of the reasons why I felt like I was part of the family.”
The process starts to become personal — as personal as sleeping in a player’s bed. No more faceless emails and awkward handshakes with coaches who are strangers. For the football program at Tufts, potential recruits are aware that Tufts, in addition to the school’s many unique attributes, is also unique in the structure of the postseason. Unlike several other Div. III schools, there is no postseason. The team plays nine games throughout the season, regardless of outcome. In addition to the family culture, Iuteri said the postseason format actually drew him to Tufts.
“The reason we are not in playoffs is because they were never in playoffs,” Iuteri said. “Tufts football has been around since 1875, so being part of that history and exhibition, I thought, was cooler than going to a random Div. III school and being in the playoffs. … You’re a part of history; they kind of preach that to you when you come in, so that’s kind of cool.”
Sophomore football player EJ Comerford echoed Iuteri’s positive outlook on the team’s lack of a postseason.
“One thing that [the coaching staff] talk about a lot is, you only have 33 games left in your career and that’s it,” Comerford said. “Or when you’re a senior, they’ll say you have four games. That’s a big talking point they have — you might as well give it your all because you might only have like two left, three left, four left.”
No postseason and centuries-long history — those are the special, school-specific things that athletes at this stage of the recruiting process look for. While it’s easy to strive for the top-ranked school or the best statistically performing team, junior baseball player Jimmy Evans looked for a balance that would work for him. As he entered his senior year of high school with several options spanning all divisions of play, the recruiting process work was nearly done. Now, he just needed to decide.
“A piece of advice I'd give is: Trust the process and know what you’re looking for in a school, both athletically and academically,” Evans said. “At the end of the day, wherever you commit is not just for the sport, but for a degree, the location and the school itself, which includes social life and everything like that. Don’t just commit to commit, if that makes sense. Find what’s the best fit for you and your family.”
While I agree with the sentiments of my fellow student-athletes, I feel one important piece of the recruiting process is missing. In my experience, it was about being in the right place at the right time — luck. It was luck I’d earned through my long, grueling recruiting process, but luck nonetheless. As my dad and I evacuated a muddy softball field due to thunderstorm delays at the summer ball tournament, I looked to my right and saw the Tufts softball coach sitting in her car, also waiting out the rain delay. She motioned for me to come sit in her car with her, gave me her card, told me she’d seen my emails and I was on her radar and invited me to come to campus for a camp. Two weeks later, I went to the camp and performed well at the right place and right time. She offered a ten-minute meeting after the camp, and I committed a week later. If I hadn’t made slight eye contact in a rainy storm in Colorado with the Tufts softball coach, I don’t know if I’d be sitting here in my Stratton Hall dorm at Tufts University, writing this article for The Tufts Daily. Hard work, marketing, good grades and research are all important. But for athletes looking to get recruited, I’d also wish you a little good luck.
