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The recruiting process for aspiring college swimmers can be a complex maze of phone calls, campus visits, recruiting questionnaires, emails and more. The whole ordeal can seem overwhelming to aspiring college swimmers and their families who are helping them through the college recruiting process. There are a number of tips and strategies you can use to help you more effectively navigate the college swimming recruiting process. Before we talk about these strategies, let’s look at some of the data associated with college swimming.
Weekly Time Commitment For College Swimmers
The table below shows the weekly time commitment for college swimmers within different NCAA divisions. As you can see from the data, the hour commitment for swimmers is similar across all divisions, contrary to popular belief. Furthermore, the time commitment effectively adds an extra full time job to the full time job that is the hours committed to academics.
Chances Of Getting Recruited To Swim In College
The table below shows the likelihood of an individual swimming in college, and at different NCAA Divisions. The table shows just how difficult it is for high school swimmers to transition to competing in college, in fact only 6.6% of men and 6.7% of women swimmers in high school effectively make the move to swim in college. The table also shows the even lower likelihood of swimming at a NCAA DI school.
Swimming Scholarships, Team Size & Other College Swimming Statistics.
The table below shows a number of key statistics associated with college swimming. There are a total of 663 schools that currently sponsor athletes in some manner to swim in college. The table shows how this figure is broken down by NCAA Division, Gender and Team Size. This will give you a basic idea of the landscape for scholarships within certain Divisions and categories.
What This Information Means For College Swimming Recruiting
The three tables above illustrate a number of key points:
- Only a small percentage of high school swimmers transition to college
- Swimming is a significant additional time commitment, no matter the NCAA Division
- There is a variety of financial assistance to be found for college swimmers at every level, and for men and women
Tips and Strategies For The College Swimming Recruiting Process
Given that the process of getting recruited to swim in college is very competitive, it is important to engage with the swimming recruiting process effectively. The tips and strategies below will assist you in effectively navigating this process, stand out to coaches, and increase your odds of being one of those athletes who successfully transition for high school to college swimming.
1. Begin Early
Don’t make the mistake of waiting until your senior year to begin the college swimming recruiting process. You have likely spent you majority of your years in high school competing and working on your grades for your college applications. Complementing this athletic and academic work by beginning to evaluate your options, establish a best fit list of schools and reaching out to coaches in your sophomore and junior years will give you a great head start in the recruiting process.
2. Establish A Best Fit List of Schools
Establishing a good initial list of the schools you would like to attend by comparing schools along a variety of criteria will help set you on the right path through the entire process. This involves evaluating schools along academic, social, athletic and other grounds. This list will guide you in determining which coaches to pursue, which schools to visit, what essays to write etc. AM’s Platform has a comprehensive search, filter and comparison tool that swimmers can use to compare colleges across a multitude of important criteria. For more information on important factors to consider when creating an initial college list read this.
3. Create A Highlight Video & Student-Athlete Resume
Before you start to engage and communicate with the swim coaches on your initial list of best fit schools, it is important to polish your self-marketing materials, namely, your highlight video and student-athlete resume. These two sets of resources will be inserted into many of your email communications with coaches and will give you a chance to document your swimming ability and potential value to the coach and their program. The highlight video does not need to be flashy, long or overly professional. A simple, sleek and succinct highlight video will get the job done. Coaches are busy, and don’t have the time to watch a long video.
Next, the student-athlete resume will document your greatest swim related accomplishments, as well as give your coach some other basic personal and academic information for further evaluation. These two resources will help you more effectively navigate the college swimming recruiting process. To read how to make a great highlight video, follow this link. To find out how to make your best student-athlete resume, follow this link.
4. Effectively Communicate with College Coaches
In order to stand out in a very competitive recruiting industry it is important to communicate with college coaches effectively. AM’s recent mass college coach survey revealed that coaches like their emails to be personalized for them, mentioning their programs and speaking about how their program is a good fit for the athlete. Here at Athlete Match we encourage you to email in a highly personalized manner. For more tips on effective coach email communication read here. For information on effective phone calls with college coaches, read here.
5. Visit Campuses
The college campus visit and tour component of your college evaluation is important as it helps you further evaluate particular colleges and make a final decision. These visits also help you to make a strong impression on the coach and team of the particular college. For some tips on having a successful campus visit, read here.
Be sure to follow the links in each section above to read more about how to effectively navigate the college swimming recruiting process. Create a Free Profile today to begin your journey to your best fit college, or try our search & filter tool for free.