Most families enter the college recruiting process with no idea how it works. They've heard that coaches send letters, that showcases matter, and that their kid needs a highlight reel — but they don't understand the sequence, the rules, or the timeline. They spend months guessing when they could be acting.
This article is the overview. It walks through how the entire system works, from the moment a family starts thinking about college sports to the day the athlete commits.
The system in one paragraph
A high school athlete who wants to play college sports needs to do eight things: understand how the system works, meet academic eligibility requirements, build an athletic profile that coaches can evaluate, research and target programs that are a realistic fit, proactively reach out to college coaches, register with the appropriate eligibility center, actively participate in camps and visits where coaches evaluate talent in person, and then compare offers and commit to the right school. These eight steps don't happen in a rigid sequence — several overlap — but they all need to happen, and skipping any one of them creates problems that are often irreversible.
The eight steps
1. Understand the landscape
Before anything else, families need to learn how the system is structured. College sports in the US are governed by multiple organizations — NCAA Division I, Division II, and Division III, plus NAIA and NJCAA — and each has its own rules for scholarships, academic requirements, recruiting contact, and timelines. A family that doesn't understand these differences will waste time targeting the wrong programs or waiting for attention that isn't coming.
The most common misconception at this stage is the belief that "if my kid is good enough, coaches will find us." For about 99% of athletes, that's not how it works. The recruiting process requires families to be proactive — identifying schools, contacting coaches, attending the right events. Talent alone is not enough.
2. Meet academic requirements
Academic eligibility is one of the most consequential and least understood parts of recruiting. The NCAA requires Division I athletes to complete 16 specific "core courses" in high school, maintain a minimum core GPA (which is calculated differently than your regular GPA), and meet test score thresholds through a sliding scale. Division II, NAIA, and NJCAA each have their own academic requirements.
The stakes here are permanent. In Division I, the "10/7 rule" locks in 10 of those 16 core course grades after junior year — those grades cannot be improved or replaced. Families who discover eligibility problems in senior year often find there's no fix.
3. Build an athletic profile
College coaches need a way to evaluate an athlete before they see them play in person. This means having a highlight reel (game film edited to showcase the athlete's abilities), an up-to-date athletic resume with stats and measurables, academic information, and contact details. Most athletes host this on one or more profile platforms — Hudl for video, and sites like SportsRecruits or FieldLevel for profiles.
The profile itself is not the hard part — creating one is straightforward and often free. The hard part is making it effective. Coaches want to see game film that shows decision-making, not just a montage of best plays. And having a great profile means nothing if it's not being sent to the right coaches.
4. Research and target programs
There are over 2,000 college programs across all sports and divisions. Narrowing that list to 20–40 realistic targets requires evaluating multiple dimensions: athletic fit (is this athlete's skill level competitive at this program?), academic fit (does the school offer the right major?), financial fit (can the family afford it after aid?), and cultural fit (will the athlete thrive in this environment?).
The biggest challenge at this step is honest talent evaluation. Families often can't tell whether their athlete is D1, D2, or D3 caliber, and the people they ask — club coaches, recruiting services — have incentives to give optimistic answers. The result is months spent targeting programs that were never realistic.
5. Reach out to coaches
Athletes can contact college coaches at any time, at any division, with no restrictions. This is the single most important fact that most families learn too late. The athlete doesn't have to wait to be "discovered" or contacted — they can and should initiate the conversation.
Outreach typically starts with a personalized email introducing the athlete, including academic information, a link to their highlight reel, and a brief explanation of why they're interested in that specific program. The challenge is that coaches receive hundreds of these emails, and most go unanswered. Persistence, specificity, and realistic targeting are what separate effective outreach from emails that get ignored.
6. Register for eligibility
Athletes who want to compete at NCAA schools must register with the NCAA Eligibility Center. NAIA athletes register separately through PlayNAIA. This involves paying a registration fee, submitting high school transcripts, providing sports participation history, and completing amateurism certification. The process is bureaucratic and slow — transcripts get lost, accounts get locked, and the timeline often creates anxiety during senior year when coaches are asking "are you cleared?"
7. Engage in the recruiting process
Once an athlete is on a coach's radar, the process shifts to in-person evaluation — camps, showcases, unofficial visits, and official visits. Camps and showcases are events where college coaches watch athletes compete and evaluate their abilities. Unofficial visits are campus trips paid for by the family. Official visits are paid for by the institution (athletes can take up to five, and each visit can include up to two paid overnight stays).
The NCAA also defines specific recruiting periods — contact, evaluation, quiet, and dead periods — that restrict when and how coaches can interact with recruits. These periods vary by sport and change frequently.
8. Evaluate and commit
When an athlete has interest from one or more programs, they need to evaluate and compare their options. This means understanding scholarship offers (which are often partial, not full rides), calculating actual out-of-pocket cost after all forms of aid, assessing the coaching staff and program culture, and weighing athletic opportunity against academic and career goals.
Verbal commitments are non-binding — either the athlete or the school can change their mind at any time. The formal commitment is signing a financial aid agreement (the NLI was eliminated in 2024). Even after signing, circumstances can change — coaching staff turnover, in particular, can alter everything about a commitment.
Key things to understand early
The timeline varies by sport. In soccer, coaches may start evaluating athletes as young as 13 or 14. In baseball, the showcase circuit ramps up in sophomore and junior year. In football, most recruiting happens junior and senior year. Knowing the timeline for your specific sport is critical — the generic advice to "start early" is meaningless without sport-specific context.
The rules are different at every level. NCAA Division I, II, and III each have different scholarship structures, academic requirements, and recruiting calendars. NAIA and NJCAA have their own separate systems. Advice that's correct for one level may be wrong for another.
Coaches want to hear from the athlete. Not the parent. Parents play a critical supporting role — especially with research, logistics, and finances — but the communication with coaches should come from the athlete directly. This is a challenge when the athlete is 15 or 16, but it's what coaches expect.
Most athletes need to be proactive. Waiting to be recruited works for elite, nationally-ranked athletes. For everyone else — which is the vast majority — the family needs to drive the process: identifying schools, sending emails, attending events, following up. The families who understand this early have a significant advantage over those who realize it as seniors.
This process takes years, not months. Families who start actively engaging with the recruiting process in freshman or sophomore year have time to course-correct, explore options, and build relationships with coaches. Families who start in senior year are often too late for the best opportunities. Starting early doesn't mean being stressed early — it means being informed early.
What most families get wrong
Three patterns show up repeatedly among families who struggle with recruiting:
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"D1 or bust." Many families fixate on Division I as the only legitimate outcome. This causes them to ignore Division II, III, and NAIA programs where their athlete would get more playing time, more scholarship money (in some cases), and a better overall fit. The division label is less important than the quality of the experience.
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Trusting the wrong sources. The recruiting landscape is full of services, platforms, and camps that use fear and guilt to sell expensive packages to confused families. "Your kid will fall behind if you don't sign up now" is a sales tactic, not recruiting advice. The most reliable guidance comes from the governing bodies (NCAA, NAIA), from coaches at programs you're targeting, and from families who have recently been through the process in the same sport.
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Ignoring academics until it's too late. Athletic ability gets coaches interested. Academic eligibility determines whether you're allowed to play. Families who don't track their athlete's core course progress, GPA calculation, and test score requirements can discover in senior year that their kid is ineligible — and by then, the damage is permanent.
What to do next
If you're early in the process and this overview is new information, that's fine — you now know the shape of what you're navigating. The next steps depend on where your athlete is:
- Freshman or sophomore: Focus on understanding the academic requirements for your target division and making sure course selection is on track. Start learning about your sport's specific recruiting timeline.
- Junior: This is when outreach to coaches should be active. Build the athletic profile, develop a target list of programs, and start sending personalized emails.
- Senior: If you haven't started, start now. Focus on programs that are still actively recruiting, attend camps where coaches will be evaluating, and be realistic about which division level is the right fit.
The recruiting process is complex, but it's not unknowable. The families who struggle most are the ones who don't understand the system. Now you do.