WAG How to know if a college is interested?

[Flicfliclay]

Hello! Curiosity here, My daughter is not of recruitable age yet, but has gone to some college camps and has a recruiting Instagram that she posts to. She has lots of college coaches following her account. She has started to send emails to coaches over the last year and sends updates etc. She does get replies back from several with the canned reply that we assume gets sent to everyone that email ( we think its canned )saying please fill out questionnaire etc. The QUESTION is: HOW CAN WE GET A FEEL FOR IF THEY ARE INTERESTED BEFORE THEY ARE OF RECRUITING AGE? What are some possible signs?
Would these be signs of interest or just nothing..
- coaches following her recruiting page?
-replies to emails saying to fill out questionnaire?
-hearts on videos posted on Instagram?
-consistently watching stories posted on Instagram?
Honestly we are just looking for anything we think that might be a sign as it will be another full year before she can be contacted directly. Its hard because you want there to be some encouragement that you are getting nibbles. ( hope that makes sense ).
Thanks for the feedback.

 

[gym_dad32608]

Totally makes sense.

Yes, coaches following on insta is definitely a sign of interest at some level. However its also a bit relative as some coaches seem to follow almost everyone and others very few. For example, Utah has a coaches account that only follows about 30 or so people and is otherwise private. Tom follows almost no one. You can dig a little to see. Hearting posts is probably another level of more interest. Even more interest, they will also direct message you with school information or inviting you to camps as another sign. On the same level, they will send you mailers (a lot) to your home or gym. They will come to watch practice and video you during practice which is probably the most level of interest before they can contact you. All varying signs of interest.

 

[Flicfliclay]

Totally makes sense.

Yes, coaches following on insta is definitely a sign of interest at some level. However its also a bit relative as some coaches seem to follow almost everyone and others very few. For example, Utah has a coaches account that only follows about 30 or so people and is otherwise private. Tom follows almost no one. You can dig a little to see. Hearting posts is probably another level of more interest. Even more interest, they will also direct message you with school information or inviting you to camps as another sign. On the same level, they will send you mailers (a lot) to your home or gym. They will come to watch practice and video you during practice which is probably the most level of interest before they can contact you. All varying signs of interest.

Totally makes sense.

Yes, coaches following on insta is definitely a sign of interest at some level. However its also a bit relative as some coaches seem to follow almost everyone and others very few. For example, Utah has a coaches account that only follows about 30 or so people and is otherwise private. Tom follows almost no one. You can dig a little to see. Hearting posts is probably another level of more interest. Even more interest, they will also direct message you with school information or inviting you to camps as another sign. On the same level, they will send you mailers (a lot) to your home or gym. They will come to watch practice and video you during practice which is probably the most level of interest before they can contact you. All varying signs of interest.

Thanks for the reply. I tell you this process is not that fun! ha ha! Guess I will just encourage her to keep plugging away and doing what she is doing. I just wished there was just a little more communicating that coaches could do, even if its them being able to reply to an email or what not. But i guess its better than them being able to recruit them at 12!

 

[Deleted member 18037]

What level is she

 

[Flicfliclay]

What level is she

10

 

[Deleted member 18037]

10

Then she 100 percent should be reaching out to various coaches, being proactive. Have an Instagram account or other to post video. Keep it professional an updated. And if she is not old enough to be contacted yet unfortunately she just needs to be patient.

And she (you) should do your due diligence. Does the school have programs she is interested in? Locations? Any camps she could attend? What’s the buzz on the coaches? Follow the college teams. And unofficially visit if feasible. Not in any official way. But wander the campus.

 

[MaineDad]

This is a great question and I was wondering this myself at this time last year. Now that we’ve been through the process I was interested to look back and see what kind of interaction eventually turned into phone calls and texts on June 15 for us.

The most consistent indicator was college coaches individual IG accounts liking videos repeatedly. More and more through Nationals we noticed the trends from certain coaches leading up to June 15th and sure enough it was pretty much spot on that we got the calls from those who were the most active liking our posts. So keep the posts going consistently the closer you get. It was a good indicator for us. At times we were making posts just to test and see who’s liking. Lol. Don’t get me wrong we heard from schools we thought had no interest too. And some medium interest schools turned into nothing. But the ones who were consistently liking seemed to pan out for us as expected.

Anyway, best of luck. Keep the posts going as the season goes along. I recommend some posts that show some life outside the gym too as we got feelback that it helped coaches learn what type of a person they would be recruiting and this helped peak their interest.

Happy to answer questions if you have any specific ones. We knew nothing a year ago and learned a lot through the process.

 

[JBS]

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