Are you good enough to play college sports? This is a question that a lot of athletes need to stop and think about. High school athletes can daydream of competing at top-notch high schools and universities all they want. However, in reality, there are many downsides to being a college athlete. You have to go through gruesome training, which allows you very little time for other activities. In some instances, you have to spend winter breaks on-campus, training for competition.
You Have to Be Ready for Commitment
Playing sports for college is much different from playing in high school. It demands the next level of commitment and the training is much more intense and difficult. It demands next level of commitment and the training is much more intense and difficult. Committing to a college sports program requires you to spend most of your days with the team.
Therefore, before you think of joining a college sports team, ask yourself whether you can cope with solely committing to the team. This is because you will find yourself doing everything with the team, from training, eating, to traveling together.
Furthermore, playing for a college requires certain time commitments as well. Managing your time is very difficult when you are playing sports. Therefore, to play college sports, you must learn how to manage time. On top of that, in college, you have to learn to manage all other responsibilities all by yourself, since your parents are not there to help guide you as much.
How to Gauge Your Talent Level?
You need to make sure that your talent weighs up against all the other talents across the nation. It is important to recognize where you stand amongst all the competition. Knowing this will allow you to pick the right programs.
To self-evaluate your talent, you can take the help of your club coaches. College coaches will often approach club coaches for insights on potential new talents. Another thing you can do is use the help of an online recruiting service like CaptainU, where you can create a free recruiting profile. These types of recruiting services can help you gauge your talent level in a much more efficient way and will allow you access to thousands of coaches, all in one place. Coaches also use scouting services like National Preps or Scouting OHIO for football. Moreover, some online services provide a network of college coaches, which makes it easier for students to communicate with different colleges.
Online recruiting services can be extremely beneficial for athletes serious about getting recruited and that put the time and effort into them. Simply going into college camps and events are not enough. This is because most college coaches go into these camps knowing already knowing which athletes to look for.
What is a Star Rating?
A star rating for an athlete defines their level of talent. This makes it easier for coaches to recruit athletes and it helps convey to them the potential of an athlete. A student athlete’s star rankings start from no rankings to five-star rankings. If an athlete has no stars under their ranking, it means that no one has discovered them yet. On the other hand, if their rating is five stars, you can consider them as an elite talent.
5-Star Rating
These account for the best athletes in the nation. These are students with athletic superiority to other peers. In other words, they are the best of the best when it comes to competition. Student-athletes with five-star ratings will most likely end up playing for a Division I college.
4-Star Recruit
These student-athletes are also promising prospects for their team. They are usually significant in leading the team to victory. Furthermore, these players usually manage to fill additional roster spots for all types of colleges.
3-Star Recruit
These players display unwavering dominance in some aspects of the game, but they may lack consistency in other aspects. This inconsistency is most likely to be evident when they compete against high-level student-athletes.
1 and 2 Star Athletes
These student-athletes scream potential. However, some areas of their game are still in a developing phase. That said, they are likely to improve with more playing time. They can still get into a college team and become a reliable member, but it will require more work than the other star recruits.
What Star Level Recruit are you?
To find out which star level you are, you need to compare and contrast your skills against other ranked college athletes. Other ways include an evaluation by a third party. A good measure of your skill is player statistics to find out whether you match up with a ranked player. Go to the college website and you will find player stats for that school.
After that, you can evaluate your sports stats and see which athlete comes the closest to your stats. When you find the specific athlete, then you can just check their stars and get an estimate of where you will stand in the rankings. If you have similar athletic stats and achievements to a player in the first team, then that is where you belong. Otherwise, if you don’t, you can still look for players in the lower athletic division.
Talk to Current College Athletes
Talking to current college athletes is also a great way to know where you stand. Initially, you may be afraid to approach college athletes, but you must have a good relationship with them. You should ask about their experience, their training regimen, and their tips on increasing your ranking. Conversations with a current athlete that is rich in knowledge can be very beneficial and provide you an edge on the athletic recruiting process.
Learn about their experiences in college and ask them how they managed their recruitment process. You are likely to find out that most athletes can relate to your problems as an aspiring student.
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