Common questions and concerns from families.
D1 Scholarship has helped over 600 athletes across 13 different sports, both mens and womens. The sport list includes baseball, basketball, football, soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, softball, water polo, rugby, golf, tennis, hockey, and track & field. If your sport is not listed here, feel free to schedule a call and we'll be honest about whether or not we believe we can help you (we don't just sell anyone with a pulse & a credit card).
One important note about our overall strategy is that it's not based on "gimmicks" that rely on good fortune. If you're dependent on a sport specific "hack," what happens when that little tactic falls through? You're stuck. Instead, we apply business marketing principles that have worked for centuries. These are timeless tactics that happen to be incredibly effective in marketing athletes to college coaches.
While each sport has nuances that we address (which is critical), we have a simple thesis: showcase players in the best possible light to as many coaches as humanly possible, and build genuine relationships with college coaches.
Turns out, this works like magic in all 13 sports that we've worked with so far, and will likely work with new sports, too.
There are 3 main ways that D1 Scholarship is different from traditional recruiting services.
1. College recruiting can be a shady industry, and proof of competence matters. Please see what our families say about us on our testimonial page, and notice 2 things. One is the quantity. We haven't had one family like us, or two. Or three, or four. But hundreds.
Two is the quality of the testimonials. Notice that we have a combination of video interviews with families as well as screenshotted messages from clients. None of our testimonials are "typed" out, which could easily be faked.
If you're comparing recruiting services, we highly recommend you put our testimonial page up against anyone else's. This is the bedrock our our service: proven results & an amazing client experience.
2. About 30% of our clients have worked with another service in the past. The main difference they acknowledge? We care. That's easy to say, so here are a few things we often do for clients.
We speed up timelines when possible to meet external deadlines (like an upcoming showcase). We stay on coaching calls for an additional 30-60 minutes to ensure everyone gets the help they need. We respond in a timely manner, sometimes well into the night or in the early morning.
The short story is that we actually care whether you like us or not. This is not a "grab you money and run" kind of situation. Your experience with us builds the foundation for future families. We're here for the long haul, and want to build a pristine legacy of helping families navigate a stressful recruiting process.
3. Our program is unlike anything else on the market. We don't require "connections." We don't send a single email campaign and cross our fingers. We don't require the athlete to do all the work (we emphasize the family working together as a unit). We utilize tools most families don't have access to.
We believe that no one will fight for your kid like you will - no matter how much money you pay them. So what we do is empower you to competently and confidently market your athlete to college coaches. Not getting enough interest? Turn the jets on. Getting to much & it's overwhelming? Turn the jets off until you need them again.
This program is a unique blend of strategy, tools and guidance to give your athlete the absolute best chance of landing "best fit" opportunities in college sports.
Our program is largely for parents. Your athlete can be as involved as you'd like (come to the coaching calls, ask questions in the community, etc), but we largely interact with parents.
The recruiting process is very different than it used to be. With the transfer portal, NIL and roster caps, the process requires more work than ever before. It's basically a full time job.
And your kid goes to class for 6 hours, then goes to practice, then has weightlifting, then studies for tests & does homework, then does chores around the house, then hangs out with friends...and we haven't talked about ANYTHING that's required in college recruiting yet.
It's too much for a 16-year old to bear, let alone an adult.
And often, parents are condemned for helping their kid. They're told that helping their athlete is actually "coddling" or "spoiling" them. Those who say "if your athlete wants it badly enough, they'll do the work" are simply out of touch with the current state of college recruiting.
As the parent, you're not coddling or spoiling your kid...you're helping them accomplish a very difficult goal. It is your job to lead them and show them what that looks like. This is an important life lesson opportunity.
Because of this, we largely work with parents...and kids are often involved to some degree. We believe that the recruiting process should be taken on by the whole family, rowing in the same direction.
College recruiting is more competitive than ever before. Less than 7% of high school athletes will play sports in college, and less than 2% will earn scholarships. How do you stand out in a crowded landscape?
1st, you can't wait for college coaches to "find you." Regardless of how talented your athlete is, the odds of a college coach stumbling across your kid is similar to finding a needle in a haystack. You must be proactive in marketing your athlete to college coaches.
2nd, you must learn how to speak the language of college coaches. So many families are reaching out to coaches but their message is falling on deaf ears. Understanding when and how to communicate with college coaches makes all the difference.
3rd, you must do something different. Majority of the athletes in college recruiting are doing the same thing. If there were 100 goldfish in a bowl - all the same color and size - would you take note of any one fish in particular? Probably not. But if 99 were orange, and one was blue, would you notice the blue one first? That's what we need to accomplish for your kid in the recruiting process.
Standing out in a competitive landscape is about doing the work that no one else is willing to do. It's about helping college coaches find the solution to their problem, and making it easy for them to recruit your kid.
Our name can be deceiving :) We work with families to reach all levels - D1, D2, D3, NAIA and JC. The good news is that there is a TON Of scholarship money outside of the Division 1 level. Some of the largest scholarships we've helped athletes land ($~200,000) occurred at levels outside of D1.
The truth is that no one has a crystal ball and knows exactly what their kid is capable of. We like to contact a wide range of schools to get an accurate evaluation of talent and give your kid a wide range of options when accepting an offer.
Most high school and club coaches offer to help you in the recruiting process, but few truly know how to systematically generate interest & scholarship offers. With our program, you'll learn how to generate your own opportunities without relying on someone else's "connections." This, when paired with general help from your HS or club coach, has proven to be incredibly effective for families.
Each year, families who thought their coach would help them end up coming to us at the beginning of senior year with little interest or offers. And at this point in an athlete's high school career, there are dramatically less opportunities available. Don't wait to take the process into your own hands. Coaches often mean well, but under-deliver when it comes to genuine scholarship opportunities.
It's possible (and maybe even likely) that you'd signed up and paid for another recruiting service of some kind. We estimate that more than 30% of our current clients have worked with another service in some capacity.
When you get burned by a service, it's hard to trust another one. But here's the thing: don't let a bad decision burn you twice. The first time when you got burned, and the second time when it kept you from making a good decision. Not all services are worth it, but not all services are scams. We understand how hard it can be to trust someone with your kid's future, which is why we lean on our hundreds of success stories to share what we're really about.
If your athlete is unsure whether they want to play in college or not, the question you should ask is: "If my kid got recruited by their dream school, would they want to play in college?" If the answer to this question is no, then our services are likely not a great fit for you.
Often, we see that athletes are interested in playing at the next level but get discouraged when they haven't made any progress in the recruiting process. When a few schools show interest, athletes often light up with excitement and realize they truly do want to play at the next level.
It's important that you identify whether your athlete is ambivalent to playing at the next level, or is just looking for some validation from college coaches before going all in.
Families often believe that if they live in a small town or attend a small school that they can't get recruited by big schools (or even anyone at all). This is a common misconception. While attending a large, well-known high school is an advantage, it's not required to generate interest & offers from your top schools.
We've worked with a number of families who attend small Christian schools or live in places like Alaska or Hawaii. Our overall strategy is not dependent on your location, and it's certainly not dependent on coaches coming to your high school. Whether you live in a huge city like Los Angeles or a small town in Maine, we can help you get your athlete on the recruiting map.
How much have you spent attending showcases & camps in college recruiting? If you're like out clients...a lot. Many families end up spending tens of thousands of dollars on showcases, camps, flights, hotel rooms, and rental cars over the course of their athlete's career.
Traditional recruiting advice says: "Attend as many events as you can for exposure!"
But this often leads families to waste thousands of dollars on events that provide no tangible progress or opportunities. What most families don't know is that college coaches often attend these events to evaluate players they already know about. Meaning, if you're not in contact with a school before an event, it's unlikely you'll get in contact with them after the event.
Our strategy is relatively simple: start conversations with college coaches before events using digital marketing that you can do from your living room couch, and then attend events where coaches you're already talking to will be in attendance. This makes our clients' events more worthwhile, and also often reduces the number of total events a client has to attend.
Many of the families that we work with are interested in attending high academic schools. Whether it's the Ivies or top D3 schools in the country, we've helped athletes build relationships with some of the best academic schools in the world.
The process is roughly the same, with a few minor adjustments around benchmarks and timeline. If you're interested in getting your athlete to a high academic school, we can help you get the "foot in the door" that side-steps the incredibly competitive nature of these powerhouse schools.
The recruiting process has undergone some dramatic changes in recent years. With the transfer portal, NIL and roster caps, it's harder than ever for high school athletes to get recruited. Many families who "skated" through the process previously would not have earned those opportunities in today's recruiting world.
But make no mistake...high school athletes are still earning fantastic opportunities and HUGE scholarships. In fact, our average scholarship is higher than it's ever been.
Our strategy is proving to work beautifully in the current landscape in college recruiting considering that the majority of success stories that you see on our website are from the last 18 months. So they're not from 5 years ago in the "golden age" of college recruiting...they're recent. We are actively - and weekly - generating interest & scholarship opportunities for families.
Parents often wonder if they're too early to generate any real traction or too late to generate opportunities from schools they're interested in. The truth is that it entirely depends on your athlete's situation. This is why we have families fill out an application before ever being presented with an opportunity to join any one of our programs.
This allows us to only take on families we truly believe we can help right now. We don't just take people's money. We want you to get more value than what you pay for, and we can only do that if you're in the "sweet spot" for timeline in college recruiting.
If you're wondering whether you're early or late, fill out a quick application and you'll find out instantly. We'll then point you in the right direction based on your answers and how we can best fit your family's needs.