How did you keep things organized?

Get an inexpensive file cabinet with a load of file folders---keep it near the phone and keep a log of calls etc---then you can eat at the kitchen table

Jersey Dad,
TRHit gives good advice. The file cabinet or even one of the “milk crate” systems works great. I might add that a note pad and pencil beside every phone is a necessity. If you role play with your son prior to the calling period, you can prepare him for the questions he needs to ask or might receive during the recruiting phone calls. He needs to write down the coach’s name and the name of the school, phone numbers, etc. Sounds basic but The University of Tennessee might be University of Tennessee at Martin, Chattanooga, or Knoxville. I made copies of all the pro questionnaires prior to sending them back. Instead of having to look up the high school coach’s telephone number each time you fill one out you already have a copy to go by.
As far as responding to baseball mail, common sense should prevail. If the college is a top choice of your son’s, then by all means reply, but other than that use your own judgment. I didn’t respond to the colleges that were totally out of the question (where is Slippery Rock and HOW much does Harvard cost??) nor did I respond to the generic camp and showcase invites.
Some will suggest your son handle all the administrative chores associated with recruiting but I disagree. Let ‘em play ball and help where you can.
Fungo

We made separate files for the top schools, camps/showcases attended, academic info, baseball info and a log of when and to whom emails/letters were sent and what kind of response to communications with every school. Also put together a document with his summer schedule and included showcases/camps he attended right next to his game schedules. We sent this out to every school he was interested in. Good luck.

jerseydad -
All good advice. Son was fortunate to have lots of paper also, so here's a couple of things we did to help organize the process:

• Kept a single list of responses to the most common questions asked (school contact info, coaches & scout #'s & e-mails, doctor info & last appt dates, etc.). This made filling out questionnaires much easier.
• Dated all material that arrived & made notes on the letters of the date forms were returned, follow-up phone calls, etc.
• Made copies of everything before mailing.
• Hole-punched everything and filed by school in 3-ring binder(s). We found this easier to find things than going through folders.
• Developed a phone log with categories for date, school name, coaches name, comments, etc. and kept one next to all phones.

Sounds like over-kill as I write this but recruiting can be stressful and having everything organized sure made it easier and a lot more fun! Son also had fun keeping a running total of all contacts he received, which was interesting dinner conversation. And those copies came in handy when we had multiple requests from the same school, different coaches...we just resent the copy!

In all it was a great time. Enjoy these recruiting years, they can be fun and very crazy too.

Jerseydad,
Great question! Our Son is a rising Senior and up to this point everything has been kept in one of those expanding folders in one file. Now that things are really moving I might move everything to a binder like RHP05Parent suggested. It would make it easier to find what we are looking for.

I do have another suggestion too. Emails will really pick up. Son had been keeping them all together. Now that they are so involved and so many of them he is organizing them also. He is going to have a separate email folder for each school he is interested in. As soon as I get more printer ink he will be printing everything out just to have a hard copy of each also in case computer or email goes down. We have found the most detailed correspondence has been though e-mail.

We also need to start with a phone log. We will be doing that this week.

Good luck to you and your Son.

quote:

Originally posted by RHP05Parent:

• Hole-punched everything and filed by school in 3-ring binder(s). We found this easier to find things than going through folders

I like this idea. We had a small plastic file box that we used with each college having a folder. BUT the only problem with the 3 Ring Binder is the media books. Do baseball programs send those out? My daughter (golfer) received several and those would be hard to punch holes in.

Beezer -
We kept only letters, e-mails, & copies of forms together. If other material was sent, we just made a noted of what it was on the bottom of the letter. College Media guides, Baseball programs, Camp pamphlets, etc. were all tossed in a separate box. (Being an IT project manager, I can be over-organized ... in business that is, not in my personal life! )

How organized does one have to be?

You can only make so many visits. Seems like only one or two things matter.

1. What schools are you interested in?
2. How many of those schools are interested in you?

The recruiter himself dictates the level of interest.

I don't mean to be critical, but until someone makes an offer... What is there to keep track of. And once an offer has been made, isn't the only thing left that matters is a better offer or a better school? How organized does one have to be to sort that out?

I would think that the lesser recruited kids would have more reason to be organized with their information than the highly recruited kids. Those that might not be scholarship type players have a much tougher decision.

The highly recruited kid, can just lay back and listen and when something sounds right... Go for it!

My point is... I think there are a lot of kids who receive tons of mail from colleges but never actually see an offer. You can be extra organized and all the correspondence might make you feel good, but you have nothing but a bunch of paper until an offer is made.

It reminds me of a story about an old buddy of mine. His son was a pretty good ball player in high school, but to be honest, he wasn't an exceptional player. I was visiting them and his wife pulled out a big box full of letters from every college imaginable. I mean, Notre Dame, LSU, Stanford, UCLA, Michigan, Minnesota, you name it... They had a letter. (Most were invitations to camps), but to them they were recruiting letters. They had them nicely organized.

To make a long story short... Their son ended up playing at the local DIII school for one year and then quitting baseball.

Does this story sound familiar to anyone?

Am I missing something here?

quote:

jerseydad ........ I have to imagine that many of you put together some systems to keep track of all of these items. Please share how you did it!

PG - You're right of course, the only important thing are the offers. But, recruiting these days can come with a lot of paper. The choices are to toss it or organize it. Jerseydad was looking for tips to organize!

Am using the milk crate system and moving into the dining room!!!

My son was the administrator and I the assistant (they do all the paperwork)

Doesn't matter how many letters one gets, the offer is the only thing that counts.

Our organization consisted of a folder, he pulled the ones out he was interested in, they got filled out, sometimes twice. Letters were kept for scrap book purposes only, the ones with the gold lettering were the most impressive! I kept them even if he didn't answer the questionaires. I am not sure if he read all of the media guides, bottom line, he was less interested than we were!

Recruiting is differnt for everyone, only results count.

The only thing we were organized with was when he received calls, dates, call backs, notes etc. As I look back in his log, the most detailed notes were of course, from Clemson.

Guess he knew all along where he was going, and we didn't realize it!

quote:

Originally posted by PGStaff:
How organized does one have to be?

You can only make so many visits. Seems like only one or two things matter.

1. What schools are you interested in?
2. How many of those schools are interested in you?


The recruiter himself dictates the level of interest.

I don't mean to be critical, but until someone makes an offer... What is there to keep track of. And once an offer has been made, isn't the only thing left that matters is a better offer or a better school? How organized does one have to be to sort that out?

PG you make a fair and valid point about the only thing that matters is the offer. However for those of us just starting this journey it can be a bit overwhelming to keep track of. He has almost a year before he can even receive an offer so for us it's a matter of giving the schools the information they request. Yes it will be easier to filter the requests when he decides what schools he is interested in however at this point he hasn’t made that list yet (he is working on that now) so we are following advice we received on HSWB to”fill out everything because if you don’t the school will assume you are not interested”. It’s a little more work, but who knows what schools will actually be interested in him when it comes time to actually make an offer.

One thing is for sure in our house. TPM is right; our player is much less interested in the administrative stuff, he just wants to play. However he does love to see a letter with his name on from a school. Is it ego, probably. But he sure works hard at his game so I think we will allow for that small indulgence.

I hope it turns out to be as simple as just waiting for the offer, in the mean time we just want to keep things a little more tidy.

Thanks for all for the suggestions.