Recruiting service?

A reputable recruiting service is a sound investment. They may seem like a large sum of money, but consider how much has been spent on new gloves, spikes, travel teams, bats etc. I would recommend speaking to Rick Paine at American College Connection. (accrecruits.com)
If a service can get you a book scholarship for 3 semesters, it has more than paid for itself.

BaseballP - I posted a question very similar to yours back in January. I got some good feedback which all culminated with one phrase: "Let the Buyer be Ware".
It appears that many of these services make you pay hundreds and don't really give you much for that money. Thus, they are only in it for the money. A younger relative of my family found this out the hard way.
One of the cheaper services I came across when I was doing my research was actually not a recruiting service, but an On-Line Showcase in which players post a resume of themselves on-line and college coaches can view their resume along with a video of their skills. It was just like a Showcase, only it was around $100 a year. If you go to www.ebaseballclub.com, you will find out more about it. I have it on My Favorites for friends and family that ask.
You can do a lot of work yourself to help aid in your son getting recruited. Getting him on a Summer Team, making phonecalls to college coaches, etc are all ways to save money and get involved without leaving 100% of the work to strangers. These recruiting services are an AID in recruiting, they are not the ONLY means of getting your son recruited. Like kirk45 said, if you can get a scholarship for a couple thousand dollars, then the couple hundred you spend on one service more than pays for itself.

There are X number of college baseball teams in existence. There are X number of roster spots available. It makes no difference how many thousands of recruiting services are in existence the number of slots will NOT increase. The best players will fill those slots. College coaches are doing everything possible to recruit the best players for their teams. They use the methods that work the best. While I don’t claim to know a lot of college coaches, I have NEVER had a college coach recommend a recruiting service. When college coaches begin relying heavily on recruiting services to find the best players, I will recommend recruiting services. Until that time I recommend you invest your money elsewhere. Any high school player that has the talent to play at the college level needs to get on a good summer team and showcase with a reputable showcase... the doors of opportunity will open. Let me give you some first hand experience I had with a recruiting service. I was asked to participate in what I realized later as a scam during my son’s high school years. A recruiting service approached me and “pitched” his service. His price was normally $1,000.00 but a special offer to my son for $700.00...I declined. The price dropped to $200.00...I still refused because rumors were floating around that my son was a D-1 prospect. The final offer came from the recruiting service of $0.00 dollars. FREE! A service for free. My son would be their “poster boy” to lure less talented players into their clutches. You know... “Look what we did for him!” I told him to leave! This same recruiter “hit” on five players from my son’s high school team. I warned each one to beware. None signed with the recruiter but ALL signed with a college. A player has to have TALENT to secure a spot on a roster. I admit there are some individuals and organizations that may have some influence in getting a player to a college field, but it will always be his TALENT that keeps him there. If you have lots of money and want to give money to someone to open a door that will probably open anyway...Go for it!
Fungo

Be weary of any service that guarentees anything...scholarships, placement, etc. Fungo hit it on the head when he said there are only so many spots available.

A service that hosts your video and info that you can then send out yourself will be a much better buy. If you have the talent, you can market yourself by e-mailing, calling and showing your prospective coaches your skills with an on-line video or a snail mail tape 9if the coach knows it is coming).

Chris

My Site

Services are good if you don't feel like doing the legwork yourself. I will say that anything they can do..so can you. I make Recruitment Videos for kids who want to send out their own stuff and I will be the first to tell you that any parent can do the same if they have the desire to do so. What we do is not extra ordinary although I will say that most parents can not put together a recruitment video as well as I can and most parents can not market their kids as well as a recruiting service can. It is up to the individual and there is a wealth of FREE advice out there.


My Site

You are 100% correct bk102.

Our service doesn't promise anything...we just host video and stats on-line for players to send out themselves to coaches (via a web link).

Services likes our help out, but you can do it yourself for sure.

Fungo, I am glad you didn't sign up for "Free" as that would have been an NCAA violation when a recruiting service gives away their service to a particular player in the hopes of signing up other players.

I too have never met once college coach at any level who encourages the use of recruiting services or really enjoys receiving information from recruiting services.

The use of their services has been debated to death on this site. While I believe that some services can offer some value, at the end of the day, there isn't a service in the entire country that can make you a better student or make you a better athlete. You can either get in with your grades or you can't and you can either play or you can't. The services that send out letters, faxes, and emails honestly make me sick to my stomach because every coach I speak to (and I speak to a lot) basically says they throw that stuff out as fast as they possibly can.

I am not a big fan of the "we don't have time to research schools" that I hear from parents either. College is a pretty important decision and it takes some effort on your part. High school athletes seem to be the only type of high school student that expect to be recruited and don't want to put forth much effort in researching schools. Every other high school student is pounding the pavement, going to college fairs, looking through brochures, researching schools online, and applying to as many schools as they feel they need to apply to.

The process of researching schools and contacting coaches can be time consuming and sometimes difficult, but anything that is easy, usually isn't worth doing. If you have a basic understanding of what to do and how to do it, and you start the process early, I have found the happiest and succesful families are those that made decisions as to what they wanted in and out of college and then worked hard at finding a match, and recruited a school as much as they were recruited. Parents and students are as much a part of the process as the college coach is, but what has happened the last several years is that exposure is the key and that you have to play in 20 showcases to have a shot at being recruited.

I had a conversation with a lacrosse coach the other day and he said the summer showcase circuit is so ridiculous now, that by the 5th tournament, the kids look awful and there is no way that these coaches can attend every event and now there are like 300+ kids at each event on 20 fields. He said most of the kids he meets are simply trying to get recruited by 50 schools, rather than trying to find 10-15 schools that might be a good match for their skills and desires.

We always try to teach people to reverse the recruiting process, rather than hoping to simply be recruited by any school. If you do some research on your own, evaluate your own ability a little and contact coaches at schools that might be a good fit for your ability, the chances of getting recruited by those schools will infinately increase, provided the coach has a need for your position and has a realistic opportunity to evaluate you through a game or through video and recommendations.

It certainly isn't easy, but sending out a 1,000 emails and letters for 1,400 certainly isn't going to do much.

Dave G
www.varsityedge.com

One thing to keep in mind--is the service baseball only ??? read the fine (hidden ) print on the brochure /website

Just had to comment on some interesting advice that is just flat out wrong. College coaches and MLB scouts get tips at games , letters, emails and phone calls from a ton of parents who claim they can play MOST CANT. Ask a MLB scouts how many times a players whose dad claims their kid throws 90 mph actually does.

Good example this year a dad claimed this pitcher throws 90 mph, HS coach claimed 86-87 mph, actually mpH 78-80 mph.

If colleges know the information/scouting report on players is accuarate they are more than happy to get it.

I had a MLB cross checker tell me how
much time he wasted seeing prospects that his own MLB scouts claimed they could play and they could not. Credibility is key and most parents LIE ABOUT EVERYTHING ABOUT THIER OWN KIDS ABILITIES.

Fungo,
I have similar stories, my favorite being one from a California based business that said my son would never get to play (the level he does now) because he was not big enough or strong enough. Along with their recruiting services, they were offering for him to work with the best pitching coach in the country. I told him plain out "you've got to be kidding me". He didn't like that one bit, and you can use your imagination how the rest of the conversation went that night