Recruiting Services...

Tim: it sounds like your son is a talented player. Budget for 1 local (usually free or very inexpensive) 1 regional & 1 national showcase if he wants to look throughout the country.
After sophomore season is over send info page with his vitals/stats to schools he is interested in or blanket mail a bunch of schools. Follow up and answer all questionaires & call schools directly to show your interest.
Imo the services do for about $1200 what you could do yourself for about $150. NOBODY will have the same interest level in getting your son placed as you or he will.
Be aggressive, hit a few college camps along with good travel team and he'll be fine. If senior year approaches and interest is minimal use a service as a last resort but usually local coaches/scouts can help kids find a place to play. Good luck! Your off to a great start by visiting this site.

Tim,
There are some parents and players who post here who have been very successful in college and beyond. I think the overwhelming conscensus is that recruiting services are not useful and many feel they are a waste. I think most posters feel you are much better served by attending showcases and contacting coaches directly. In your case, you may well want to also look into trying to have your son attend the Stanford All Star camp. I cannot tell you the number but there are plenty of players who made the contacts with their now college coaches at that camp. It has gotten a bit pricey but still much less than a service. And with the price has come more coaches and more exposure. Good luck.

Pioneer Dad,

Here is a thread from the Illinois Forum...includes feedback from some of "oldtimers" in our midst.

hopefully this worked!!! I'm a newbie. If it didn't work - go to the Illinois forum and cursor down - you'll see it.
Recruiting Services

"Nobody will care as much as you will"...Right on the button. Talked to three parents last week who are with recruitng servcies that are simply not doing the job. All three kids should be getting calls...

After "how do we get recruited" the number two question I field is about recruiting services.

My standard answer is that a recruiting service cannot make you a better athlete or a better student so you have to ask yourself what they can do for you that you cannot do on your own? Mailings, emails. Forget it!

The reason why they are so common and sometimes effective is that no one is educating parents and students on what to do on their own.

I think families however struggle with two things that are hard to do on their own and that is individual skill evaluation as it applies to college and having contacts at the college level. I know some good people that assist families for a fee and finding a school you are happy at athletically, socially, and academically for 4 years can be an extremely difficult task.

If you do the research, you will find that there is not a 1,000 schools you can get into, afford, or play at, so realizing your potential and what you want will narrow down the list of schools you can look at quite a bit. It isn't easy, but knowing what to do and what is expected of you is 95% of the battle and you can certainly make calls and send emails and letters on your own.

Dave G
http://www.varsityedge.com

Not all recruiting services are equal and it does not matter how much marketing your kid gets, if your kid cant play, will not matter much, whether a recruiting service or mom and dad send out letters.

mom and dad EXAGERATE GREATLY how good their kid are.

Dibble, Andy, whatever...
Not an appropriate response to this thread. There's no exaggeration in Pioneer Dad's post. Their team is in one of the best leagues in the country and a player who makes that team as a sophmore, let alone starts is quite talented. If anything he's downplayed his son's abilities. The summer league he most likely played in included the varsity teams from some of the better HS teams in the nation.

Pioneer Dad

For me showcase and travel teams are the way to go---do that and you can do what the recruiting services do.

The key is exposure for the players not a lot of letters and paper as they usually find the "round file"

Let the colleges know where your son is playing and when

Dibble

Since you state that not all recruiting services are equal where do you rate your own recruiting service ?

TR I would ask someone who use a service see what kinda of response they got after it being promoted by them.

So TR how good of HS Showcase is College Select Showcase?

gotta agree with TR's post that showcase's (and appropriate camps) along with a solid travel team are the best way to go. You need to be seen and that should help do it.

Recruiting services are of little value IMO unless you are in an area soooooooooo remote you have little to no other choice to get your name out there so to speak or if you can be 100% certain of some special relationship the service has with a particular program/coach.

Typically, the trouble with any recruiting service is that their primary job is to make you look good. Coaches know this and the attendant bias therefore of what is received from a recruiting service. Any number of coaches told us that reports etc. from recruiting services go straight to the trash.

Dibble

We are not talking showcases here--we are talking recruiting services-- boy do you like to divert a thread !!!

It all depends on who the recruiting service is promoting and do they promote legitimate prospects.

quote:

Originally posted by TRhit:
For me showcase and travel teams are the way to go---do that and you can do what the recruiting services do.

TR I respect your opinion but think that every player and families situation is different. I think showcases are very important but also think that a recruiting service can be helpful as well in expanding the players opportunities. The showcase/travel team as well as the recruiting service need to be good, there's plenty of junk out there on both sides. If the travel coach doesn't get it, or does not attend the right showcase tournaments you might as well play local ball for as much good as it will do.

NCDAD

I agree that the showcase/travel team needs to be good and get the exposure needed. That is without question.

The problem with recruiting services, at least in my eyes, is that they are a "paper" operation--the player still needs to be seen and evaluated on his performance. The player can do the "paperwork" on his own with his parents and tie this into his on field play. And he can do this in conjunction with his travel teams coach.

Example: our travel team will be at Coastal Carolina for the next three days--last night every school in the Carolinas was sent an email to make sure they knew we were going to be there. We do this every time we are headed to an event- We notify the schools in the region we are going to be playing in.

Incidently if any of you websters are iin the area drop by and say hello--we play at 9 AM on FRiday, Saturday and Sunday ( 8/26,27 and 28)

I did this with one player, had seen him at a HS Showcase his sophomore year and helped get him invited to the two top HS Showcases, where he was named a top 5 prospect at each.

he was not listed on any prospect list at the time, and no mlb scouts had heard of him either


Plus got him invited to Team USA trials. and let the colleges know where they could see him at that summer.
91 Division I colleges contacted him. Before he attended either HS Showcase that summer.
He was drafted, currently in college. he played for team usa and is projected a 1st rounder in the 2006 draft

All,
Thanks for the great discussion. I think that, at least for now, we will try to do this on our own. For players in the Marmonte League here in So. Cal we also have Scout Ball available. As well as the showcases. For local showcases, I take it he doesn't need an invite. So I guess we'll look around for a good local one. He has also joined a new Travel Team that is looking to goto the JO's next year. Other than that, it looks like we should get him into a local camp like Cal State Fullerton's or up north at Stanford's.

On a side note, are most of the coach's information on their respective websites? I like the idea of letting them know where our Travel Team will be playing.

Again, thanks for all the great input. I'll hop over to the showcase thread and check them out.

Thanks,

College Camps

Pioneer Baseball,
This might come in useful if he's interested in one of the local schools. I can't say how much attention the coaches pay to the players who attend these camps as opposed to doing it for income. It is probably a good way for the younger players to get exposure at a school they are interested in.

I'll be looking forward to seeing how things go for your son. Hopefully my son will be taking a similar path in a year or two.

From my experience, colleges do appreciate an e-mail to let them know of quality players and when your team might be playing. I make sure all the info on our website is up to date. We've had college coaches show to game to see a kid and got the game info off the website. I guess you could say we are the recruiting service for our players. I do this the big price of $0.00. Basically, each parent can thier own players recruiting service.

Tim, send me off an e-mail I can let you know what has worked for our program and our players. Hopefully, I can be of some help.

Http://www.sgvbaseball.com
mike@sgvbaseball.com

Pioneer Dad, I see you are a new poster, WELCOME. If you haven't already, take a look at all of the articles posted on the High School Baseball Web's Home Page. Then, look for the "Recruiting Tips" link on the left side of the page!

Pioneer Dad - Welcome to this site. I hope you find the answers you are looking for as this site has lots to learn from, as I learn something new everyday.
To answer your original question, there is no way to know the success rate of recruiting services. How do you put a number on the percentage of help a recruiting service does? Also, these sites are like any big business: they can fudge the numbers or manipulate their success rates to make themselves look good.
As most everyone else here has stated, if you do the work yourself, you will save a lot of money and have a greater chance of getting your son to play at a good school.
As a quick bit of advice that I give to all newer people on this site, there is one website that I am a huge supporter of: ebaseballclub.com. Rather than being recruiters, they act as an AID in the recruiting process. They only charge $100, not $1200, and you get one year of exposure to college coaches by posting a video of your player skills on a website for college coaches to view. A real bargain and a good tool to use along with showcases, travel teams, and camps.

ILBaseball1 I have a couple questions for you about ebaseballclub.com.

Do you take the video and send it to them? Are you supposed to take video from all different angles and put it all together for them, or do they edit the video for you?

Thanks

Rob V. - I am not a salesperson for ebaseballclub, so I do not want to start doing any "advertising" here on this site for them. I merely recommend them from personal experience and let them fend questions for themselves.
I will answer your question by saying that you make a 10 minute video, from different angles and such, then send it to them. They professionally cut and edit it down to about 2 minutes because that is all the coaches that come to the site want to see.
You can direct any future questions to info@ebaseballclub.com.

Is anyone familiar with "Recruiting Realities?" This is a "tour" going around to inform high school student athletes and their parents about the recruiting process. Jack Renkens is the person behind it, though he doesn't actually do the presentation.

Our high school hosted one of these last week. At the end a CD is offered for sale, and one recruiting service is recommended.

I was curious how this was received or viewed by others whose schools may have hosted the presentations. A couple of days before we went, I checked out their website: http://www.recruitingrealities.com/

Today the website is inaccessible. There were loads of school listed on their "tour" circuit, and a quick Google brings up lots of references to them.

Just wondering what anyone knows about this organization.

ktcosmos
http://www.LooseEnds.net

Do I dare open my mouth?

It all come down to credibility.
College coaches welcome tips and leads on players that can play. That is the problem they get so much info from services, parents, Girlfriends, Peanut vendors about that could not make a coed softball team, many are like yeah right when they hear someone throws 90 mph stories.


Good example of a college coach following up on a legit lead. Told a TOP 25 college of a pitcher I saw up north, the player was from the south had just moved there. He threw 91 mph at a HS Showcase and let the college coach know he was gonna be pitching in the area next week. The college coach saw him and liked him alot. Invited him to the college winter camp, where he went. Next spring and summer, every college coach on the planet went after him. He was throwing 95 mph his senior year in HS. Was drafted but went to a different college then the winter camp he attended. Same conference though.


PS a guy cooking hamburgers at a game once did tell me about a pitcher that threw 90 mph plus last year. I saw him throw 94 mph this year and he was drafted and signed this summer.

ktcosmos,
They came to Simi High School here in Southern California last fall. As I mentioned in my initial post, our athletes that are using a recruiting service are split between two of them. Recruiting Realities is at least loosely affiliated with NCSA. Recruiting Realities mentioned them during their presentation.

The presentation was probably worth the expense to the school. They do present alot of useful info. If we could get all the parents to peruse these forums, however, I think they'd be better served...