Having been in the college recruiting education business for the better part of 5 years. I can tell you that low cost sites that push exposure by trying to match high school athletes and college coaches are simply not used by any college coaches. Every week I find a new site that thinks they have a novel approach to promoting athletes online and it's almost like they didn't have any conversations with any college coaches before they built their service. Why do I know this, because I have interviewed over 100 college coaches in the past 4 years and I have yet to meet one coach in the entire country at any level that accesses an online site looking for random athletes to possibly recruit. Yes, the concept makes sense, athletes interested in playing in college post their information online for coaches to look at. That isn't the problem. The problem is coaches don't want to use this tool and aren't using this tool. Price whether it’s free, low, or high, and services provided by the website have nothing to do with the general effectiveness. Until online sites understand this (and recruits) people will keep signing up for these things, and they won’t get recruited. A D3 coach with a $100 recruiting budget recruits more or less the same way a high level D1 coach does (minus scouting reports the D1 coach probably purchases). The only real difference is the D3 coach won’t be traveling as far from his school to evaluate recruits as a high level D1 coach might and they don’t have the ability to bring as many students to campus that live further away. But the evaluation process of an individual player whether it’s 10 miles from his school or 200 miles is the same. An online site, even with video, doesn’t really address the problems with recruiting and finding a match between both parties (coach and player), especially when coaches are not accessing the information.
I also disagree that all services are designed to take your money and there is a role for some recruiting services to play, mostly in the education and experience they can bring to an individual family. The process is not easy and many people can benefit from paying a fee to give themselves a better chance of finding a school that is the right fit. The graduation rate for all students and athletes is roughly 60% within 6 years of enrolling in college. While that number is not completely accurate and doesn’t tell the whole story, each year thousands of students (and athletes) transfer or drop out of college because they didn't choose the right college or put themselves in an opportunity to succeed. If someone knowledgeable in the process can help you find a school and team where you enjoy being at and have a meaningful career, that in itself has value, regardless of any scholarship money you receive or don’t receive. Part of the problem is too many companies have positioned themselves as companies that get kids scholarships, rather than companies that educate parents and students and help them find a school that is a better fit. Working with a family takes time and most companies don’t want to invest the time and their service consists of sending out a 1,000 letters or emails to every college in the country. This isn’t education and this isn’t any service worth very much.
Some people disagree with paying for any recruiting service and when asked the question of whether it’s right or not, I usually respond with this question. “How many people paid for SAT prep courses”. Yes plenty of hands go up. So what is SAT prep anyway? Well, it’s a service designed to give you an advantage over other students that didn’t take SAT prep to help you do better on the SAT test in the hopes that a better score improves your chances of getting into a better college or the college you want to go to. If recruiting is the responsibility of just high school coaches, then isn’t SAT prep the responsibility of high school teachers?? Most would say no, teachers teach their subject as best they can and understand that students need additional help with the SAT test. Few would argue that paying for SAT prep is a bad thing, but most would argue that paying for recruiting help is a bad thing. If you look at any service people pay for, there are usually two reasons. (1) because they don’t have the time and (2) because they don’t have the knowledge, whether it’s having your taxes done, your lawn mowed, or having your furnace fixed to heat your house. If I don’t understand the recruiting process and don’t understand how to research programs in the most effective way, I am going to need some help. I also don’t expect a high school coach has endless amounts of time to research 20 or 30 schools for each player on their team that wants to play in college. Most coaches are teachers and when they are done teaching they have a game or a practice, and then have to go home to their own family. Should they help with recruiting, of course, can they all get as involved as we would like, NO.
Unfortunately there are few services that take an education approach first and most simply push exposure using the theory of “if a coach doesn’t know your name he cannot recruit you”. Yes, that is true but a coach knowing your name is hardly the deciding factor in whether you get recruited or not.
Dave G
www.varsityedge.com
Stick around...stop, look, and listen...then, when you've "figured it out" re: the site, post away. Questions usually come first from relatively new posters. 
