Several people have referred to the importance of keeping track of schools, contacts, etc. I'm seeing this now as son is starting to get more contacts and having trouble keeping track of which schools he has done the athletic questionnaire vs. asked for academic information vs. sent the coach his new video.
So how do all of you keep track of this information? I'm trying to start an excel spreadsheet, but it seems to get big and unwieldy. What do you include?
Thanks!
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Basic spreadsheet with school name, location, contact info, tuition costs, last contact date and comments. We also color coded based on preference/likelihood. Comments included all the pros and cons, favorable majors, and basic descriptives that would help him remember who's who. We then kept a second tab on schools that became highest likelihood. It was fun to watch things evolve. Son didn't get a ton of attention (but did get a ton of camp/showcase invites) so the chart was as much for schools he reached out to, had interest in, felt could be a fit as it was for schools contacting him.
Pro/con comments included things like school size, academic rep/clout, area, weather, facilities, position need, coach, strength of program, players he knew, type of players on roster (JC transfer likelihood, where they were from), etc.
Most kids aren't going to be interested in setting up a database and doing a bunch of data entry. I suggest he use his email account for tracking. Just set up folders for the top schools, and throw the other emails into a catch-all in case they become contenders later. He can move copies of all sent emails into those folders, or simply search all his sent emails from the Sent folder when he's checking for previous contact. Sometimes the questionnaires will reply with an email, so store that off to the folders. If no reply from questionnaire, just create a draft email with school name in subject line and store that off. If talking to a coach, make noted in a draft email and store. Very simple to search all emails/folders when preparing to make contact with the school. One reminder, some email systems will automatically delete mail from specific folders based on age, so make sure that yours isn't deleting emails that you need.
Addendum: The spreadsheet is critical for decision support. He can use email for a simple contact tracking system.
Cabbagedad has it right. Simple. That's exactly what I do.
If he doesn't have a database that pops up reminders for next event for each college he should put reminders in his phone calendar.
Agree with much of the above. One of the things we did very early in the process that worked great for us is son set up a separate email address just specifically for coaches and recruiting. As the parent I had access. I don't care about my son's regular email with his Facebook and Twitter updates and such thus the idea of a separate account. He knew I had full access to it and it made it easy to see which schools sent him what and who he owed responses to. It was a great management tool for us.
I kept a spreadsheet and folders in his inbox. That along with a recruiting website that had 90% of the coaches emails helped in the process.
Cabbagedad has a great plan, that is exactly what I plan on doing with my son. In this day and age of email I could easily see many things getting overlooked if it's just in the inbox. I imagine having a printed out version next to your computer, as well as a master excel spreadsheet that gets updated weekly, could help a lot with the process. This would also allow for various tabs such as "possible", "unlikely", "personal contact"...etc Might make it easier to see patterns as well.
CaCO3Girl posted:Cabbagedad has a great plan, that is exactly what I plan on doing with my son. In this day and age of email I could easily see many things getting overlooked if it's just in the inbox. I imagine having a printed out version next to your computer, as well as a master excel spreadsheet that gets updated weekly, could help a lot with the process. This would also allow for various tabs such as "possible", "unlikely", "personal contact"...etc Might make it easier to see patterns as well.
If you're using Excel, check out the "Filter" feature. You apply the filter to the first row, and it allows you to quickly include, exclude and sort the other rows based on column values. That way you can keep everything on the same sheet and play around with different views. Another Excel tip is to number your rating descriptions for accurate sorting. For example, 1-High, 2-Med, 3-Low.
Why not just create a pivot table?
Shoveit4Ks posted:Why not just create a pivot table?
No reason not to. Whichever you're more comfortable with.
9and7dad posted:Agree with much of the above. One of the things we did very early in the process that worked great for us is son set up a separate email address just specifically for coaches and recruiting. As the parent I had access. I don't care about my son's regular email with his Facebook and Twitter updates and such thus the idea of a separate account. He knew I had full access to it and it made it easy to see which schools sent him what and who he owed responses to. It was a great management tool for us.
Exact same thing we did....I had access to it. He did all the work, but I would check it periodically to help make sure he didn't miss anything. He really only got serious/semi-serious with about 4 schools so it wasn't like we needed a spreadsheet....the emails were good enough
My son had regular contact with about 20 schools over about 1.5 years and did it all via email. We did keep an Excel spreadsheet with basic info and put an "X" when we completed a certain task: Sent intro email, fill out online questionnaire, date of their next camp/consider attending, sent video...and then name, email, mobile phone, conference, location, etc. We started with his top 15 or so and then added to it as additional interest developed.
But, after initial set up and once things picked up, he rarely referenced that spreadsheet. He had all the coaches logged into his iPhone contacts and managed the rest via an email folder. I taught him to keep one continuous email string going with each coach/school. You want to make it as easy as possible on the coach to revisit what you've sent prior. So, my son kept every sent email to every coach. Then when it came time to send him his update email, he ALWAYS went back to the last email that he had sent to that coach and then replied to that. It may be an obvious thing to do, but I bet many don't do it that way. These coaches have dialogue with soooo many players, as you know. At any time, any of the coaches my son was emailing with could simply scroll down and see every update that he had sent them...in some cases over two years. Likewise for my son, he never really had to "dig into the archives" too much to recollect what was sent to any school.
son used his normal email address, but he did not really use it for anything else. Im guessing most kids don't use email these days. its old school. I would keep track of the contacts in a simple google spreadsheet shared between he and I.
Then the texting and calls start....at some point you know the ones who are really interested.
9and7dad posted:Agree with much of the above. One of the things we did very early in the process that worked great for us is son set up a separate email address just specifically for coaches and recruiting. As the parent I had access. I don't care about my son's regular email with his Facebook and Twitter updates and such thus the idea of a separate account. He knew I had full access to it and it made it easy to see which schools sent him what and who he owed responses to. It was a great management tool for us.
I set up an email address just for recruiting. It was firstnamelastname.high schoolname2011@gmail.com. It wasn't just to be able to sort out emails. It was to be easily ID'ed by coaches. Every interaction was stored in ACT! Reminder automatically popped up on the PC screen.
I think Excel is an excellent tool that can address a variety of informational and activity tasks. You can use one worksheet to provide an activity report (filling out questionnaire, sending video w/date, etc.) and then set up a separate worksheet on each individual school where you want to capture some additional detail, especially about the academic and economic sides of the equation. These separate worksheets can wait until the list gets down to a manageable number but can prove valuable when starting to compare costs and starting to look at academic scholarship opportunities. Pretty sure you can even include live links to college sites including admissions and cost breakdowns so you can get updates along the way. I think the text/e-mail history is important to preserve and every contact does not have to be transcribed into the excel worksheet. First effort should be to list any/all baseball contacts (except maybe ignore mass mailing camp invites) on one worksheet and then start a list of colleges that may be a good fit for any reason - then work to find some common schools on both lists.
Thanks for some great suggestions. One dilemma is texting. My son has been texting with some of the coaches, and while he has an email that we both access to contact coaches, I'm not interested in wading through the group stuff with his friends to check on the coach stuff I'd like to know about. I'll figure it out though!!
Iowamom23 posted:Thanks for some great suggestions. One dilemma is texting. My son has been texting with some of the coaches, and while he has an email that we both access to contact coaches, I'm not interested in wading through the group stuff with his friends to check on the coach stuff I'd like to know about. I'll figure it out though!!
That's where the comment section on the spreadsheet comes in. While we had son take responsibility for the bulk of tasks (of course, including all dialog with coaches) during his recruiting periods, we did manage the spreadsheet for him. This is one reason why. "You talked to the RC? Great, what was the jist of the conversation?" This could apply to a call or text or email. We would then insert into comments with date. Left to the 16 y.o., this may not have been a complete and accurate document.
Iowamom23 posted:Thanks for some great suggestions. One dilemma is texting. My son has been texting with some of the coaches, and while he has an email that we both access to contact coaches, I'm not interested in wading through the group stuff with his friends to check on the coach stuff I'd like to know about. I'll figure it out though!!
At least with texting there is a clear documentation of he said and I said. I would MUCH rather have that than a conversation like "so, what did the coach say "....."um....good stuff mostly, I think he likes me, but I'm not sure if he likes me likes me"...."well what did he say"....."um, mostly good stuff, um....um....I don't know it was only like a 3 minute call but I think it was good."
Teenage boys are not well known for expressing themselves VERBALLY.
Here is the spreadsheet my son and I used. This data is very old ... he was a 2011 graduate, but feel free to use it as a template and update the programs you are interested in.
Good luck!
https://drive.google.com/open?...KtlKoMYkUReuW7IH_K74
BOF posted:Here is the spreadsheet my son and I used. This data is very old ... he was a 2011 graduate, but feel free to use it as a template and update the programs you are interested in.
Good luck!
https://drive.google.com/open?...KtlKoMYkUReuW7IH_K74
BOF, you're the man. Just what I was looking for.... Cheers
BOF posted:Here is the spreadsheet my son and I used. This data is very old ... he was a 2011 graduate, but feel free to use it as a template and update the programs you are interested in.
Good luck!
https://drive.google.com/open?...KtlKoMYkUReuW7IH_K74
Very cool! to see the movement of coaches and the schools thru the different levels/divisions over the last 5 years.
Wow, this is a terrific topic. Thanks to IowaMom for starting it and to all who posted.
