Blog Post

It's taken 12 years to get here.

Ten thousand hours of classes. Thousands of hours of homework. Hundreds of hours of exams. Last, but certainly not least, countless hours of workouts, practices and games.

Welcome to senior year!

For some high school athletes, senior year will be the most memorable of their lives -- college scholarship offers, verbal commitments, official signings and graduation.

For most athletes, however, senior year could be the most stressful, especially if they haven't been recruited, have no scholarship offers and have no idea whether their athletic careers will be coming to an end.

Is it panic time yet?

It depends on the sport, the college program and the level of competition, according to national recruiting directors at National Scouting Report (NSR), the nation's oldest and largest college recruiting organization.

Welcome back to another school year!

For high school student-athletes, that means another year of training, practices, games and college recruiting.

If you're a varsity athlete, hoping to play in college, you better understand the recruiting process. Recruiting is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - a small window of opportunity - and there are no second chances. You need to know how to attract college coaches, keep them interested and, ultimately, receive offers.

During the school year, I will share lots of valuable tips in my biweekly recruiting blogs. So you don't start off on the wrong foot, here are seven signs you don't understand the recruiting process:

1. You think: "I'm only a freshman/sophomore; I'll wait until junior/senior year.�

We have come to the end of another school year.

Hopefully, you have learned a thing or two about college recruiting in our weekly blogs.

Before we dismiss you for the summer, we have one bit of "final� business.

Keeping in the spirit of Final Exam Week, we have compiled 20 true-false questions about the college recruiting process. The answers appear at the bottom (no peeking).

Ready … set … go:

You're MVP of the Suburban One League. You're a member of the National Honor Society. You're president of your high school class.

What are your chances of playing an NCAA Division I or II sport and earning an athletic scholarship?

Zero … unless you're registered with the NCAA Eligibility Center.

More than half of the high school athletes I have visited -- freshmen, sophomores and juniors -- informed me during our in-home interviews that they weren't registered. About a quarter of them didn't even know what the Eligibility Center was.

Do you know? Are you registered?

A word of advice for high school athletes who are deciding between college camps and combines this summer: Beware!

As important as those camps and combines are for college prospects, it's even more important to choose the right one(s).

There are two major reasons to attend camps or combines: improve your skills or be evaluated by college coaches.

Let's pick up where we left off last week.

Now that you know what to say when a college coach calls, let's focus on what college coaches may ask.

Here are five questions to expect and how you might answer them:

1. How are you doing in the classroom?

College coaches already know how you're doing on the court or field, or they wouldn't be calling you.

Your cell phone rings.

You answer: "Hello.�

The caller responds: "Hello, (Name), this is Coach (Name) from (Name) University. How are you doing?�

You respond: "Good.�

That's it. One-word answer. That's all you have to say?

Try this: "Hey, Coach, I'm doing great. How are YOU doing?�

Do you know any high school seniors whom you thought would play college sports but were not recruited? Do you know any whom you thought would earn athletic scholarships, but received little or no money?

Are you one of them?

There are several reasons why you -- or somebody you know - might have been overlooked by college coaches. Here are five of the biggest:

May Day is quickly approaching for graduating high school seniors.Almost all colleges require high school seniors to make a commitment and pay a deposit by May 1. Seniors should have received all of their acceptance letters by April 1, giving them at least one month to decide on schools. Many seniors, who applied early decision or rolling admission, made their decisions months ago.

But what if you're a graduating student-athlete? What if you haven't received an offer -- scholarship or non-scholarship -- by May Day? What do you do then?

We are one week into the contact period for NCAA Division I football coaches, who are permitted to make one telephone call to each 2016 prospect through May 31.

Did you answer the call?

Did you get any calls?

High school prospects in most sports can receive unlimited calls from Division I coaches beginning September of their junior year. Prospects in baseball, cross country, lacrosse, softball, swimming and diving, track and volleyball can receive unlimited calls beginning July after their junior year. Division I football coaches can call prospects once a week beginning September of their senior year.