College soccer recruiting questionnaires: should you fill them in?

It is the program’s own intake form. Where a team has one, it is on the team’s page of the college’s athletics site, under a link such as “recruits” or “recruiting questionnaire”. It asks who you are, where you play, your position, your graduation year, your grades and how to reach you, and it saves your answers where the coaching staff can see them.

It is not the NCAA Eligibility Center, which is a separate registration (the GPA you need), and it is not an application to the college.

Fill in the ones for programs on your list, and keep the list honest. A questionnaire takes a few minutes and tells a staff you exist. Filling in a hundred of them for programs you have not researched tells a hundred staffs the same nothing.

1. 1Build a list of programs that fit: level, room at your position, academics, cost. Every program page shows the roster by class year.
2. 2Fill in each program’s questionnaire with the same care you would give an application.
3. 3Send the coach a short email the same day, with your video: how to email college soccer coaches.
4. 4Note the date in your own record, and update the form when your details change.

• Graduation year and position, exactly as on your profile.
• Club and high school teams, with each coach’s name and contact details, after asking them.
• Grades: your GPA as your school reports it, and any test scores you have.
• Video: one link that opens without a login.
• Your schedule: the next events where your team plays.
• Your NCAA ID, if you have an Eligibility Center account.
• A reason for this college, if the form has an open box: a course you want to study, or how you fit the squad. One or two true sentences.

Use the same facts everywhere. The fields are the ones in our recruiting profile template, so write that first and copy from it.

Often, nothing you can see. A Division I coach may not send recruiting materials or messages to a player before June 15 after sophomore year (Bylaws 13.1.3.1 and 13.4.1). Before that date the rules allow two things: camp or clinic information may be sent at any time (Bylaw 13.4.1.13(b)), and a coach may reply with information that does not begin recruiting (Bylaw 13.4.1.12).

So a camp invitation that arrives after a questionnaire is not a sign that the staff has looked at you. Division II coaches may communicate at any time (Bylaw 13.1.3.1), and Division III coaches may send materials at any time (Bylaw 13.4.1), which is why replies from those levels can come sooner.

What moves things is the email with film, and a follow-up: how to follow up with a college coach.

Not by itself. A link to a questionnaire can be sent to a whole list of players, and a form on a public website is open to anyone. Interest looks like a personal message, a call, a question about your schedule, or an invitation to visit, once the dates allow it.

The dates for each class are in the recruiting timeline.