Recruiting Trap - Questionnaires

Questionnaires are certainly a thing. They are necessary to a point, but here are some thoughts I have about questionnaires.

1) Even if a school sends you a questionnaire to fill out, this DOES NOT necessarily mean that they are interested in you. This was probably the first "canned" email response I created as an assistant coach in-charge of the recruiting. It is one of two things that coaches are allowed to send you (the other being a camp invite) prior to June 15th of your junior year. In the grand scheme of recruiting it doesn't mean a ton just to get one. If you happen to get a hardcopy of a questionnaire from a school in the mail, I would take that as potential interest. The email is easy but the snail-mail does take some effort for most programs.

2) They are a time sucker. Filling out one or two isn't a huge deal at all. But once you start trying to fill out 25 - 50? It's usually the same information each time and there isn't a volleyball program in the world that needs to know your grandparents work history or your uncle's last address. If you are planning on doing a bunch of questionnaires to indicate interest in a school, I would suggest only doing a minimum amount of information. Contact info for yourself and WHO the coach needs to get in touch with to talk about you should definitely be included. If college coaches do see a questionnaire they like, they usually will try and contact someone to let them know.

3) Stay away from the "List your TOP 5 Schools" question. My college coaching friends can get mad at me for this one all they want :) Put "that" school as your #1 and they get all excited; put them as your #3-#5 and they question why you even filled it out at all. For more on this, check out Episode #19 of PRI Talk. (Link)

4) Before you go filling out a questionnaire for each and every school in the BIG12 or SEC, try and get some real feedback on where you fit athletically from your club coach, high school coach or club director. Try and focus your time and energy on those schools where you are going to be a good fit BOTH athletically and academically.

5) Sending emails regularly and updating coaches with film consistently is (imo) a significantly better way to show that you are interested in that school. So, make sure that AFTER you fire off that questionnaire, you are staying in touch with that school regularly!

Someone said to me, "We filled out their questionnaire. That's about all we can really do right?" No, it's probably the absolute minimum you can do. Interest is still the most important piece of this process. That and finding the BEST fit. Fill out a questionnaire? Sure. Just remember that it may or may not mean they are interested. You've got a lot of steps left to go before you get that Official Visit and a scholarship offer. Be excited that you got a response and then keep moving.

Hopefully that helps.

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