The Danger of Creating Top 10 Lists

This is one of the reasons that I encourage athletes, especially early on in the process, to create lists with 50 schools on them. That list of 50 schools is just way too big to rank. Athletes that have smaller lists, in the 10 to 15 range, are typically going to rank those schools in one way or another. The danger of ranking your schools can be looked at in a couple of different ways.

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First, we don't have enough information to rank any of these schools. Why are you ranking them this way? You can have favorite schools and things like that, and that's all well and good, but what information have you gotten from the school about you specifically that puts thank specific ranking on them? My point is that we aren't in a position to rank anything. What we've created is more of a wish list. What if the top 2 schools on your list aren't even recruiting your position?

When I was a college coach, we didn't rank athletes until we got closer to bringing them out on a visit. Typically we had 4-5 athletes in a position and they were just there on the list. Once we were able to gather more info about them, talk to them and watch them play, THEN we were able to actually rank them.

In order for us to even start thinking about possibly having a potential list of schools that are ranked in some way, we have to have some input from the other side. Trust me, your #1 school coming off the board can be really tough. Let's hold off until we get more info.

Second, having a short list of ranked schools really limits how we interact with college coaches. Let's say you get a phone call with your #8 school. That's great! But it's your #8, not your #1, so you might come off as not as excited about it (trust me it has happened). The coach of that school now doesn't seem to think you are really interested and so YOU move further down their list, or off it completely. Now we don't have a #8 on our list. We have to treat ALL interest as positive and great. We never know what other schools are going to be interested until they are. Don't treat any school different than another. You can be really excited about your #1 school, as you should, but make sure that the other schools on your list are getting the same responsiveness and the same energy from you.

The other issue here is that we create some sort of "fall-back" school or schools. If you have a "fall-back" school on your list, just get rid of it all together. I know 0 (zero) college coaches that want to be the fall back school for an athlete. Honestly, none of them need to be the fall-back school because there is ALWAYS an athlete out there that actually wants to go to that school.

I tell all of my families that I work with that you are ALWAYS interested in a school that reaches out. Once you have a phone call, then you can be uninterested in that school. But NOT until you've asked some questions and really figured out if that school checks enough boxes for you.

Creating a Top 10 list is not something that I encourage at any stage of the process for MOST athletes. I have worked with a select few that had so much interest that they were telling schools "no" early on. For them it made sense. For MOST athletes it doesn't make sense to limit yourself to only a few schools and to preemptively communicate and engage with a school less.

My advice is to keep your list big until you've narrowed down interest from the coach's end and until you're put into a position to make some visits.

There are lots of options out there. Keep your options OPEN.

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