Princeton Lacrosse Recruiting

ALmed
Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:19:54 +0000

I don’t know much about recruiting for women’s lacrosse, but my son is a recruited athlete at Princeton. Here are my comments and suggestions.
You need to contact the head coach and the recruiting coordinator for your sport. You can find their names and email address on the Princeton Athletics web site. Send a cover letter and “resume” describing yourself and your accomplishments, tell them you are very interested in Princeton, and ask then to consider you for a spot on their recruiting list. If you do not take the initiative to contact them, then your chances drop to near zero.
You need to present a good case why you would be an attractive candidate for them. Our observations from our son’s experience suggest that the screening process went like this:
Are you academically qualified? The coaches cannot get you approved by Admissions if you can’t demonstrate capacity to manage the academic work at Princeton, so you need to show them your SATs, grades and academic accomplishments. My son’s coaches told us they are looking for SATs and SATII scores at 700+ (or the ACT equivalent). They told us they can’t tell anything from overall GPAs, but they want to see high grades and a strong AP/Honors course selection. The stronger your academic credentials, the better chance you will have. There may be “academic exceptions” for world-class athletes in some sports, but at Princeton the exceptions are rare.
Are you big/strong/fast enough to compete effectively at the college level? It varies by sport, but only about 5% of high-school-senior athletes go on to play Division I sports. This means everyone you will play against in college will be as good as the First Team All-Star roster for your league. If you are not bigger/faster/stronger than almost everyone on your team or in your league, you have a tough road ahead. The coaches will want to know your height, weight, speed and strength up-front.
Are you a skilled and effective competitor? The coaches will want to see you in action on the field, in person if possible and on video if not. You can make up for some physical “deficiency” with skill and effectiveness; physical attributes won’t carry the day if you lack basic skills and effectiveness.
Once you have your information together, send it to the coaches via email and/or mail. Include a short video of yourself in action on the field if you can – pick your best 3-5 minutes if possible.
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get an immediate response. The coaches may get hundreds of unsolicited letters, and they do not always look at the materials right away. Also, there are NCAA rules that limit how often they can call you, and I think the Princeton coaches are conservative in their response. No news is not necessarily bad news – don’t hesitate to follow up after a week if you do not hear anything. You are allowed to call or send messages to coaches anytime.
Sometimes, they will send you a standard form for you to fill out or ask you to enter your name and information on their web site. I don’t think this request is either good news or bad news – it just helps them keep track of people. Fill it out and send it in.
If you can, visit the school on a day when you could meet with the coaches. Most coaches make themselves available for meetings like this, if they are in town and available in their office. I don’t think an unofficial visit and personal expression of interest is essential, but it does help ensure that the coach has at least looked at your file.
If you don’t get any interest, it might reflect a variety of different reasons. Perhaps the team already has strong players at your position, and is looking to fill other spots. Maybe the coach made a mistake. You can still apply anyway – something more than 9 of 10 admitted students are not recruited athletes.
Finally, there are a lot of great colleges out there. Pick out the ten or so that you like the most, and contact the coaches at all of them. Who knows what might materialize?