How to Get Recruited to Play College Baseball
So your first question is what would a homeschool mom know about
college athletic recruiting? Simple, it's like everything else in
homeschooling--once our son decided that he wanted to play baseball in
college we
realized that we would have to figure out the process ourselves. A lot
of what we learned can be applied to anyone trying to play college
sports but the specifics here will be on baseball.
The next question is probably something like, "so what big
scholarship did your son get?" The answer--none. And here's the first
point about playing specifically college baseball, if you're spending all that
money on teams, traveling, lessons to get a scholarship, it would
probably be better spent on SAT prep. The reality is that Division I
schools are allowed 11.7 baseball scholarships while Division 2 get 9.
One website takes that information and announces that means 5,423
scholarships in the NCAA alone! But don't sign up for their recruiting
service just yet. Stop and think a little about the 11.7 number. How
many players does an average college team carry? That's not 11.7
scholarships per year but for the entire team. Some teams carry more
than 11 pitchers alone. Coaches aren't handing out full scholarships,
they are giving 25%, 40%, or maybe if you're really good, 50%
scholarships. Unless you're a left-handed pitcher with a 95 mph
fastball, baseball isn't going to provide your son with a full ride to
college.
Make sure you visit the
High School
Baseball Web Probability page. It has a great table showing the
different sports and the numbers of players at each level. It shows
25,700 NCAA baseball players for those 5,423 scholarships. Of course,
the players includes Division III players who receive no
scholarships. But the scholarships include Division II schools which
do not fully fund all of their baseball scholarships which means they
aren't offering even 9 scholarships.
Some more food for thought about
baseball funding your college education. The other numbers to look at are the percentage of players moving
to the next level. It shows 5.6% of high school players play at the
college level. The
NCAA lists 6.4% high school seniors as playing at the NCAA level.
Think about it this way, during a game only one player from the
combined 9 starters for the two teams will be playing at the next
level. Once you take into account extenuating factors such as that not
all players will even try to go to the next level or the quality of
the teams players, the actual number may increase to 3 or 4 for that specific game.
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