How Many College Coaches Should I Email?

If you’re starting your recruiting journey, you’ve probably heard that one of the best ways to get noticed by a coach is to email them. Emailing coaches is a great way to build name recognition and get your recruiting questions answered. But how many college coaches should you email?

The simple answer is that you should email as many college coaches as you can. It’s strategic to create a list of around 25 schools that you’re targeting, and email those coaches a general introduction of yourself. You can follow a template, but it’s important to personalize every email with a college coach. The worst thing you can do as a potential recruit is mass email 25 coaches saying the same thing. Personalizing your communication with each coach tells them that you’re genuinely interested in their school and not treating it as a backup option.

You might organize your email strategy by prioritizing individual schools based on your priorities for your college experience. For example, splitting your list of 25 schools into safety, target and reach schools helps you focus on accurately assessing colleges for the best fit. Safety schools are colleges that you’re considering if you don’t get admitted to your target schools. Your target schools are colleges that you know you can get into based on your test scores and athletic skills. Finally, reach schools are universities with very selective admissions rates or where your athletic and academic qualifications would be considered below the average school average.

How To Decide Which College Coaches To Email?

If you’ve started thinking about which colleges you’re interested in, you’re likely wondering what the best strategy is for deciding which college coaches to email. One of the best ways to do this is to build out the list of schools, including safety, target and reach schools, that you could see yourself attending. To do this, you’ll need to think about some of the things that are important to you when it comes to college.

Think About What Matters To You: Start by assessing what some of your non-negotiables are for college. These are things like school size, how far away the campus is from your home, academics and the overall feel of the university. You should also decide which division you want to target, whether it’s exclusively Division I or some Division II and III schools as well.

Research Schools: Once you’ve generally decided what type of college you’re looking for, you can focus on finding specific schools. To build your list of schools you’re interested in, start with schools in your area and expand to schools further away.

As Many As Possible: The more coaches you email, the better chance you have of getting noticed. Start with a wide range of coaches and focus on communicating consistently with specific coaches as you get interest. You might start with more or less than 25 coaches, but try to include a range of different schools to increase your options.

Keep editing this list as you refine your college priorities and gain more skills, in both athletics and academics. You might add or remove schools as you transition from sophomore to junior year or junior to senior year.

How To Email College Coaches?

The most important thing to remember when emailing college coaches is to personalize your message. Coaches receive hundreds of emails a week, so if you send the same generic email, you won’t stand out from other recruits. Include specific reasons you’re interested in the school, whether it’s the coach’s coaching style or the competitive athletic program. You can even mention a personal connection, like a friend who’s on the team.

Subject Line: Start with a short subject line that tells the coach precisely who you are. List your name, graduation year, position and any vital athletic statistics in the subject line, so the coach knows what to expect. If that piques their interest, they will continue reading the rest of your email.

Introduction: The beginning of your email should be a more extended introduction of who you are and how you would fit on the team, similar to the subject line. Include your test scores, GPA, athletic stats and what high school you go to. Give the coach a sense of who you are so that they can envision what kind of impact you would make on the team.

Interest: In the middle of the email, take some time to explain to the coach why you’re interested in their program. This is the best place to personalize your message by including some relevant facts from your research. For example, you might tell the coach that you’re impressed by how well the team works together, even under pressure, and reference a past game that you watched.

Takeaway: Finally, give the coach a takeaway from your email. Ask them for feedback on your highlight video or let them know where you’ll be playing next. You want to give the coach a reason to respond and a tangible action step for them to take. This will help you figure out how interested they are in you as a potential recruit, based on how they respond.

This template can be helpful when drafting your emails, but don’t become too reliant on it. Make sure to personalize your communication with coaches to show your interest in their team. It also helps to keep your emails with coaches brief and to the point. Coaches have hectic schedules, so keeping your message concise will make their lives easier.

When To Stop Emailing A College Coach

Emailing coaches consistently to update them on your athletic and academic progress is critical. This is one of the best ways to build name recognition and a relationship with a coach that will benefit you throughout the recruiting process. But sometimes, even as you keep reaching out to coaches, you won’t get a response. When is the right time to stop emailing and start focusing on other coaches?

NCAA Regulations: Division I and II coaches are not allowed to respond to student-athletes before June 15 of their sophomore year or September 1 of their junior year, depending on the sport. If you’re an underclassman and haven’t heard back from a coach before these dates, they might still be interested and can’t respond. You can keep contacting them, as the NCAA doesn’t punish student-athletes for connecting with coaches. Or you may decide to wait to reach out until your junior year.

After Following-Up: Coaches have hectic schedules, so don’t write a coach off after one missed email. Follow-up with the coach over email at least once before you stop reaching out to them. There are many reasons to follow up with a college coach, so they are used to seeing multiple emails from a recruit in their inbox.

Senior Year: If you’re an underclassman, you might decide to stop emailing the coach for six months or so and reach back out, later on, to see if you get a response. But if you’re trying to lock down an offer in your senior year, there’s no time to waste. Focus on connecting with coaches who are reciprocating interest.

As you narrow down which schools are your top choices, you can decide which coaches you want to communicate with. As you start the recruiting process, you’ll have more coaches that you’re reaching out to and fielding interest from. Later on, in high school, you’ll be able to narrow down which coaches you keep in contact with and focus on your top schools.

Things To Keep In Mind

Edit: After drafting every email to a coach, be sure to edit the message and run it through a spell checker, especially if you’re using a template to email multiple coaches. You don’t want to use the wrong coach’s name or make an obvious spelling mistake. Proofreading your email can help ensure you make a great first impression.

Take Small Steps: This process is a lot to add on to an already busy schedule. Researching schools might not fit into your calendar between practice, games, academics and your social life. That’s why it’s essential to break down your recruiting process into small steps that you can achieve daily and week by week. Your hard work will pay off by helping you land a spot at a college that’s right for you.