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College Recruiting

The Recruiting page is your command center for college recruiting. From here you can browse college volleyball programs, manage your target schools, track coach engagement, review outreach history, and compose emails to coaches. The dashboard gives you a clear overview of your recruiting activity at a glance.

Recruiting dashboard overview showing all recruiting features
Pro Tip: Keep an eye on your monthly email quota shown at the top. Recruiting Pro subscribers get a generous allowance each month which resets on your billing cycle date.

The College Browser lets you explore volleyball programs across the country. Browse through hundreds of colleges with details like division, conference, location, and head coach information. Each program card shows key details at a glance so you can quickly identify programs that match your interests.

College browser showing a grid of volleyball programs
Pro Tip: There are over 845 college volleyball programs in our database across D1, D2, and D3. Start broad and narrow down as you research.

Use the division and state filters to narrow your search. Select one or more divisions (D1, D2, D3) and filter by state to find programs that match your academic and athletic goals. Filters combine together so you can get very specific, for example all D2 programs in California.

College browser with division and state filter dropdowns open
Pro Tip: Combine D1, D2, and D3 filters with your home state plus neighboring states to find the broadest range of realistic options near you if you are interested in staying close to home.

Use the search bar to find specific colleges by name, city, state, head coach name, or conference. This is the fastest way to find a specific program you already have in mind. The search results will update in real time as you type.

College browser search bar with search results
Pro Tip: Try searching by coach name or conference to discover programs you might not have considered. For example, searching 'Big Ten' shows all programs in that conference.

Found a school you're interested in? Click the heart icon to save it to your favorites. You'll be prompted to assign it to a tier: Dream (reach schools), Target (good fit schools), or Safety (likely to be admitted schools). This three-tier strategy helps you organize a balanced recruiting approach.

Favorite button with tier selection dropdown
Pro Tip: Use the Dream/Target/Safety tier strategy that college counselors recommend. Aim for a balanced list with schools across all three tiers.

The My Schools section displays all your favorited programs organized by tier. Dream schools have a purple border, Target schools have blue, and Safety schools have green.

My Schools list showing Dream, Target, and Safety tiers with color-coded borders
Important: Each tier has a distinct color-coded border: purple for Dream, blue for Target, and green for Safety. This helps you quickly identify the tier of each school.

You can change a school's tier or remove it from your favorites at any time. Click on a favorited school to see options for reclassifying it to a different tier or removing it entirely. Your recruiting list should evolve as you learn more about each program.

School card showing options to change tier or remove
Pro Tip: Don't be afraid to reclassify schools as you research more. A Dream school might become a Target after a great camp, or a Target might move to Safety after a strong season.

Hot Leads shows you which college coaches have been engaging with your profile. When a coach views your showcase page, it gets tracked and displayed here with a heat level indicating their interest. More views and deeper engagement mean a higher heat level, shown with fire emojis.

Hot Leads dashboard showing coach engagement with fire emoji heat levels
Important: Heat levels are indicated by fire emojis: one fire means initial interest, two fires mean growing interest, and three fires mean strong engagement. Pay close attention to three-fire coaches, they are showing strong interest in your player.

Click on any hot lead to see detailed activity for that coach. You can see exactly when they visited your profile, which pages they viewed, and how much time they spent. This insight helps you understand which coaches are most interested and tailor your follow-up outreach accordingly.

Detailed coach activity view showing page visits and timing
Pro Tip: Multiple views from the same coach over several days is a strong signal of genuine interest. Prioritize following up with these coaches.

The Outreach History timeline shows a chronological view of all your recruiting emails. Each entry shows the school, date sent, and current status. Status badges indicate whether the email was sent, if the coach viewed your profile after receiving it, or if there has been no response yet.

Outreach history timeline with status badges showing email statuses
Pro Tip: Status badges like 'Sent' and 'Viewed Profile' help you track engagement. If a coach viewed your profile after your email, that is a positive sign worth a follow-up if Coach does not reach out to you after viewing the profile.

Switch to the By College view to see all your outreach grouped by school. This view is helpful for tracking your communication history with each program and making sure you are following up appropriately without over-contacting any single school.

Outreach history grouped by college with engagement details
Pro Tip: Use this view to track which specific pages coaches visited after your outreach. If they viewed your stats or videos, mention those highlights in your follow up emails.

The Compose feature lets you draft and send professional recruiting emails directly through the platform. Select a school from your favorites or the college browser, and the composer opens with the coach's information pre-filled.

Outreach email composer interface
Important: All emails are sent through the volleyballers platform to protect coach email privacy. Coaches receive your email and can view your full showcase profile through a secure link. If the coach replies to the email, the email will come directly to your inbox and you will be able to continue communication directly with the coach.

Start with one of our proven email templates designed specifically for volleyball recruiting. Each template includes a professional subject line and body text that you can customize. Edit the template to add personal details about why you are interested in that specific program and what makes you a good fit.

Email template selection with customizable subject and body fields
Pro Tip: Always personalize the template before sending. Mention something specific about the program, like the coach's playing style or the school's academic strengths. The generic emails are more likely to get ignored, show genuine interest in the program.

Add links to your highlight videos and recent game film directly in your email. The composer shows your uploaded videos and game entries so you can select the most relevant ones. Coaches consistently say that game film is the most important factor in evaluating recruits.

Video and game attachment selection in the email composer
Pro Tip: Always attach your most recent game film. Coaches want to see current performance, not highlights from two seasons ago.

Before sending, preview your email exactly as the coach will see it. The preview shows your formatted message, included profile links, and attached media. Review everything carefully, once sent, the email cannot be recalled or edited.

Email preview showing the final formatted message
Important: Always preview your email before sending. Check for typos, make sure links are the ones that you want the coach to view, and verify you have the right coach and school.

The composer includes a built-in help button that launches a guided tour of all the features. You can also revisit this user guide section anytime. The guided tour walks you through each step of composing and sending an outreach email.

Help button and guided tour option in the composer
Pro Tip: Take the guided tour when you first start using the composer (it will auto-launch each time before you send your first outreach email). It walks you through each feature step by step and only takes a couple of minutes.