→ New here? Start with The Recruiting Process for the cross-sport basics, then come back.

Recruiting feels like a fog until you put it on a calendar. Then it turns into a short list of the right thing to do this year, and nothing to panic about for the years that have not arrived. The sport-specific calendars shift these dates, but the family operating system below holds across most sports.

One number anchors all of it: for many sports, coaches cannot contact your kid before June 15 after sophomore year or September 1 of junior year. Before that, your side of the work is what matters.

8th grade

Play, compete, and let the kid love the sport. Ignore anyone selling a recruiting service to a thirteen-year-old.

The one real task is knowing that grades start counting soon. The habits that build a strong transcript begin now, because freshman-year credits are the first ones the NCAA will weigh.

Freshman year

Get the GPA right. This is the highest-leverage thing in the entire process, and it is fully in your control.

Build the schedule off your high school’s NCAA-approved core-course list, get on a team that plays a real schedule, and start a clean training history. Do not buy services yet.

Sophomore year

Build a clean highlight reel and have full-game film ready. Phone footage is fine to start.

Make a list of fifteen to twenty schools across multiple levels, not just D1, and fill out their questionnaires. They are free. Set up a real email address for your kid, first name and last name, not a parent address and not a joke handle.

Junior year

This is the core window, when contact opens for most sports. Email coaches with film, metrics, transcript, and a schedule, take unofficial visits, and attend the camps that matter for your sport.

Take the SAT or ACT once even if your targets are test-optional, because coaches like a number. And file the FAFSA in October of junior year if you might qualify for need-based aid. Most families wait until senior year and lose options.

Senior year

Apply to schools, not just programs, so the choice still makes sense if the sport ends. Take official visits, and decide whether Early Decision or Early Action helps at your top D3 choices, where binding ED is often where the aid is most competitive.

Sign the National Letter of Intent if applicable, or commit at D3, NAIA, or JUCO, which run deep into spring. If you are unsigned in the fall, widen the list. Late commitments happen every single year.

The bottom line

Each grade has one or two things that actually move the needle, and the rest is noise you can skip. Grades early, film and a school list by sophomore year, outreach and visits in junior year, applications and commitments as a senior.

Do this year’s job. Let next year’s wait its turn.

Last updated June 2026.