In the weeks leading up to registering for your college clinics, we strongly encourage you to do research and decide which clinics you want to participate in.
Research school & hockey program online:
- Look at the school’s acceptance rate, average SAT/ACT & student profile
- Do a virtual campus tour
- Check out all the information the school has online for prospective students, get to know the school
- Talk to your school guidance counselor (if they say you are too young let them know timeline for student athlete is much earlier)
- Look at the team’s hockey webpage
- See where they stand on the NCAA rankings
- Check out their roster and read bios of players
- Ask your club and high school coaches, and any other coach who knows your playing style their suggestions on programs where you’d be a good fit
- Talk to FH athletes you know you play in college or are committed
Be realistic and cast a wide net:
- “Reach schools”: It’s great to shoot for the moon, but it’s also necessary to do your own research and do-diligence and cast a wide net.
- Some “reach schools” could be in just hockey, and academically you could get in without hockey. And then some “reach schools” could be academically, but hockey-wise you’d be a good fit/contributor.
- If, for example, you register for 3 clinics for LineUP, it might be a good tactic to register for 1 “reach school”, 2 that seem like a good fit hockey/academically.
Tips by grad year:
- Class of 2023: All college coaches are allowed to email/call you. If coaches are sending you personalized emails and calling you, it most likely means they are very interested. If you don’t have a relationship with the coach, we suggest sending them an email and/or call them this upcoming week.
- Class of 2024 & 2025: DI programs are not allowed to email you back or discuss recruiting steps with you per NCAA rules. Because of this, you don’t know which programs are interested in you – which means doing your own research is crucial to understand if a school is a good fit.