Athletic Recruiting Questionnaires 

(How) do coaches use recruiting questionnaires? Should I fill them out?

Many golf teams have athletic recruiting questionnaires available for prospects to fill out on their website. Some coaches will also share a link to a recruiting questionnaire in an email. It’s a good idea to fill out these questionnaires.

However, it’s important to note that some college golf coaches use questionnaires much more than others. Here are the three most common categories of coaches when it comes to their questionnaire use…

Category 1: These coaches need you to fill them out in order for them to be “in their system” of recruits. Meaning, they have a database that contains all of the information they need on all of their prospective recruits. They simply can’t keep track of you, even if you’re a great candidate, if you don’t give them all of your data via a questionnaire. Coaches get contacted by hundreds of prospects each year, and it’s asking a lot for them to remember who you are and all of your information (like your JGS ranking, SAT scores, grades, home state, etc).

Category 2: These coaches don’t really use the information that you provide in a questionnaire. However, they use questionnaires as a conduit for interest. Meaning, if you email them before June 15 following sophomore year (so, before the NCAA rules allow them to respond meaningfully), the coach has two options… ignore the email (this happens a lot) or respond to explain the rules and share a questionnaire. If a coach responds to say “hey, I can’t talk to you yet but here’s our questionnaire”, this is generally a good sign. It means they are somewhat interested, because they did something when they could have done nothing. Similarly, if you go out of your way to fill out a questionnaire, whether the coach sent it to you or you found it on their website, it demonstrates that you went out of your way to demonstrate interest.

Category 3: These coaches don’t use the questionnaire at all, but for some reason, it’s still available on their website. They generally won’t email it to you though.

There is no downside to filling out a questionnaire. And because there is no downside, and it has the ability to really help you convey interest and make a coach’s life easier, I recommend that you fill out questionnaires at all of the schools you are interested in. The ideal time to do this in the summer after sophomore year or early junior year — check out my post on The College Golf Recruiting Timeline to see how these fit into the bigger picture. Be sure that filling out a questionnaire isn’t the only way you convey your interest. You still need to be emailing coaches proactively.

Questionnaires usually ask for a wide variety of information, some of which you might not have yet. That’s ok. Just fill it out to the best of your ability and won’t worry if you have to leave some questions blank.