Question 4 Is your son doing what he needs to do in the classroom and on the field to maximize his opportunities?

Question four is really the temperature gauge in the whole process. If you are just beginning the process you will see that it will take more effort from both you and your son than you probably anticipated.

During the recruiting process there are two things your son can absolutely control. The first one is making progress from a baseball standpoint. What I mean is that a player can control the effort he is putting into practice, games, training, eating habits, etc. It is important for the athlete to maximize the results through maximum effort. In my son's case, he wasn't very committed to nutrition and working out to get stronger and faster. He was however a cage rat and was always staying after practice working on his game. His labrum injury was a blessing in that he had to rehab hard and focus on his overall nutrition. He now spends significant time in the gym and it has shown with 15-20 lbs of solid weight since August. My advice to high school players is not to wait for an injury to happen before you take nutrition and working out seriously.

The second thing is academics. I am ABSOLUTELY sure that if my son didn't have a strong academic record he wouldn't be on a college roster today.  I want to share my son's academic accomplishments, not to brag, but to show you how it benefited him and helped get him to where he is today.

My son attends a small liberal arts school in the mid-west. The yearly cost is just over $31,000 which includes tuition, room, meal plan, and books.  Here is a breakdown of what he receives in aid:

Academic scholarship    $9000/yr

Baseball scholarship       $2500/yr

Misc. scholarships          $2500/yr

Academic Grant             $4000/yr

TOTAL                         $18,000/yr

He is also getting $5500 this year from student loans. He is majoring in Math and Physics and wants to teach. If he decides to do this there is potential that he could quality for a federal student loan forgiveness program. Currently our yearly out of pocket expenses are about $7500/ year. Less if you factor in the federal tax credit.

As you see, the baseball scholarship was a very small part of the scholarship package. In the case of another freshman at the school my son attends, that player received a total package less than what my son received but almost 80% was baseball money. In most cases when it comes to offers they look at the combined amount of all scholarship monies.

You may be asking then why is the academic achievement of my son so important if they end up getting close to the same money.

Let me use NAIA guideline as an example.  For baseball the NAIA has a 12 "full scholarship" limit that includes all "countable aid". Countable aid is defined as ANY and ALL aid that is institutionally controlled. 

Also under NAIA guidelines there is an academic exemption and it reads as follows:

Academically gifted students will be exempted from the aid counted by use of the following criteria.
1. Aid to continuing students with a 3.60 cumulative GPA or top 10% of class will not count against the limits.
2. Only one-half of the aid to continuing students with a 3.30 - 3.59 cumulative GPA or upper 11%-25% class ranking will count
against the limits.
3. Aid to entering freshmen will be exempted upon achievement of minimum SAT/ACT scores (1050/23=half exemption,
1200/27=full exemption) or cumulative high school GPA (3.50-3.74=half exemption, 3.75-4.0=full exemption) or high school
class rank (top 11%-25%=half exemption, top 10%=full exemption).

As you see a recruit with high test scores, GPA and class rank would get an exemption from the 12 scholarship limit.  Put yourself in the shoes of a college coach. If you came across a decent player that shows some potential, plus he has a very good academic record. Would you be more likely to recruit that player knowing he isn't going to count against your 12 scholarship limit???

In my son's case he had a high school GPA of 3.78, scored 28 on his ACT and was ranked 8th in his class. He was also part of student government, NHS, and some other clubs.  All of these activities really helped with getting some outside scholarship money from local community organizations.