→ New here? Start with The Recruiting Process for the cross-sport basics, then come back.
“When do we start” is the question every recruiting parent asks, usually a year after the honest answer. The trap cuts both ways. Start too early and you waste money on a service for a thirteen-year-old. Start too late and senior fall arrives with no film and no list.
The clean answer: the academic foundation starts freshman year, the active outreach ramps from sophomore into junior year, and the exact timing depends on your sport and your level.
The foundation starts freshman year, for everyone
Before any of the sport-specific timing, one thing is true across every division and every sport. The core GPA starts counting freshman year, and the transcript is the cheapest, highest-leverage recruiting asset you have.
So the recruiting process, in the real sense, starts the first semester of ninth grade. Not with emails to coaches. With the right courses and the grades that keep every door open.
It depends on your sport
Sports run on different clocks, and this is where families get the timing wrong.
Baseball, soccer, lacrosse, and women’s volleyball tend to move early, with real interest building by sophomore year. Football and track tend to run later, with the bulk of the action in junior and senior year. The sport pages on this site carry the specific calendar, so read yours before you decide you are behind or ahead.
It depends on your level
Level changes the clock as much as sport does.
D1 recruiting is the earliest and most professionalized, and if a kid is a D1 prospect in an early sport, the conversation can start by sophomore year. D2 generally runs later. D3, NAIA, and JUCO recruiting often runs through senior year and well into the spring, with coaches filling roster spots in April and May. A senior with no offers in a late-recruiting lane is not out of the game.
What to actually do, by phase
Too early to fear (8th and freshman year). Play, train, and lock in the grades and core courses. Skip the paid services.
The build phase (sophomore year). Film, a list of fifteen to twenty schools across levels, free questionnaires, and a real email address for your kid.
The active phase (junior year). Contact opens for most sports on June 15 after sophomore year. Email coaches, take unofficial visits, hit the camps that matter, and file the FAFSA in October if aid is in play.
The closing phase (senior year). Official visits, applications to schools and not just programs, and commitments, including the late D3, NAIA, and JUCO spots that open in spring.
The bottom line
You are not late because a travel coach said your eighth-grader should already be committed somewhere. You are late if it is junior year and your kid has no film, no school list, and no emails sent. Start the grades freshman year, start the outreach sophomore into junior year, and let your sport and level set the precise clock.
For the grade-by-grade checklist, see the recruiting timeline by grade.
Last updated June 2026.