2026’s! – Welcome to Your Headfirst Recruiting Roadmap

January 31, 2023

By Headfirst

856 words – a 3 minute read

Baseball 2026’s!

More than 10,000 of our Headfirst alumni have gone on to successful college student-athlete experiences.

We’ve designed the Recruiting Roadmap to guide you along your own path. We’re thrilled you’ve joined our community – and to be in your corner as your journey accelerates with your arrival in high school.

The Roadmap combines relevant guidance with exclusive access to trusted subject matter experts and 25 years of experience working with players and college coaches in our network.
We’ll share what matters most during each period of the year in three key focus areas and help you answer the recurring question: “What do we do next?”

In this edition:

One curated school research tool
Two upcoming live events
Expert intel on approaching the new SAT
A foundational student-athlete tip on how to mindfully approach this process.

Let’s dive in. Headfirst.

Finding your baseline

📑Roadmap Resource: An exclusive “Finding Your Fit” resource for Roadmap community members to support your baseline knowledge of school, program and division types.

Why it matters: Many players & families are missing critical information about their potential set of target schools. Confusion and askew decision making often follow.

Our goal is to help you keep your priorities clear and aligned, expectations aspirational but realistic, and use of time and resources efficient.
We urge you to weigh academics and holistic school fit at least as much as baseball factors. We’re going to keep urging you.
Deciphering fact from fiction from sales pitch in the college process is difficult. And costly.

Student-Athlete Action:

We created the “Finding Your Fit” resource to help you explore the differences between Colleges and Universities, public & private institutions, and Division 1 and Division 3 athletic experiences.
This is great dinner table discussion fodder for players and parents as you begin to build your college list.
Which elements reinforce previous knowledge, which caught you by surprise – and what type of environment might be a fit for you?

Go deeper: Join us to continue the conversation!

📅Office Hours: Join us for insights and Q&A with two decades of experience in the academic recruiting process: Justin Cronk, from Diamond College Advisory Team.
Thursday, Feb. 16th (8:00pm ET; 5:00pm PT); Register here. *Update – you can view the recording here!

100-year change

One big thing: The SAT is approaching its most significant change in its nearly 100-year history – and your recruiting journey will be impacted.

📅Join us on Thursday, March 2nd (8:00pm ET; 5:00pm PT) for an exclusive expert-led webinar for student-athletes & parents focused on this new Digital SAT.

We’ve partnered with Compass Education Group to guide the academic readiness cornerstone of the Roadmap.

Why it matters: Even the strongest students require help to successfully navigate the college admissions process. Compass is the first test prep company to offer a full-length digital, adaptive practice test that mimics the real exam.

What’s next: The new SAT debuts in the US next March (2024). The class of 2025 will be the first cohort tested – jumping from the current paper SAT to a brand new modality. This new version will be in place when it is your time to test.

Starting with the PSAT in October 2023, the paper-based exams will be replaced by a digital and adaptive format. Students will face new content and question types; no two students will take the same test.
Go deeper.

🧭Compass Offer: Webinar attendees will receive access to (1) practice digital adaptive PSAT ($50 value, fee waived for Roadmap subscribers with the promo code HEADFIRST).

Own it

🚩Student-Athlete Insight: YOU must take ownership of your recruiting process.

Your network of love and support will remain crucial:

Parents and family. With the gift of perspective, we realize now that they often did know better. Cherish the time this journey gives you with them and the insight they can provide.
Coaches, teachers, friends & teammates. Take time to appreciate these great gifts.

Yes, but: This is your journey, your dreams, your life, your impact to make. It is critical now and going forward that you take primary responsibility for your:

Vision of what a successful student-athlete experience looks and feels like.
Academic focus and preparation.
Organization, research and communication.
Effort, energy & emotional responses to the good days and the bad.

The bottom line: Process ownership is important to the college coaches who will evaluate and recruit you.

It will prove critical to your development of the skills and habits necessary for success at the next level.
We’ll help you and your family balance ownership and self advocacy with curiosity and inquiry – so you are able to leverage the wonderful support from those around you.

When in doubt: own it.

And we’re off.

We want to learn more about you. Here’s a three-question reader survey. We’ll share the results anonymously next month.
Our next edition will publish on March 15th.

Save the 📅:

New SAT Webinar with Compass Education (March 2nd)
Office Hours with Justin Cronk (Feb. 16th); Register here.

Help us help you: We’d ❤️your feedback: roadmap@headfirst.com

Thanks for reading and to our friends at AxiosHQ for creating this Smart Brevity content style and their unwavering support of our team at Headfirst.