College preferences & recommendations

College preferences and recommendations are two different tools that live near each other in your account. Preferences are what you want in a school, and they power your college matches: every program in your divisions, ranked by how well it fits. Recommendations are specific programs a coach or recruiter suggests directly to you.

Set your preferences

Open College Preferences to fill in what you're looking for:

• Major(s)
• Division(s)
• States
• Distance from home — from 0-100 miles up to As far away as possible, or Same State
• Setting — City, Suburb, Town, or Rural
• Size — Small, Medium, or Large
• Annual out of pocket budget — in $10,000 bands, up to $50,000+
• School Type — Public, Private nonprofit, or Private for-profit

Below those are four fields used for matching:

• What matters most? Pick up to two of Academics, Major, Location, Cost, and School feel. They count extra when your matches are ranked.
• Home zip code: only used to measure distance to schools, so Distance from home works for matching. It's never shown on your profile.
• Athletic scholarship: "I need athletic scholarship money," "I'd like it, but it's not required," or "Not a factor." If you need it, programs that can't offer athletic scholarships (like NCAA D3 and the Ivy League) are capped at 50% in your matches. Picking NCAA D3 as a division while saying you need athletic money shows a heads-up, since many D3 schools offer strong academic and need-based aid instead.
• Religious affiliation: "Prefer a religious school" or "Prefer a non-religious school," or leave it on no preference. If you prefer a religious school, you can narrow it to specific affiliations.

The page tells you why it's there: "Filling this out helps you and your coaches think through what you want out of your college experience." It's also explicitly private: visible only to you and your recruiter or coaches inside your organization, never to college coaches you email. There's no GPA or test score field here. Matching reads those from the Academics tab of your profile, so keep your academic profile up to date.

Click Save when you're done. A Print button generates a clean printable version, handy for a recruiting meeting with your family or coach where you want a paper copy on the table.

How preferences power your matches

Your matches turn on once you've filled in your Divisions plus at least two of Majors, Location (states, or home zip and distance), and Budget. From then on, every program in your divisions gets a match %, shown on your Matches page, in College Search, on your target list, and on each program page.

Your divisions work as a filter, not a score: only programs in the divisions you pick get matched. Everything else adds to the score, and anything you leave blank is simply left out. Change your preferences any time and your matches are re-scored. See College matches for exactly how the score works.

Preferences don't filter College Search or your target list. Every school still shows up; the ones in your divisions just carry a match %.

Review recommendations from your coach

If your organization uses recommendations, your coach or recruiter can suggest a specific program to you from inside their view of your profile. You'll see these on the Recommendations page, with a badge in the nav showing how many are waiting on you. Only recommendations that are still pending show up in the list. Once you act on one, it drops off.

Each row shows the program, who recommended it, and an optional note from them (up to 255 characters). A recommendation can also carry up to 3 tags. You have two options:

• Approve: adds the program to your target list with the suggested status and tags (still subject to your normal target-list limits), and lets your coach know you accepted it.
• Reject: declines it. Nothing gets added to your target list.

If you don't see a Recommendations link in your navigation, your account may not have this feature enabled. Check with your coach or program admin.

What's next

• Turn preferences into action in Building your target list.
• Organize approved recommendations and other targets with Tags & prioritization.
• See every program in your divisions ranked by fit in College matches.