Background/Purpose The process of selecting a college or university for a high school student appears to be a complex decision involving many different influencing factors, including academic major, geographical location and social atmosphere (Wirt, 1999). Selecting an institution of higher education to attend may depend on only one particular factor. As a result of this complicated process, the recruiting procedures for colleges, athletic departments, and coaching staffs have become exceedingly costly and extremely technical.
The purpose of this study was to identify college choice factors of track-and-field student athletes' choice to attend a NCAA Division I HBCU.
Method The instrument used was the Student Athletes College Choice Profile Survey originally developed by Gabert, Hale, & Montalvo (1999). A total of 22 (100%) MEAC member school teams and 12 (60%) SWAC member school teams responded. There 34 teams participated in the study for response rate of 81%, with an overall response rate of 65%. Descriptive and inferential statistics techniques were used.
Analysis/Results The results indicated there were differences between gender and academic college choice factors. The top factors were: opportunity to play, degree program, academic support, college head coach, location of school, chance to travel, athletic traditions, campus social life, athletic facilities, and position coach.
Conclusions
This study indicated that for track and field student athletes all three choice factors categories were very important in their college choice process, of an HBCU. Therefore coaches, administrators and recruiters may be able to better plan well balanced recruiting strategies to attract high quality student athletes.
See more of: Research Consortium