The "Find a University" section in College Pipe is a powerful tool designed to help recruiting experts and athletes identify potential collegiate opportunities that are the right fit. This article provides a detailed look at its features, including the various filters and the actions you can take once you've found suitable institutions.
College Pipe offers two main ways to access the university database:
General "Find a University": This section typically shows all universities in the College Pipe database that have an athletic team, across all sports. It's useful for broad exploration or research not tied to a specific athlete's profile initially.
Athlete's Specific "Find University": Accessed through an individual athlete's profile, this section is highly recommended when building a list for a particular athlete. The key advantages here are:
The athlete's sport is pre-selected, automatically filtering the list to relevant programs.
You can view the "Personal Fit" score calculated for that specific athlete with each university, providing an immediate compatibility rating.
Once you have a list of universities (either unfiltered or after applying filters), you can sort them to prioritize your view:
Personal Fit: Sort universities based on the calculated Personal Fit score for the selected athlete (only available in the athlete's specific "Find University" section). This helps quickly identify the most compatible schools based on College Pipe's assessment.
Last Coach Search Activity: Sort by the last time a coach from that university was active on College Pipe looking for athletes. This can help you find programs that are currently active in the recruiting process.
The strength of the "Find a University" section lies in its detailed filtering capabilities, allowing you to narrow down the vast landscape of universities to those that best match an athlete's specific criteria. Filters are generally categorized as follows:
Athletics Factors: These filters focus on the characteristics of the university's athletic program:
Currently Looking: Identify universities where a coach is currently searching for an athlete at a specific position (College Pipe tracks this data).
Conference: Filter by specific athletic conferences.
Division: Select universities belonging to a particular governing body and division (NCAA DI, DII, DIII, NAIA, JUCO).
University's Athletic Level: Filter based on College Pipe's internal assessment of the university's overall athletic competitiveness (corresponding to the "Top Ranked," "Excellent," "Very Good," "Good," and "Competitive" categories).
Nationally Ranked: Filter to include only universities that are currently nationally ranked (Yes/No).
Other Sports Offered: While focused on the athlete's sport, you can filter based on whether the university offers other specific sports.
University Factors: These filters relate to the general characteristics and location of the institution:
Region: Filter by geographical region.
State: Select universities located in specific states.
Campus Setting: Filter by the environment around the campus (Large City, Suburban Area, Small City).
Private or Public: Choose between privately or publicly funded institutions.
College Type: Specify whether you are looking for a two-year (JUCO) or four-year program.
Religious Affiliation: Filter based on whether the university has a specific religious affiliation.
HBCU: Filter to include historically black colleges and universities.
Number of Undergraduate Students: Filter by the size of the undergraduate student body.
Academic Factors: These filters allow you to prioritize universities based on academic criteria:
Academic Reputation: Filter based on the general academic standing or reputation of the university.
Available Majors: This is a powerful filter. You can search and select specific majors. For athletes with very specific academic interests (like Aerospace Engineering, as mentioned in the transcript), using this filter is crucial as it can significantly narrow down the list to only those universities offering that particular program. College Pipe's database includes information on the majors provided by universities.
Graduate Programs: Filter based on whether the university offers graduate-level programs.
Cost:
In-state or Out-of-state Cost: Filter based on the tuition cost before any scholarships are applied.
By combining multiple filters, you can create highly specific searches to find universities that meet a complex set of athletic, academic, geographic, and personal preferences.
Once you have filtered and identified universities that appear to be a good fit for an athlete (or multiple athletes), College Pipe allows you to take immediate action directly from the search results:
Select Universities: You can select individual universities from the displayed list. You can also often select multiple or even all universities on a given page of results.
Add to University List: With universities selected, you can add them to one or multiple athletes' dedicated university lists. This is a fundamental step in building a targeted list for each athlete within their profile.
Contact Coaches: The College Pipe system also allows you to initiate contact with coaches at the selected universities directly from this section. You can often contact coaches for one athlete or send a message regarding multiple athletes if applicable. This streamlines the outreach process once you've identified potential fits.
The "Find a University" section, with its detailed filtering and direct action capabilities, is an indispensable tool in College Pipe for efficiently identifying, organizing, and engaging with potential collegiate athletic programs.