The visit goes both ways
Every moment of a campus visit is a two-way evaluation. Most families only think about one side.
Most families approach a campus visit from one of two places.
The first: we are here to evaluate this program. We’re checking the facilities, meeting the coaches, getting a feel for whether our daughter could be happy here for four years. The visit is ours to run.
The second: we need to make a good impression. Say the right things, ask smart questions, don’t embarrass ourselves. The visit is something we have to pass.
Both of those instincts are right. Neither of them is the whole picture.
A campus visit is the one moment in the entire recruiting process where genuine, unfiltered information flows in both directions simultaneously. The coach is learning something real about you at the exact moment you’re learning something real about them. Understanding that changes how you experience every part of the day.
The campus tour
What you think is happening: You’re seeing the facilities, getting a sense of the place, deciding whether it feels right.
What the coach thinks is happening: She’s watching how you engage. Are you asking questions, or waiting to be told things? Do you notice details - the locker room quirks, the film room setup, what’s on the walls - or do you walk through it passively? A recruit who asks about something specific she noticed tells a coach something. A recruit who nods along to everything tells a coach something different.
The facilities are largely irrelevant to the evaluation. How you move through them isn’t.
The meal with the players
What you think is happening: A chance to connect, have fun, get a feel for the team culture.
What the coach thinks is happening: This is the most unfiltered data point of the entire visit. She’s not in the room, which means nobody is performing for her. What her players report back - and they always report back - carries enormous weight. Did your daughter ask questions or talk about herself? Did she seem genuinely curious about what their experience is like, or did she spend the meal selling herself? Was she easy to be around?
The meal with the players isn’t a social event with recruiting on the side. It’s the other way around.
The one-on-one with the head coach
What you think is happening: An important meeting where you need to ask smart questions and make a strong impression.
What the coach thinks is happening: She’s finding out whether there’s a real person behind the recruit. Does she push back on anything, or agree with everything? Does she ask something that could only come from someone who’s actually thought about this program specifically? Is there any moment where she says something surprising, or is the whole conversation exactly what a well-prepared recruit would say?
Coaches have these meetings constantly. They can tell the difference between genuine curiosity and performed curiosity within a few minutes. The families who treat this as a test to pass often produce exactly that: a performance. The ones who treat it as a real conversation tend to leave a different kind of impression.
Watching practice
What you think is happening: You’re evaluating the coaching style, the team’s level, the intensity of the environment, and how everyone treats each other under a bit of pressure. You're there to observe, so you hang back and take it in. Watch quietly, don't get in the way, be respectful of the space. That's the polite thing to do.
What the coach thinks is happening: He's watching what you watch - and hanging back reads as passive. The recruits who ask if they can stand closer to hear the team talks, who notice something specific about how the team plays and ask about it afterwards, who engage with what they're seeing rather than observe it from a distance - those are the ones who leave an impression.
A player who says "I noticed your defenders force to the forehand rather than the baseline when defending the circle - is that deliberate?" has just told a coach something about how she watches the game. Most recruits never ask a follow-up question about what they saw. Polite observation is forgettable. Genuine engagement isn't.
The moment before you leave
What you think is happening: You don’t want to seem too eager or put pressure on the relationship, so you keep it warm but noncommittal. Thank them for everything, say you have a lot to think about, follow up with a nice email tomorrow.
What the coach thinks is happening: Does she say anything real? After a full day or two together, a recruit who leaves with the same vague positivity she arrived with gives a coach nothing to work with. Both sides have just invested hours in this.
The goodbye is the moment to say something true - not a commitment if you aren’t ready for that, not a performance, just honesty. “I want to be transparent - this visit moved this program up significantly for me” is a sentence that costs nothing to say and changes everything about how a coach thinks about you when you walk out the door. Most recruits never say it.
The thing both sides forget
The visit is not an audition. It’s not an inspection tour. It’s the one moment in a process that is otherwise defined by incomplete information and strategic ambiguity where both sides get to find out something true about the other.
The families who do this well aren’t the ones who perform flawlessly or interrogate the program most aggressively. They’re the ones who show up as themselves - curious, direct, paying attention- and let that be enough.
Before I leave for Europe with the USA WNT for the World Cup next month, I'm opening up a handful of one-to-one Strategy Sessions. One hour, three topics of your choosing. A few spots left in July!