The college application process is stressful for all students, but a number of students already know where they will attend college because they have been recruited to play competitive sports.

Getting accepted early into college for sports may take some of the burden off of students, but for student athletes, getting through the process of committing is a rockier road than it may seem.

The NCAA rules state that college coaches are not allowed to email or call high school athletes before July after the athlete’s junior year. This leaves most of the work to the athletes themselves, who must reach out to coaches themselves in order to garner attention.

Olivia Konttinen, who committed to play soccer for the University of Miami, said that during her freshman and sophomore years she emailed dozens of coaches, trying to get prospective colleges interested.

“University of Miami showed the most interest in me and it was the school I liked the most so I committed there,” Konttinen said.

Patrick Tracy, junior, spent a great deal of time last summer competing in lacrosse tournaments and camps on the East Coast, which he claims is part of the reason he is now committed to Brown University.

According to Tracy, Brown’s interest in him picked up after a friend of his father’s passed his lacrosse highlight video onto an old friend, the current Brown lacrosse coach.

“I personally sent them what tournaments I would be at,” Tracy said. “After that, they came to the games, they watched the games, and they saw what they saw.”

According to Tracy, lacrosse tournaments like the one he attended are one of the primary assessments of talent.

“Different tournaments get different reps, so coaches know which tournaments they want to go to and where the best players are,” Tracy said. “The team I was playing for was going to the good tournaments – we knew coaches were going to be there so it was just a matter of how well you played.”

According to Tracy, competition between players at tournaments is especially intense because of the importance of each player’s performance. “It’s basically dog-eat-dog,” Tracy said. “You’re trying to get your looks while still playing for the team and having team success.”

Like Tracy and Konttinen, senior Jill Berling is also one of a handful of Redwood students who has committed to colleges.

Berling is a coxswain for Marin Rowing. Although she was also recruited by Princeton, UCLA, and University of Texas, she chose to go to her favorite school, the University of San Diego.

“Being in San Diego just fit best with my personality,” Berling said. “Plus the coaching staff is incredible, and their team has been growing the past five years and winning their conference. I just like the idea of a growing team and I want to be a part of that.”

Berling not only recognizes the competition between rowers, but believes that women’s crew is possibly the most competitive sport for getting into college.

“Competition is definitely pretty intense,” Berling said. “You only need one or two good coxswains for a team, so you need to be really good.”

According to Berling, the first time she met the USD crew coach happened right after her boat won the San Diego Crew Classic by a narrow margin of .73 seconds.

“It was such an intense race,” Berling said. “The next day I met the coaches and they said ‘We saw your race, it was incredible!’ and from there, they kind of fell in love with me.”

According to Konttinen, women’s soccer is also one of the most competitively recruited sports.

“Teams like Stanford will just pull girls off the national team,” Konttinen said. “Any one camp will have 100 girls from across the U.S. I went to the Miami camp, and there were girls from Ohio, Texas, Chicago, New York, and Florida locals.”

According to Tracy, colleges are so intent on building successful lacrosse programs that they have begun to recruit younger and younger.

“The University of Virginia had their entire roster for my recruiting class filled before I even committed to Brown, and North Carolina had like two spots left,” Tracy said. “In lacrosse it’s a race, and coaches know it’s gotten out of hand.”