When to start sending questionnaires to college coaches?

i want to play divison 1 softball but i dont know when i should start sending questionnaires to coaches of colleges that iam interested in. im now at the end of my junior year. i was thinking that fall of my junior year would be a good time? because it gets my name out before my junior season, so i could potentially be watched by a coach my junior season or during summer ball following my junior season. i feel that any later would hurt me since my senior season would be too late. does this seem right?

When to start sending questionnaires to college coaches?
NCAA rules will unfortunately prohibit any coaches or recruitment staff from answering many, if any, questionnaires you send to any given university. The method and content of their contact with potential recruits is tightly regulated. The primary advantage to sending any "letters of interest" or questionnaires is a coach becoming interested in learning more about your stats or performance if they see your name on paper.





First contact between programs and potential recruits will generally take place in your sophomore or junior season; the best and only guaranteed way of promoting your name for recruitment is hard-nosed networking. Play fall ball, attend summer camps, tell every coach you meet you want to play at the next level, try out for state and national leagues, and make your sport an integral part of your life.





That being said, if you haven't done all this and have yet to be contacted by any programs by the end of your junior season, your chances of being recruited are highly unlikely. There are only about one hundred NCAA division I softball programs; each softball team's roster will roughly consist of about fifteen players, though that number can vary. Doing the math, you can make a rough estimate that only about four hundred graduating seniors in the entire country will be recruited. It's important to remember as well that not every player will be a scholarship recruit; there are players on every team that still pay for the pleasure of representing their school on the field. Finding a program that you want to play for as a walk-on is an option as well, but you'll be competing with a few dozen other students (if not a hundred) for what usually amounts to a single slot on a roster.





Don't set your sights solely on a division I program. There are hundreds upon hundreds of division II and division III schools that you should look at as well.