Approaching signing day: the college choice process of heavily recruited student athletes

This dissertation examined the factors that heavily recruited high school football players took into consideration when selecting a higher education institution to attend. The model of college choice introduced by Don Hossler and Karen Gallagher (1987), proposes that students progress through three phases when deciding where they will attend college: predisposition, search, and choice. This study is a result of a survey conducted during the search phase of high school seniors whose success as football players afforded them the opportunity to be recruited by some of the wealthiest and most successful college football programs in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).