Finding a college isn't the easiest thing to do. Finding a college that you will love attending may even be harder. That was perhaps one of the biggest decisions I was faced with as I contemplated where I would attend school at. However, the biggest influence I had was what kind college scholarship I would receive. Now I'm not talking about an academic scholarship, but a athletic one. That's because I was an athlete, and it was my desire to play on at a higher level. But because of my location and circumstances from playing at a low profile high school, I didn't have many opportunities pointing my way.

Here is the secret world of college recruitment. A recruiter from a school of higher education travels around the United States attending high school state tournaments. Because my team wasn't very good at playing under pressure to make it to state I had to lean on my coach and who she knew so that my name would be had among coaches at a higher level. I wish there would have been a way for me to get my name out to more coaches and not have been limited to just those coaches my coach knew.

If you want to be recruited, you either have to be a very big star athlete, have the right name, or have the right connections. I had to do my own search to find a college that was proper for me. looked at the different colleges close to home after being contacted by a few of them.. a number of them. Luckily for me, my coach was best friends with the coach at a junior college that had a good reputation.

Thanks to my coach I got lucky and found a noble junior college to play for, but even though I got recruited, I still speculate on what could have happened if I had a college search tool available to me or someplace where I would be able to post highlight reels about me for all coaches to see across the USA.

I was fortunate enough to keep playing after I finished with that junior college for a university up in Alaska. How happy I was that I got a full-ride college scholarship for playing there. It wasn't easy for them to find me though, and perhaps I could have even landed a bigger and more prestigious university if I was able to better showcase my abilities.

I am familiar with the recruiting process that coaches go through. First coaches have to do some searching far and wide which costs time and money. If they aren't traveling then they are at home still looking for opportunities to find players. I would sometimes take part in this process by helping my own coach, the year after I finished playing. I had to fill and address envelopes to to nearly every coach in America asking if they had any athletes available. What a awful waste of paper.

Don't get discouraged! Now the power is returning to the student. Or I guess the power is now with the student since it never really was in the first place. Students now will be able to showcase themselves and what they can do to every college admissions officer in America. Whether you are the star athlete or the best actor in your high school, now you can show that by posting your highlights and accomplishments in the electronic world for all colleges to see.

Get ahead of the rest! Go to Zinch.com to simplify the college admissions process. It's not just a college search, be recruited for who you are and find the best college scholarships. Mindy Lindquist is a writer for ioVentures.