Recruiting how-to ·
The recruiting questionnaire goes first: which D2/D3 programs have one
How many D2 and D3 wrestling programs publish a recruiting questionnaire, which platforms they use, what a general form means, and what to do if there is none.
On this page
Before you write a word to a coach, put yourself in their recruiting system. Most D2 and D3 wrestling staffs run recruiting out of a database, and the questionnaire on the athletics site is the front door to it. A coach who reads your email and cannot find you in that database has to do extra work; a coach who finds your file already there can act on the email in a minute. That is why the questionnaire goes first and the email goes second.
Here is what the directory shows about who has one, what kind, and what to do in each case.
Who has a wrestling questionnaire
We checked all 207 D2 and D3 programs. As of 2026-08-17:
| Wrestling-specific form | General athletics form only | None found | Not yet checked | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division II (75 programs) | 43 | 12 | 20 | 0 |
| Division III (132 programs) | 76 | 29 | 18 | 9 |
So 119 programs, a little more than half, have a form built for wrestling. Another 41 have a form for all sports. For 38 we could not find one on the official site, and 9 D3 programs are still in the queue.
Some programs with a wrestling-specific form: Cal Poly Humboldt, San Francisco State, Vanguard, Adams State, Colorado Mesa, and Colorado School of Mines. Programs with a general form: Montevallo, Ouachita Baptist, Simon Fraser, Shorter, and MSU Moorhead. Programs where we found none: Menlo, Upper Iowa, McKendree, Newman, Frostburg State, and St. Cloud State.
“None found” means none found by us on the official athletics site on the day we checked. It does not mean the coach has no system. Coaches add and move forms constantly, so treat the status as a starting point and confirm on the program page’s roster and staff links before you decide.
What platform the form runs on, and why it matters
Of the 119 wrestling-specific forms, 49 run on ARMS, 17 on Front Rush, 15 on Sidearm’s built-in recruit form, and 38 are the school’s own page or another vendor. You do not need to care about the vendor except for one practical reason: it tells you what happens after you hit submit.
ARMS and Front Rush are recruiting databases the staff logs into. Your entry lands in a list the coach sorts by grad year and weight, and it stays there. Sidearm forms and many school-built forms are closer to a contact form: they email someone in the athletics office, who may or may not forward it. If the form is a Sidearm or in-house one, your follow-up email carries more of the weight, so send it the same day.
Either way, fill in every field. Coaches sort and filter on those fields. A form with no GPA, no projected weight, and no video link is a form that gets skipped.
What a general athletics form means
Forty-one programs, 12 in D2 and 29 in D3, publish one form for every sport. That form goes to the athletics department, not the wrestling office. Sometimes it is routed to the head coach automatically; sometimes it sits until someone forwards it.
Fill it out anyway, select wrestling where it asks, and put your projected weight and best results in whatever free-text field it offers. Then email the coach and say so: “I submitted the athletics recruiting form on September 3 and selected wrestling.” That sentence turns a form the coach may never see into one they can go find.
When there is no form: the playbook
For the 38 programs where we found no form at all, and for any program where the link is dead, the email is the questionnaire. Do this:
- Open the program page here and click through to the official staff directory. Use the head coach’s address from that page, not one built from a pattern and not one from a third-party recruiting site.
- Write the email exactly as the email guide lays out: grad year, GPA, projected college weight, hometown and high school, best results, a public video link, your upcoming schedule, one specific sentence about the program, and your contacts.
- Add one line: “I did not find a recruiting questionnaire on your site; if you have one, send me the link and I will complete it today.”
- Follow up in 10 to 14 days if you hear nothing.
Many smaller D3 staffs recruit entirely by email and are not behind for lack of a form. A missing form is not a signal about the program’s interest in you.
How each program page shows this
Every program page in the directory has a Recruiting section. Its first line, “Questionnaire,” reads one of four ways: “Wrestling-specific recruiting questionnaire” with an open-form link, “General (all-sports) prospect form” with the link, “No recruiting form found on the official site,” or “Recruiting form not yet checked.” Programs with a wrestling-specific form also carry a “Recruiting form” badge in the header and an “Open recruiting form” button next to the “Official staff page” button, so the form and the coach’s address are one click apart. The section is stamped with the date it was last verified.
If a link is wrong or a form has moved, use /correct and tell us. Corrections show up on /changes once they land.
Order of operations, again
- Questionnaire (wrestling-specific if it exists, general if that is all there is).
- Email the head coach the same day, at the address on the official staff page, mentioning the form.
- Follow up once.
At D2, where partial athletic aid exists, this order also matters because it gets you into the pool the coach looks at when deciding where scholarship dollars go. At D3 there is no athletic money at all, and the questionnaire is how the coach starts the admissions and academic-aid conversation with you. Both start with the same form. Fill it out first.