College is a balancing act.

This statement has been central in recent debates encompassing any number of topics involving student-athlete welfare. Yet even as an overused metaphor, nothing could be closer to the truth: College is a balancing act, and being a student-athlete is the toughest act on campus.

To maintain that balance, student-athletes have to prioritize the three main themes thrown at them from the day recruiting begins to the day they graduate: academics, athletics and social life. College does not begin in fall of the freshman year; it begins the junior year of high school when a plethora of brochures inundate the mailbox. From here, the inherent elements of college campuses take form, continuing through coaches' phone calls, recruiting trips and -- finally -- the first Monday morning of classes.

However, the arrival of the first college brochure does not initiate a high-school student's exposure to college life since a surfeit of public media has inundated their life for some time. Through many stories and images surrounding campus life, the potential view of college already has been jaded as a place where the dual term "student-athlete" may be more about the latter. College is thought to be a place where fame and fortune will follow you around campus with a golden halo. Most recently, college has been considered a place where the word "party" takes on new meaning and "school" is a derogatory word.

Beyond the immediate public melee that recent incidents on the collegiate athletics front have stirred, something good has come from all of this. First, the attention to various problems has inspired dialogue among college athletics stakeholders; second, it has forced this dialogue into incendiary action that should prompt positive change.

In re-examining this issue, a solution does not seem simple. With images and messages of campus culture reaching all future students before the recruiting process can even begin, how can athletics programs effect broad cultural change and set new standards for prospective student-athletes? First impressions make all the difference, and the answers might lie somewhere in the recruiting trip.

For a student-athlete, the campus visit is the most vital component in deciding where to pursue a college career. In the 48 hours on campus, a picture is portrayed, one that hopefully depicts the balancing act played out in daily college life. To most effectively demonstrate this portrayal, let's take a look inside the three themes -- academics, athletics and social life -- through the recruiting picture.

The academic aspect of a recruiting trip is one similar to that of any student coming to visit campus for a day. You visit with directors and advisors in respective programs and majors, you tour the student union, you buy a hat or shirt, you are pitched the main highlights and strengths of academia, and you see a dorm or two. There may be a visit with athletics academic support staff and a possible tour of a student-athlete study facility. For many student-athletes, these elements are important, and information about help and support is essential.

The prospective student-athlete finds the athletics component of the recruiting trip as important as the academic. Early on, the questions that often dominate a high-school senior's decision are:

Will I play?

What is expected of me as an athlete?

What type of training will I do in the off-season?

What are the coaches like, or the team, or the facilities?

Once on campus, the prospect can have those questions answered in real time, as the answers once provided on the phone come to life in their truest form. Decisions are made or broken as the individuals that glazed the athletics media guide come together on and off the playing surface. The recruit must judge his or her fit in this team culture.

Finally, the social element of the balancing act is weighed -- a weight many in contemporary culture feel is the heaviest. Eventually a recruit leaves the friendly confines of the counselors' and coaches' offices, putting behind the packed day of seeing this and visiting that. If the parents have come along, they have gone back to the hotel. The agendas have been tossed by the wayside and the recruit is let loose -- with $30 per diem and in the hands of a current student-athlete host. It is at this juncture in the recruiting visit that ears perk, awaiting a tune that beats to impropriety, one that will strike a chord of "student-athlete excess, immoral actions, and scandalous characteristics" in the morning papers.

For the vast majority of recruits, these two nights are filled with movies, miniature golf and laser tag with possible future teammates. That's right, laser tag. By the time night falls on the recruiting trip, a prospect has 90 percent of his or her decision made. The teammates are almost palpable, and it's that simple game of laser tag that perhaps tips the scales.

Yet if a simple social atmosphere fills the nightlife of most recruiting visits, why is the media saturated with stories that deface the image of all student-athletes? The answer lies in the hidden pressure that some student-athletes face to show the recruit they are hosting a "good time."

This good time is played out when the hosting student-athlete asks a recruit, "What do you want to do?" The answer: "Party." In the high-stakes world of recruiting, some student-athletes will do many things to entertain a recruit. Quickly, student-athletes realize what has occurred during the recruit's other visits, and their goal is to outdo the previous recruiters. And for some prospects, the partying social perspective is what the weight on the balance is all about.

Together, we must find a solution to this hidden pressure, one that has caused many of the problems associated with recruiting. We must educate our coaches, student-athletes, recruits and their families about expectations on campus visits; yet, we must not let education be our scapegoat as we must hold ourselves accountable to these expectations. We must create more universal standards for our campuses -- not just to level the playing field, but to strive for excellence and the integrity of the university.

And we must, for the sake of the prospective student-athletes' future, use the recruiting visit to sincerely portray the real picture of being a student-athlete on our college campuses. It is a balancing act, one that we are privileged to accept, and one that is the toughest act on campus.

Ian Gray is a cross country student-athlete at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and vice-chair of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Liz McCaslin is a volleyball student-athlete at the University of Kentucky and a member of the Division I SAAC.