Welcome to Volleyball Austin! What makes our league unique is our rating system. To ensure the best possible experience, we require all players to attend a rating session upon joining the league in order to assess their skills and make sure that they are drafted in the appropriate division. Below are a few tips to help make the rating session a positive experience!

First and most-important, HAVE FUN! This session is designed to evaluate your skillset so that you are drafted into the best division to match your current skill. Below you will find a brief overview of the skills we will evaluate and how your overall rating is calculated.

Here are a few tips to help:

• Please arrive 15-30 minutes early for registration and warm up.
• Make sure you bring the necessary equipment. If you play in knee pads or arm sleeves, bring them! We want you at your best.
• Play to the best of your ability. There will be plenty of different skillsets but do your best, we have a division for everyone.
• We only keep your most-recent rating session, this ensures that you are trying your best at all times.
• Be supportive of your fellow members. These types of sessions can be hard, but each of you is experiencing the same thing. Clap, cheer and support one-another and it makes it a lot more fun!

There are SIX skills that will be evaluated using various drills throughout the session. Every player will be evaluated on at least 5 of these skills, even players that designate a non-attacking position like Libero. Only players that have listed "setter" as one of their two primary positions will be evaluated on their setting.

The above formula is how your overall rating is determined. The table to the right represents the scoring scale as it relates to national tournament ratings for comparison.

If registered as a setter, you will go through the setting drill. Your final player rating will use the higher of the Setting or Passing score.

Serving & Passing will be evaluated on the same drill. Half of the group on your court will begin serving and the other half will rotate through serve-receive. Serving has 6 available points toward your rating while passing has 8 available points.

Blocking & Defense will also be evaluated on one drill. Each member will rotate through the 6 volleyball positions and receive an attack from outside, middle and opposite in order to evaluate your defensive adjustments depending on the position you are currently in. There are 6 available points for blocking and 8 available points for defense.

Attacking will be its own drill as each player will get at least 5 live sets from one of our drillers based on what type of set the player calls. Remember to choose sets based on your preferred position. If you are listed as an outside or opposite, call for sets in those two positions primarily. If you are listed as a libero, ask for back-row sets. We ask that each player, regardless of position be evaluated on attacking. Attacking has 12 available points.

Setting will also be its own drill and will be limited to only players that have one of their positions listed as "setter." In this drill, the player will be asked to set different types of attacks for our drillers, beginning with easy passes and increase to harder passes that require the setter to move out of the target zone. Setting has 8 available points and note that only one score between Setting & Passing is used in your final rating calculation, but we will use whichever score is higher.

Ratings will be calculated the week prior to the season draft, so please do not ask or email the board regarding your rating after the session. Once you have been drafted, we have instructed captains to share ratings with their team.