College ID camps

Athletic Recruits
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How many ID camps are your high schoolers attending this summer? My 2023 soccer GK and I were going through the list last night and it is quite difficult to manage with new camps popping up daily. She is only going to camps on the college campus, run by the coaching staff and as of now only those that are drivable from home (Ohio). She does have an interest in the west coast and has been in contact with coaches from florida and New England so we may have one plane trip this summer. How is everyone selecting camps and managing travel? Right now the camps she is attending are below, and since she has no real idea other then major in political science, opportunities for internships and study abroad, and near a big city the list is pretty broad across divisions and size:

Ohio Wesleyan
University at Buffalo or University of Illinois Springfield
Pitt
Kenyon
Fordham
Stony Brook
Bryn Mawr
DePaul

Maybes are - Seattle pacific, Colby, Bates, university of Tampa, Temple, Swarthmore

Also has a weeklong GK camp with her GK trainer and then starts fall ball and cross country in Aug

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Does your D have a sense of what she’d like her college experience to be beyond soccer? You have a couple of schools on the list that are radically different from each other. I’d say, for example, if she would like Kenyon, add Swat, Bates and Colby (and Denison and some of the PA LACs) and cut Pitt, Temple, Illinois, etc.

The recruiting process is tough in the sense that you need to find a school you’d be excited to attend if you were not an athlete AND you need to find a team that’s a good fit for you. My personal advice would be to start with the first list and then try to get in front of coaches at those schools because as you’ve discovered,there are so many camps and it’s really not helpful to be involved in discussions with coaches st schools you wouldn’t be happy to attend.

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She really doesn’t, especially since she hasn’t been able to do any real tours or go to any college games due to Covid. She thinks she wants out of state, urban (or close to a large city), and not too small but not too big. Academically she is a strong student but not amazing (English/humanities much stronger then math/science, will be NHS, looking like a 30-32 ACT likely, some APs and lots of honors) amd a good athlete at a strong club but lacks size so we have been told lower level D1 (not power 5 type schools). I am requiring she at least look at one school in each division - even if not going to a camp and two Ohio schools. So far she can only directly talk to D3 schools so she has made some connections with those coaches - Hiram, Kenyon, Colby, Bates and her coaches believe that Stony Brook, Loyola, Dartmouth have expressed interest.

Should be a fun and crazy summer - and hopefully she reigns in her selection criteria a bit

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By how much does she lack size? Goalkeeping is a challenging position for college, because - especially for the higher Divisions - a school may carry several keepers. In addition, pretty much only one plays.

Trying to make a lot of the camps will drive you crazy and will absolutely preclude any sort of family vacation (okay, maybe you have already given up on that possibility). To enhance efficiency, I suggest that you send tapes to a range of college coaches, and see where you are getting traction. That way you can narrow your camps down to the schools that seem to have a genuine interest.

If you are looking lower D1, I would suggest Colgate, Bucknell, Lehigh and Lafayette. Pretty much all of the NESCAC schools should be looked into. Take a look at the rosters and see where the starters are graduating (or are juniors) and where size will not be an issue. Again, that may help narrow down the options.

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She is 5’6, 130 plays at a top club in the ecnl. She has video and has been communicating with coaches since summer before freshman year. She is an only child and we are making a short vacay out of the nyc stretch and possible some beach time if we do Tampa but honestly gave up on vacations outside of soccer a few years ago. I am a teacher so summer travel is much easier then during the school year

I will have her look at the schools you mentioned, I know a teammate committed to Lehigh in 2020 and she was a smaller GK. She looks closely at rosters and size when looking at schools and her coaches have been pretty honest about who looks for physically bigger GKs vs more technical but smaller GKs. And while she does want to play in college she doesn’t want to settle for a school just because she can play so it’s tough. Already had one “rejection” who just said they aren’t looking for a GK in 2023 so she knows more will come.

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Tampa is a nice urban school that’s not too urban. Athletic facilities are nice.

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She may want to look at Davidson. I don’t know anything about their women’s soccer program, but we were very impressed with the school. It is essentially a high academic liberal arts school that also happens to be a real D1 school. Think Nescac or Ivy with athletic scholarships.

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@GKmom23 At 12:00 a.m. on June 15th the D1 coaches can personally contact her. I would put any school that reaches out to her personally that day on your camp list because they’ve made the effort to show interest the very first day.

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My '23 is planning to do local ID camps in our area. Fortunately, we have very strong D1, D2, D3 schools close to us and relatively cheap camps. However, she is not really interested in these schools and want to use them as a tune up for her target schools.

We are trying to get as many schools in one shot if possible. We are considering something like SoccerMasters, with multiple academic D1/D3 schools. We rather go to the individual school ID camps, but that could lead to many trips to the east coast.

We want her to stay on the west coast, but she wants to make sure that these “Hogwarts” schools are for her. Lol. :slight_smile:

This is like YOLO for soccer and school for our family.
No regrets. Good luck!

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we survived 6/15 and have added two schools and removed one based on conversations. she is excited and a bit overwhelmed but it should be a fun summer

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Updates (because why not)

Ohio Wesleyan - attended and camp went well, coach is leaving but assistant reached out and is very interested, unfortunately DD is still set on leaving the state

University at Buffalo - coach reached out on 6/15, we have visited the campus during a league game and will be attending camp this weekend - could be a great fit!
Kenyon - attending in July, not a top choice for DD but it is local
Fordham - coach reached out on 6/15, doing a campus visit on 7/22 and two day camp after. probably DD top choice right now
Stony Brook - talked to coach on 6/15, camp on 7/25 and asked for a campus tour
Bryn Mawr - have been talking to coach for a few months, camp on 7/26, all girls so DD not too sure and it is small
Tampa - coach has expressed some interest - so planning a four day/three night “vacation” with a two day camp
DePaul - head coach just left so some uncertainty but doing their Aug 1 camp and looking at the other chicago schools - loyola, UC, Northwestern, and UI Chicago

Colby, Brandeis and Dartmouth has expressed some interest so we need to get up that way but not this summer.

She also wants to head west and look at the Seattle area and Southern California - Loyola Marymount, Occidental, Pomona

Should be a fun and exhausting summer

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Just be careful about the number of camps she does in a short time span. It takes a toll, even on young bodies.

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yup - we are well aware, club training ends in two weeks so she will only have her PT and GK sessions and most camps are only half day but she knows how to react to her body and when she needs to pull back a bit

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If you’re looking for a full/partial athletic scholarship, I’d look at the UAA schools in D3. UChicago and WashU are academic longshots. They don’t give as much athletic preference as Ivies. But there are many excellent schools that straddle the line between large university and LAC. Benefits:

  1. urban
  2. reduced time commitment vs D1 and D2
  3. “bigger program feel”. Athletes get above D3 level facilities and direct flights for conference games in Chicago, Boston, NYC, Cleveland, Atlanta, St Louis, Pittsburgh and Rochester. This is a lot better that 4-6 hour bus rides, although she’d see some of those too with non-con matches.

Emory might be a good fit with her academics and a 31-32 SAT. They have an excellent coach who was previously at Georgia and Minnesota who seems to have settled in at Emory for the long haul. Very good program that has made NCAA runs. From their last roster: goalkeepers were 5-6 and 5-7, so not huge. One has since graduated. The other was a quality ECNL keeper, so some competition. The nice thing is that the backup should get some time as Emory will lay a beating on a few teams every year.

If a scholarship isn’t necessarily the goal, given her other preferences Emory would be a really nice place to end up.

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There. Are. NO. Athletic. Scholarships in d3.

There are no athletic scholarships at any school in the UAA conference.

This makes me question the knowledge level of the OP.

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Correct there are no athletic scholarships at D3 schools, however there is athletic recruiting and commitments. Aside from the calendar based communication guidelines and money tied directly to athletics the process is very similar

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Yes, my son has been through the recruiting process. I am well aware of d3 athletic recruiting and commitments. I was responding to @JustVisiting76 who claimed certain d3 schools had athletic scholarships, which is not the case.

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That was an editing error on my part (hazard of fat thumbs copying, pasting and deleting on an iphone). Thanks for catching that. That first sentence should have read, “If you’re not necessarily looking for a full/partial athletic scholarship…”

just wanted to clear that up. And it would appear based upon the schools mentioned that GKmom23 and her daughter aren’t focusing solely on D1 schools.

Here’s a list of D3 schools that are
a) selective (a theme I pick up from the schools GKMom mentioned). Crude measuring stick 1300+SATs.
b) not too big or small (3k to mayb 10-12k)
c) not in OH or science focused (like a Stevens), since your daughter has more of a humanities lean.
d) urban/urbanish
e) generally among the better programs year over year when you look at Massey Ratings, tourney runs, regional D3 rankings and such:

WashU, UChicago, Emory, Brandeis, JHU, Tufts, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Pomona-Pitzer, Claremont-M-S. The consortium schools by themselves are smaller, It is a different feel with all of them clustered together, although my wife (Claremont grad) did say it felt a bit like a fish bowl. Those last two would pair well with D1 visits/camps for LMU, Pepperdine, and San Diego.

I personally don’t see any difference between the better D3 schools and the bottom quarter of D1. I’ve played coed pick up games with former D2/D3/I was decent but decided I liked beer more than soccer males + college women. I game featured a couple of female MAC players, a couple D3 women’s players from the schools above and a couple of upper level D1 players (including a 99er). Huge difference between the 99er and the lower D1/D3 players, but I thought the D3 players were marginally better than the rank and file D1ers. Granted that was a long time ago and the sample size of these events was fairly small. But they were all only a couple months post graduation.

Having seen the UAA experience up close, the athletes overwhelmingly find it quite enjoyable. Greater travel distances than 95% of D3, but it is easy travel (direct flights on weekends). In season commitments are still substantial, but the off season isn’t completely taken over by training the way it has become in D1 (generally).

I don’t know the Emory coach personally. But it sounds to me like GKmom23’s daughter’s strengths lie in some of the more technical aspects of goalkeeping (distribution, being able to comfortably play the ball at her feet in more of an advanced supporting role, etc.). The Emory coach was a former U-21 WNT assistant and a head coach of the U-16 WNT. I can’t say for certain, because there has always been a lot of politics in US Soccer, but it would seem to me that someone coaching at that position would appreciate those qualities.

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P/P and CMS ID camps are open before and after Surf Cup.
Things are rolling back to normal. My '23 dd might be there
taking hard, left footed curling shots at your dd. :slight_smile:
Good luck and stay healthy!

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@GKmom23

Any updates on your recruiting?