<p>My son is in his junior year of HS. Unfortunately, he is spending his junior and senior years of HS attending an international school in China. In the US he was an all conference, all region player for his HS as a soph, and his club team won a state cup and went on to compete in the region. He would like to play in college but realizes it could be a long shot,
and exposure is definately a problem.</p>
<p>I can arrange for him to attend some college soccer camps while we're home for the summer but which ones, and is it worth it? We have a home in the south east where we will be for the summer. I'm sure this could be costly with flights involved.</p>
<p>Peak Performance which I saw mentioned here in another thread was said to be crowded and hard to get noticed at but had exposure to more coaches. Would individual college camps be better?
We have no idea how far to go with this, particularly without the guidance of an american HS coach.</p>
<p>My son did not attend PPA, but attended the Dartmouth camp last summer also because a lot of coaches would be there. He did not reach out to any of the coaches in advance of the camp. He assumed he would be able to stand out on merit. He has been in the ODP regional pool and has been offered partial scholarships to three D1 schools, only one of which he may be interested in attending. At the Dartmouth camp, he felt like he received zero individualized attention or recognition. He has since had expressions of interest from two Ivy coaches (after first reaching out to them by email). Dartmouth is not one of them. My takeaway was that he either he had a really bad camp (certainly a possibility), or that the coaches came to camp looking at specific players in which they already had an interest and made no effort to objectively evaluate the masses. Realistically, they probably could not given the numbers and the time. He is focusing this summer on camps at schools that he is interested in attending and where he has already established a line of communication with the coach. It helps that he has narrowed down his choices. I would recommend that your son do his homework and be realistic about where he can play. Focus on his club successes, most college coaches recruit from clubs and not high schools. It would help if he had a respected club coach who would act as a reference. My son’s emails were ignored by some coaches until he put the name of a well-regarded ODP coach in the text of the email. He then received emails from coaches who told him that his ODP coach had spoken highly of him. From our experience, if your son cannot get the attention of coaches in advance of the camp, it is unlikely that he will get their attention once there.</p>
<p>My senior HS daughter plays about the same level as your son, and went to 3 camps last summer. One was high visibility (run by a single-digit ranked D1 coach). She enjoyed the high level of the scrimmages as there was a lot of talent there vying for attention from attending coaches, but there was little training occurring IMO (I arranged to be in the area for some business and watched several practices and scrimmages), and there was no post camp contact. The 2nd camp was lower-visibility and looked to have good training, with a lot of smaller college coaches attending, but she had a small injury that kept her off the field most of the camp - I didn’t observe any of the activities there as I had to be elsewhere.</p>
<p>The 3rd camp worked out nicely though - she picked a high-quality D3 school with a coach that had a background she respected and a team on a steady historical rise. She contacted the coach about attending his single camp, which he brings his rising freshmen in to also, and decided to attend. At the last minute she had car problems so I got to take her to the camp myself (about a six hour drive) and arranged to work remotely, allowing me to observe several sessions. She and all the attendees seemed to be having a great time - there was just two coaches, and the smaller crowd allowed all to to get to know each other quickly. I think the important part was that her pre-camp homework allowing her to select the school and the camp and the coach paid off in that she had a great time, which reflected in her performance - she got successfully recruited by that coach and has been accepted at the school - financials will be her deciding point.</p>
<p>In short, if you son has a couple of schools he’d particularly enjoy attending and playing at that run their own small camps, he’d likely get the most out of those IMO.</p>
<p>I agree with the posts above. Your son needs to do significant legwork ahead of time to decide which programs might be a fit for him athletically and academically, and then he needs to contact the head coaches of those programs. If he gets a positive repsonse from a head coach based on email, he should follow up and find out if that school is holding an identification camp or if the coach (or a trusted assistant) will be at another camp. </p>
<p>Then, and only after this considerable legwork is done, your son can decide if going to a specific camp or camps is worth it. If so, he should let the coach know ahead of time via email and telephone calls. If your son shows up without getting the coach’s attention first, his odds of getting the coach’s attention during the camp are remote.</p>
<p>On a bright note, if your son does all of this work and the coach knows he is coming to the camp, he basically gets a 2 or 3 or 4 day audition to show the coach if he is a fit. This beats the heck out of hoping to be seen at the right time during one game or, more likely, during the 15 minutes or so a coach can watch a game at a showcase tournament.</p>
<p>Is your son playing for his school in China or for a club? I would also suggest getting some video of him in some games. You can do a “highlight reel” and then have one or two full games. The highlights you could post on YouTube or on a recruiting website like BeRecruited.com. At least that way, he could add a link in his emails to various coaches, so they can see him “in action.” Not all coaches care about video, but in this case, with your son being so far away, it might help.</p>
<p>But definitely, look at the various colleges’ websites; nearly all of them will have a “prospective athlete” questionnaire that he can fill out.</p>
<p>I’ve seen the various prospective athlete questionaires on the school sites.
Sorry to appear stupid, but we are supposed to make separate email contact with the coach?
What is it that we are supposed to say that isn’t already on the questionaire?</p>
<p>It depends on what’s covered by the questionnaire. Some of them are very bare bones – name, address, GPA, what sport, etc. Others may be longer where you could elaborate a little more on your skill level, interest in the school, etc. or they may have a “comments” box that would let you give a fuller answer. So, it just depends – if it’s the short, limited questionnaire, then I’d follow up with a more detailed email to the coach.</p>
<p>This is all good advice you’re getting here. A few other comments based on experience of S: don’t rely on brochure or web posting re which coaches will be at the camp or for which session a particular coach will be present. Verify with the coach or with the camp before arranging expensive travel and registering. Our familiarity is with camps in Northeast and Mid Atlantic. UPenn camp on Swarthmore campus was good and had a nice mix of D1 and DIII coaches, but advise contacting coaches first. The coach assigned to S’s camp team offered to be a reference for S and this worked out well for S. Bucknell camp is said to be good. S also attended the camp of the small, selective college that was his top choice school as the coach had not seen him play at tournaments. It was a small camp with only a few other coaches present. It did the trick for S, who received the support of the coach with Admissions and was very happy to be on the team.</p>
<p>I have to agree with the poster above’s comments on the Dartmouth camp, which my D attended last summer. IMO the best approach is to go to the camps run by the schools your son is interested in. Definitely begin an email correspondence with those coaches NOW. This is the time to speak up and try to be noticed, and impressing them with thoughtful emails and updates on activities is one part of the process. Also, demonstrating a real interest in their school is key.</p>
<p>But yes, based on our experience (D attending elite D3 school to play her sport - and she attended both a spring and summer camp run by that school) camps are an excellent way to get your player in front of coaches.</p>
<p>D2 played DI soccer …definitely need to do the legwotk and let schools know he is interested in that particular school and then go to tourneys/camps where those coaches will be. Keep up the emails expressing interest!!!</p>
<p>All good information in the previous posts–narrow the summer camps down to those schools your son has a very strong interest in (and hopefully they already have an interest in him)–be realistic as to his level of college soccer D1, D2 or D3 and plan accordingly for the camps. Smaller camps are better to be recognized and show interest in the particular college. It is critical for your son to make contact with the coaches as early as possible so they know who he is before the camp and hopefully they have an opportunity to see him play before the camp. Recruitment on the boys side is a full year to 1.5 years later than the girls side, thus there still is time especially if he is considering D2 and D3. Be proactive contacting the coaches and if they have a 1 day ID camp then attend it. However, at the end of the day remember that the soccer portion is only one aspect of the college decision…bottom line is where will your son be happy attending college and if he does or doesn’t play soccer will this impact his college experience.</p>
<p>Bumping this thread up. The variability of the feedback for kids is tremendous, and I do think a great deal of reading between the lines has to happen, and the kids may not be equipt to understand the nuances. And, the recruitment starts early with some schools done with recruits when kids are rising juniors. Based on our limited experience with soccer, smaller camps are better. </p>
<p>And, that was said by a parent of a player who does not read between the lines well. A D1 trainer at a camp told her she was their favorite player in camp, and she thought that was inconsequential when I thought it was huge. So, time will tell who really is right on all these reads.</p>
<p>To lend a bit of confirmation to all the great advice you’ve received so far, my daughter verbally committed to her dream school in January of this year (and will begin playing for them in the fall of 2013).</p>
<p>To our knowledge, the first time the coaching staff saw her play was at their ID camp - after their recruiting coach was contacted by our daughter’s club coach who told the recruiting coach he should pay attention to our daughter at the camp.</p>
<p>The one thing I would add to what’s already been said is that phone calls by your son to the coaches of the schools he is interested in would probably be more effective than an introduction via email (which can often be missed as coaches receive lots of emails from potential recruits).</p>
<p>At most soccer camps, coaches definately have a list of players they are looking at. In some bigger camps, these players are actually put together on teams and they are coached by the host school’s coaches. The rest of the teams get coaches from other (often lesser) school.</p>
<p>any NCAA camp staffed by college coaches are a big plus, because your student athlete gets a better look and can get to know them a little better and determine if the fit and talent is there…we did another sport, but I have good things to say about camps for wrestling, fencing and so far basketball(at the beginning of my son’s second year in high school.</p>