Ohjodad51 is correct. It IS a mass email. They want kids who are interested in their school to contact them and then they weed through the questionaires when future repeated contact is made.
And they want the freshmen and sophomores to attend their camp. And pay to attend the camps.
Well you have to give them points for ingenuity! My son’s got probably hundreds of camp invites, and none asking him only to fill out a recruiting questionnaire. So it’s more attention getting than the usual email.
Thanks for helping me read the tea leaves!
Yep, this is different than before. The fact that they don’t know what class he is in is kinda of a give away I think. Clearly not personal.
As an aside, we had one coach that kept sending emails to S, that were clearly meant for kids in the class ahead of him. S kept him on our list because it was a great school, but it was pretty annoying.
My son got the same email on Thursday. I thought it was a decent strategy on their part.
Hello - I also have a 2021 player. We’ve definitely gotten emails like the initial one @cinnamon1212 shared, and I believe it’s another level of email that acknowledges prior contact but is also not truly “personalized.” I suspect my S and your S are of similar capabilities and in similarly competitive clubs, with similar academic credentials, and my take on the process at this point is that if your S can really hone in on maybe 12-15 schools where he can see himself culturally and academically and also soccer-wise (i.e., competitive for his level), and then really keep at it from a communication perspective, that will help him stay top-of-mind when and if spots fitting his profile open up. They may or may not open up of course, but this is the category of player that has to be strategic and patient. I would encourage him not to be distracted by all the “squirrels” and instead really figure out how to be a strong recruit (first choice or otherwise) for his top choices. I’d also consult the club coach sooner rather than later - it’s not too early, and they should be able to give you a general impression at this point. My D was probably in the same category, and she ended up at a top NESCAC school and is very happy both with soccer and with the school.
Now that June 15 has come and gone I can say the two schools whose emails were a little more “gray area” than the usual camp invite, did not contact my son. However one other patriot league school did.
S had a few calls the first day, and was a moderate to high D1 recruit in a different non revenue sport. More trickled in the next couple weeks, and then sporadically after that. A couple of coaches that said he was their #1 recruit when they called still took a couple weeks to talk to him.
I felt like the successful programs were more on top of recruiting. 2 programs that almost always finish in the top 10 of D1 were extremely on the ball both with the early contact and the frequency. I’m sure that they also had more resources and coaches, so that could be part of it. But my point is that I wouldn’t necessarily write off programs that take a while to make contact. Even the top D1 coaches are stretched thin except maybe football and men’s basketball.