I have a son who is going to be a senior in the fall. He was a very high-level soccer player and played on the development Academy for his freshman and sophomore year but had a big injury junior year which took him all year to recover from. As a result he is no longer on the development Academy and no promise of being one for next year. He has attended some ID camps at specific schools but has yet to get an offer. It feels like we’re running out of time and he has only one opportunity left considering our budget. Do we do another schools ID camp or do we do surf cup? Seems like surf cup has a lot of girls coaches going and he will technically be in the U19 division so not sure coaches will be watching at all. I have looked over the coaching list and it doesn’t hit a lot of the schools he is looking at but I have also heard that sometimes they register last minute. She has the grades to play in the ivy league and that is what he would love to do. Can someone help with this whole process in general? How do we get this boy out there and seen without spending a fortune? I’m worried that he won’t be able to play in college at this point. We are heartbroken for him.
D3 men’s soccer parent here, so our experience was not D1 – email the coaches NOW at schools of interest, with a soccer resume (google the term for basics – basically, academic and soccer achievements, with test scores, gpa, soccer teams, awards, and soccer references, typically high school/club coaches). Explain briefly in the email about the injury and recovery, in the context of explaining why not currently playing DA.
Going “cold” to a big tournament, or even school-specific camp, without having done the “leg” work of communicating in advance with coach, is not likely to lead to much. Even with D3 soccer programs ranked in the top 20, where my kid had already met with coaches on campus before camp season, we found that summer before senior year, the coach already a short list of possible recruits, and it was hard to crack that list if a player was being seen live for the first time at camp. Not impossible, just difficult.
Most top D1 schools/programs have completed their offers by now. I’d be surprised if Ivy League schools were still looking, though you won’t know that until you contact them. NESCAC D3 conference has many top ranked soccer programs, and they may still be open to considering new players, though the only way to know that is to contact them immediately. Most school camps stop by the end of July (and may be filled already), so email now, with phone message follow up from the player to coach. Amherst’s Peak Performance Academy is one of the few multi-school camps (with D1 and D3 programs) I’m aware of that has a late July session.
At this point, emailing coaches directly probably is more important. I agree with midwestmom - D1 coaches probably won’t take a flier on an injury risk, but you still have a chance to leverage interest in the top D3 academic schools. Amherst won the D3 national championship last year. Also look at Williams, UChicago, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Pomona, Wash U, Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, etc…- these are great schools, and soccer could be your leg up with admissions (so to speak).
Is he all healed?
Fluchi,
It is a bit late for this upcoming year even at the D3 level, but not too late if you work very hard now. No one said recruiting was a venture without a commitment of time and cost, but if you are clever, you can focus your energies to reduce the expenditure. Do you have tapes? If not I would tape his next showcase or camp. If you don’t want to pay to have it done, use your own hd video with tripod or borrow them. It helps to have some evidence that son plays at that very high level that you describe.
From there, the process is one to which you must put much time and effort. To be sure, you need to compose the college resume. Send the tapes and resume to the college coaches asap. Then tell the coach you are in the vicinity of ________ college on ___________ and would like to meet him. This will jump start the process, especially if you bring the tapes to show while you are at the meeting.
Williams, Tufts, and Amherst are all extremely competitive teams. Not to say that your son isn’t up to that level, I am sure that he is. The problem is that the coaches are looking at his sophomore year to make that judgment. You may want to consider the programs that are very good but that fly under the radar screen. Haverford, Middlebury, Wesleyan, Bowdoin and Swarthmore are very good programs and there are folks that would quibble about whether they fly under the radar screen at all. Others include Hamilton, Conn College, Bates, Colby, Macalester and Carleton. Keep an open mind. It could be argued that any of these schools would provide an equivalent (or better) education to the Ivies.
Mom of a D2 player in CA. I remember that the Surf Cup always had more women’s coaches than men’s coaches registered, however, my son’s team got plenty of exposure to coaches including two players recruited to 2 different Ivy schools. The team always did a lot of outreach before attending tournaments and I know there were coaches who came specifically to see some of our players. My son was also recruited at the D1 level, but was fortunate that his top choice academically also recruited him for D2 soccer. My son had an on-line profile as well as an on-line hi-lite video and he had done extensive outreach to coaches at schools he was interested in. Before each tournament, he always e-mailed the coaches who had shown interest and gave them specifics of the tournament- the game schedules, maps of the fields, uniform colors, etc.-anything to make it as easy as possible for a coach to come watch him. Most of the boys on the team did the same, and the 2 who ended up at Ivy schools had already visited those schools and knew the coaches were interested-both coaches attended Surf Cup.
There were also a lot more men’s coaches who attended Surf than were registered. My son got interest from several schools that were not even on his list during his senior year, all from attending Surf. He definitely would have had opportunities to play soccer in college just from Surf Cup exposure, if he had not already committed to a school. I would definitely choose Surf Cup over an ID camp, as long as your son has done the necessary work up-front to communicate with coaches. One thing to consider is that Surf Cup tends to draw more west coast coaches, although there will be a healthy sprinkling from all over the US. Consider where your son wants to attend college and reach out to those schools to make sure they will attend. It is a bit late in the game to be recruited for a D1 at this point, although not impossible. Is your son open to playing at a different level, or is he set on D1 schools? He can also always try a Club Team wherever he ends up as some of them are extremely competitive and maybe a little less stressful than NCAA. Good luck!
Start emailing coaches of schools your son is interested in attending, right now. Explain injury situation and how that has impacted his recruiting schedule. If a coach responds back he will be at the ID camp or Surf Cup and would like to see him play, go. If not, I would not waste time/money on a hope and dream. The coaches are usually at those tourneys to see kids they know about, not discover somebody flying under the radar.
In our experience the ID camps are much better for getting a coach’s attention, provided you have reached out to the coach before hand. It’s possible to get noticed without reaching out, but your boy will need to be one of the top 2 or 3 kids at the camp for that to happen. My son played as a U19 this year as a 16 year old (U17). It was a great experience and he got a lot better for doing it, but I don’t recall seeing any college coaches at his game. I suppose some may have come, if he had asked them and they were around, but in the end they didn’t show up on their own.
Would your son feel comfortable reaching out to any of his former DA coaches? My son’s DA coaches were primarily college coaches and were very helpful in contacting the coaches of any colleges my son was interested in. I also recommend sending e-mails ASAP to the coaches of schools he is interested in and asking if they will be attending any showcases or ID camps soon.
Our experience has firmly been if the school doesn’t specifically invite you to camp after watching you play then it’s a waste (at least for us though my daughter is not a flashy player). We had much better luck at the camps she was specifically invited to where the coach called before hand to talk to her.