Most 9th graders don’t know what they want to be when they grow up or where they might want to go to college. And that is fine and normal. At this point I think there are only two things worth doing.
One is for you to start to get a handle on how you are going to finance college. How much have you saved? Are there grandparent’s willing to help? Is a sports scholarship a realistic possibility? (Remember even the best athletes can get injured at inopportune times.) Does your child regularly get straight A’s and test well, so that merit money might be in the cards?
The second is to make sure your child gets an education that doesn’t close doors. She should take the most advanced courses **that she can do well in. **She should take English and Math every year, history 2 and preferably three years, a foreign language to at least Level 3 and at least a year of Biology, Chemistry and Physics. She should take at least one Art/Music/Dance/Theater course. She should try out several extra curricular activities as a freshman and consider focusing on one or two of them. (Though I had one kid who was involved in several in school ECs and did some stuff outside school too and did very well with college admissions. He did not have a time consuming sport however.)
With her being a freshman, you can have her look into getting involved in clubs and activities, continuing soccer and look into college soccer programs that are generous with their scholarships. She can make sure her grades are top notch and get both merit based and athletic scholarships. Daveramsey.com is a great resource for how to keep your debt out.
I would not start at all during freshman year. It is very possible that your D’s idea of what kind of college she would like can change, her interests can change, she will mature as a person etc. In addition she has no GPA or standardized tests. FWIW my kid’s guidance counselor’s advice (in an excellent school system) was not to mention college (the “c word” as she called it) until junior year.
Over the next two years you D should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as she can in the most challenging curriculum (including the core classes of: Englsh, Math, Science, SS, and foreign language) she can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Get involved in activities she cares about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time family and friends.
Over the next two years you should focus on determining a college budget that is affordable to your family.
It sounds like you are in a strong school with excellent guidance. They should steer you in the right direction. There is no advantage to jumping ahead.
Just to point out the OP’S daughter is a serious soccer player, playing at a very high level. If she wants to get recruited by D1 schools, yes, she and her daughter do actually have to start thinking about schools in 9th grade. It doesn’t mean they have to decide on a school but starting the process by attending ID camps at a variety of types of schools can start in 9th grade.
As I understand it, girls soccer is a year ahead of boys, though the regs just changed to slow the recruiting down. Boys heats up junior year, so if girls are being recruited in 10th grade it would make sense to have some sort of vague idea of the type of school that might be a fit by that time.
The two categories to get a handle on now would be (1) finances and (2) soccer level. Run some Net Price Calculators on a handful of schools to see what your expected family contribution (EFC) is so that you can understand if you can afford that number, if merit aid (non-need based) is necessary to fund college. On soccer, generic invitations to camps are pretty common for players who are on club rosters. If the club coach or Director of Coaching has experience with a range of players going through recruiting, ask for insight about what tier of play the student might reasonably expect – mid D1? lower D1? top D3? etc. Girls soccer recruiting is on a more accelerated schedule than boys because most girls are physically done growing before age 16 whereas boys are still all over the place. If the club coaches are not much help, a summer recruiting camp in your area which says it provides a written evaluation at the end of camp would be useful – some of the Ohio public schools might run such camps, I don’t know. D3 LAC camps tend to be smaller and are much more focused on whether a student is a likely recruit for THAT school rather than what type of program generally, but I suppose those could still be useful. Avoid the for-profit mega camps early on, those are time and money sinks.
My take away from this thread is that 9th grade is NOT too early for college planning for athletes who hope to be recruited or low income families in pursuit of large, outside scholarships. OP may not have the luxury of waiting.
If she truly wants to play soccer, get a handle on what level she projects at ASAP. And you should puruse the last couple years of threads on the athletic recruit forum. Read all the soccer ones and at least glance at the ones that are about other sports, 80% of the advice is the same for all athletic recruits.
I was lucky to have several of S’s club and HS coaches with college coaching experience, so they did a good job of telling me what level of programs to target, I thought they were too optimistic, but they were spot on, even predicted the exact program he ended up going to. If you are doing airplane travel for soccer, you probably have a coach or 2 who can provide an indication of what level to target.
Once you know the level, you can start contacting programs, and targeting camps. You need an athletic resume and video. Go to that forum for specific advice.
Aside from soccer, the finances are the huge factor. If she can get into selective schools, their financial aid is probably better for you than an in state public. Run the npc’s. They will vary quite a bit, but you should get at least an idea.
And forget about publics that are out of state, especially in CA. Unless she is a top recruit or you are independently wealthy you won’t be able to afford them
It’s pretty simple. She goes wherever you can afford to send her. That means private schools and schools out of state are off the table, unless she wants to get a scholarship. Also, she’s still barely out of middle school, so she still has a little more growing-up to do. I’m sure in a couple of years that list will look a little more practical.
Yes…start with a budget. Keep in mind that if you have any other children you want to be able to pay a similar price for their schooling as well. Figure out how much your family can pay each year for college.
You may need also to run a “net price calculator” on some state schools to see how much need financial aid you would get.
So if you could pay 20K per year, but the NPC says you have to pay 30K per year, you need to find out where to get that extra 10K. You should avoid loans as you need to save for your retirement. Your child shoudl avoid loans as much as possible. So look to schools where you can get merit scholarship.
Also it is lovely that they want to go to school in SO CAL, but that is not necessarily something you need to fund. You also have to take into account transportation.
But you can’t really look at schools yet…you don’t know her SAT/ACT or GPA.
Thank you for the input - she played in several showcases and a national playoffs last spring so the college contact started, and we were advised that since she is now in HS and will be playing in showcases as part of a national league to put together a list of colleges and begin to reach out to coaches that she is interested in playing for - thus the list. Her coaching staff all have college experience and recruiting experience and have said that mid/low D1 is a realistic option - although i was thinking D2 or D3. The recruiting timeline has shifted a bit for girls with regards to D1 and D2, but D3s can, and have already reached out. I am well aware of all the options in Ohio, she just isn’t interested as of yet. I will do some research regarding the financial side and work on exposing her to the variety of schools we have within close proximity, i don’t want to overwhelm her but i also dont want to miss out on something or not do something now that could have an effect later.
Are you looking for scholarships? As you know, that means D1. If not, being a low level D1 player means she would be an impact player at D3, and could possibly leverage that to admissions to a highly selective school (eg a school like Williams). If you know which direction (d1 v d3) that can help narrow it too.
Join us over on the Athletic Recruiting forum, there’s lots of good info there!