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    #16
    WAGS is the first big tournament of the recruiting season. Disappointed because it seemed like a waste of time and money.

    Comment


      #17
      Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
      Lady it's mid-October. She's just entering 11th grade? What is she, slow? My kid finished 1st qtr already.
      Wow, that was the most intelligent response I've seen all day. Kudos for your awesomeness.

      Comment


        #18
        Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
        Wow, that was the most intelligent response I've seen all day. Kudos for your awesomeness.
        Yes, thank you. Sorry about your daughter.

        Comment


          #19
          Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
          My daughter is just entering 11th grade. Is she really that far behind in the recruiting process?
          She is not too far behind but she isn't ahead either. It really depends on where she wants to go. Most kids generate a significant amount of interest during their sophomore year and then verbally commit at some point in their junior year. I have seen players be successful earlier in that process but I have also seen success with players who were late to the process.

          The key is keeping it totally real at every level...where she can be accepted and have a fit academically, what is the financial fit for the family, where can she "play" and how important is field time to her. Answers those questions honestly and any other questions that are important to her and the family and build the list from that. Then she needs to be proactive. Good luck!

          Comment


            #20
            I will say I am JYSC, and there were only a couple of coaches each game. We wasted our money, but I coach got a free vacation back home.

            Comment


              #21
              Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
              I will say I am JYSC, and there were only a couple of coaches each game. We wasted our money, but I coach got a free vacation back home.
              Sorry for the typo.... But our* coach

              Comment


                #22
                Yes -- starting your junior year is late to recruiting, but not irretrievable. As another poster noted, the key is being realistic and targeting schools that are good fits from academic, social, financial and athletic standpoints. Then you must communicate, communicate, communicate. If your kid is not in the national pool do not expect a coach to come to you.

                WAGs is a very good tournament for recruiting if you are interested in attending eastern schools, but not cold. If you are already in trading emails and lining up campus visits then it is great. If you are looking at a listing of schools who register to attend the tournament and your first contact is an email a couple of weeks before the tournament then you were likely wasting your time and money.

                Seriously -- how many kids on your team would even have any desire to attend a school in that area of the country? Soccer parents need to take control of the tournament/ECNL event travel and be smart about how they are spending their money.

                Comment


                  #23
                  agree 100%. Would much rather have my daughter attend an ID clinic at a college in FL that she is considering, rather than traveling to tournaments in areas of the country that she has no desire to play in. money and time much better spent.

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Our experience is that WAGS has many coaches attending the top showcase division at the good fields, while all the lower divisions get poor fields and no coaches, worse than other showcase events. I think since coaches are in the middle of their season, it is just tough and they are trying to be very efficient with their time. I am guessing maybe your U-17 team was not in the very top bracket. That doesn't mean they aren't a good team or worth recruiting at all.

                    As far as recruiting goes, your daughter's timing is fine as long as it is not an FSU or UCLA type of program they are looking for. Plenty of coaches, including D1, will be looking throughout the U-17 year, even through state cup, and as long as your daughter is realistic with where she fits in, narrows down her focus to a few targeted schools, and keeps a correspondence going with those schools/coaches, she will be fine and will find her place.
                    Don't let people make you more stressed about the process than you need to be.

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Assuming all other critical factors such as academics, finances, location etc have already been determined and you now are looking at soccer fit there is a quick test or general rule of thumb.

                      For top notch soccer programs such as those in the ACC or SEC you basically need to be in the national pool, on one of the highly competitive ECNL teams or a Regional team with a high level of success in the Southern Regionals event and Nationals.

                      For the next couple of tiers down such as Conference USA, most success will be found if the player is on a very good to average ECNL team and highly competitive regional teams. Some success can be found on state level teams but the money is probably very limited. Your run of the mill ECNL teams and Region 3 teams will have most of their success with lower tier D1 conferences like the Big South and competitive D2 conferences like the Peach Belt.

                      If your kid is not competing at a high level it will be tough, but not impossible. The above really is just a rule of thumb based on what I have seen over the last few years, and it basically assumes we wre talking about starting players. Depending on the strength of reserve players i coud say that those players arelikely to fall one to several layers down from their starting counterparts. All starters on my daughtersU18 R3 team are committed but only one reserve is and she committed to a D3 school.

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                        Assuming all other critical factors such as academics, finances, location etc have already been determined and you now are looking at soccer fit there is a quick test or general rule of thumb.

                        For top notch soccer programs such as those in the ACC or SEC you basically need to be in the national pool, on one of the highly competitive ECNL teams or a Regional team with a high level of success in the Southern Regionals event and Nationals.

                        For the next couple of tiers down such as Conference USA, most success will be found if the player is on a very good to average ECNL team and highly competitive regional teams. Some success can be found on state level teams but the money is probably very limited. Your run of the mill ECNL teams and Region 3 teams will have most of their success with lower tier D1 conferences like the Big South and competitive D2 conferences like the Peach Belt.

                        If your kid is not competing at a high level it will be tough, but not impossible. The above really is just a rule of thumb based on what I have seen over the last few years, and it basically assumes we wre talking about starting players. Depending on the strength of reserve players i coud say that those players arelikely to fall one to several layers down from their starting counterparts. All starters on my daughtersU18 R3 team are committed but only one reserve is and she committed to a D3 school.
                        You make it sound as if D3 is bottom of the barrel.

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Read it any way you want. There are some very good players at D3 and more importantly there are some EXCELLENT academic institutions that are D3. I think it is a great way to go if you can get sufficient academic funding. But overall the level of soccer is not very good and that is what I was speaking to. Almost any level of player can play at most D3 schools. There are some teams that are good, then there are the rest that may have one or two good players with the rest of the team being rounded out with average players. So the range of players at many D3 schools is pretty big. You don't have to be competing at any certain level in the youth system to have many D3 schools look at you. You need to
                          have the grades and the strng academic curriculum ..which should be a priority regardless of the level you want to pkat in.

                          So essentially any level of player has a chance at a large number of D3 schools as long as the grades are there.

                          Comment


                            #28
                            Look at as many schools as you can. Do the tours. Check out schools of different sizes. Make sure the academics work. Do they offer majors in the area that your kid is interested in? It is not the end of the world if you have to transfer, but it would be nice to land in a good spot off the bat.

                            You DO NOT have to be on a top notch team to get noticed, but it makes things much easier. The real issue is that the coach needs to be able to see you play. There is very little "sight unseen" recruiting going on. You can do that in a camp, at a showcase or league club game, or even high school games. It is a fact of life that college soccer coaches do not have great recruiting budgets so they will not be flying all over the country to check out individual players -- thus showcases, ID camps and ECNL events are good opportunities for them to check out multiple players on one plane ticket.

                            Be realistic -- the school has to work for your family budget. There are (almost) no fullride athletic soccer scholarships out there. Why? A fully funded Div I program can offer 14.9 scholarships. Those programs will have rosters of about 30 to 35 kids, and the money is going to do to the kids who are playing and who need it. Not all programs are fully funded even at big schools so a school might only have say 8 scholarships to divide up. Most of the scholarship money will already be committed to current players. But -- if you kid has good grades (3.5 academic) or does well on the ACT/SAT they may be eligible to stack a small athletic scholarship with a solid academic grant and significantly reduce the price of attending. The downside is that if your kid does not meet the ncaa gpa or test bar, they will not be getting the academic money because it would count against the coach's athletic budget.

                            Grades are key here. A solid player with a 3.8 gpa can be a coach's dream. If it costs $25000 to attend a school, a kid with those grades might qualify for $10K in academic money. The coach can give them a 20 percent scholarship, $5,000, and now the cost is down to $10K. If your kid does well (and keeps grades up) that $5000 might go up the next year. Along the same lines though do not immediately cross off Div II and Div III schools. Div II schools have athletic money too and lots of schools, particularly at the Div III level of great financial aid packages.

                            Finally -- make sure they have a real understanding of what it means to play soccer in college. Playing a college sport makes for a very different college experience. It is who they are and what they do. Every kid needs to talk to players at the school they are considering and find out what they think of the coaches, and life at the school (and not just the starters). They need to talk to the kids sitting on the bench too. I think lots of kids do not have a firm grasp of the time required. Yes, everyone expects to be busy during the season, but off season is just as busy without the fun of games.

                            Per NCAA rules a Div I program can have coach supervised practices/activities for 8 hours a week -- think 2 hour practices 4 days a week. Fitness training does not count if it is "voluntary" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). That's going to be another 4 to 5 hours a week. Then there is the time spent getting to and from training/workouts and in showering/dressing. Pretty much every school also will then have required study table for freshmen and for kids not meeting gpa standards. The takeaway is that free time is very limited even in the offseason. At a Div II and Div III school the offseason will likely be substantially less structured and more relaxed which has some real appeal for obvious reasons.

                            Comment


                              #29
                              Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                              Look at as many schools as you can. Do the tours. Check out schools of different sizes. Make sure the academics work. Do they offer majors in the area that your kid is interested in? It is not the end of the world if you have to transfer, but it would be nice to land in a good spot off the bat.

                              You DO NOT have to be on a top notch team to get noticed, but it makes things much easier. The real issue is that the coach needs to be able to see you play. There is very little "sight unseen" recruiting going on. You can do that in a camp, at a showcase or league club game, or even high school games. It is a fact of life that college soccer coaches do not have great recruiting budgets so they will not be flying all over the country to check out individual players -- thus showcases, ID camps and ECNL events are good opportunities for them to check out multiple players on one plane ticket.

                              Be realistic -- the school has to work for your family budget. There are (almost) no fullride athletic soccer scholarships out there. Why? A fully funded Div I program can offer 14.9 scholarships. Those programs will have rosters of about 30 to 35 kids, and the money is going to do to the kids who are playing and who need it. Not all programs are fully funded even at big schools so a school might only have say 8 scholarships to divide up. Most of the scholarship money will already be committed to current players. But -- if you kid has good grades (3.5 academic) or does well on the ACT/SAT they may be eligible to stack a small athletic scholarship with a solid academic grant and significantly reduce the price of attending. The downside is that if your kid does not meet the ncaa gpa or test bar, they will not be getting the academic money because it would count against the coach's athletic budget.

                              Grades are key here. A solid player with a 3.8 gpa can be a coach's dream. If it costs $25000 to attend a school, a kid with those grades might qualify for $10K in academic money. The coach can give them a 20 percent scholarship, $5,000, and now the cost is down to $10K. If your kid does well (and keeps grades up) that $5000 might go up the next year. Along the same lines though do not immediately cross off Div II and Div III schools. Div II schools have athletic money too and lots of schools, particularly at the Div III level of great financial aid packages.

                              Finally -- make sure they have a real understanding of what it means to play soccer in college. Playing a college sport makes for a very different college experience. It is who they are and what they do. Every kid needs to talk to players at the school they are considering and find out what they think of the coaches, and life at the school (and not just the starters). They need to talk to the kids sitting on the bench too. I think lots of kids do not have a firm grasp of the time required. Yes, everyone expects to be busy during the season, but off season is just as busy without the fun of games.

                              Per NCAA rules a Div I program can have coach supervised practices/activities for 8 hours a week -- think 2 hour practices 4 days a week. Fitness training does not count if it is "voluntary" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). That's going to be another 4 to 5 hours a week. Then there is the time spent getting to and from training/workouts and in showering/dressing. Pretty much every school also will then have required study table for freshmen and for kids not meeting gpa standards. The takeaway is that free time is very limited even in the offseason. At a Div II and Div III school the offseason will likely be substantially less structured and more relaxed which has some real appeal for obvious reasons.
                              Nice post!

                              People seem to forget that your child is going to college to graduate with a degree. If you get to play soccer and receive money, athletic or academic, that is the cherry on top. Lately I have seen a lot of D1 players quit or transfer schools for whatever reason. Begs the question, why they went to that school in the first place? Pick your schools carefully.

                              Comment


                                #30
                                W
                                Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                                Nice post!

                                People seem to forget that your child is going to college to graduate with a degree. If you get to play soccer and receive money, athletic or academic, that is the cherry on top. Lately I have seen a lot of D1 players quit or transfer schools for whatever reason. Begs the question, why they went to that school in the first place? Pick your schools carefully.
                                Most people don't forget you arrogant moron. But this isnt an academic forum is it? I already know where we are with academics but some of us come on here to understand the recruiting aspect and don't need you trying to "set us straight".

                                While you are not incorrect about your statement about student players transferring, that is not unique to D1 schools.

                                Comment

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