Continued:
7. Prepare a soccer profile which includes the following information (we used a two-column layout for our daughter's profile – with soccer information on one side and academic information on the other side):
Contact Information: name; mailing address (we used a PO box); telephone number; email address (we set up an email alias for our daughter to use that forwarded to her email address and our email address – so we would be able to help her stay on top of contacts from coaches); website address (if applicable)
Personal Details: birthdate; Graduation year; height; weight; position; parents' names (and email addresses); a photo (either a headshot or an action photo)
Soccer Details: club team; high school team
Team Accomplishments: tournament and league season successes (championships, placing as finalists, placing as semi-finalists), both for club team and high school team; successes of teams you've guest-played with; successes of ODP/ID2 teams (it may not have played any part in how her profile was received, but we chose to put team accomplishments before individual accomplishments – as a subtle implication that team success was more important to our daughter than her own individual success.)
Individual Accomplishments: highlights of participation in ODP/ID2, Market Training Center; individual awards for club and high school participation
Soccer References: name, position, and contact information (phone number and email address) for current club and high school coaches, club director of coaching, past coaches, ODP coaches, etc. Goalkeepers should include goalkeeper trainers. Ask permission to add their information before you do so. Ask your coaches to write quotes about you that you can include in your profile
Academic Background: high school and its location; course of study (are you pursuing honors classes?); current GPA (simple or weighted); scores for standardized tests (SAT, ACT, and/or PSAT); academic honors; counselor's name and contact information (phone number and email address). Ask permission to add their information before you do so.
Community Service: List any community service activities in which you participate.
8. Prepare video highlights. You should start recording video at an early age – in our experience, it takes some practice before you become adept at capturing video appropriate for a highlights video. We started with our daughter when she was about 12 or 13, even though coaches won't want to see video of players at that age (highlights of when they are 16 or 17 are probably more useful). Take a lot of video (it requires a lot to get enough satisfactory footage).
In your final highlights video, use an arrow or a circle to identify your child. Post it on YouTube, and keep it up to date. For field players, off the ball footage is important. We've been told that goalkeepers need videos of both highlights and training sessions, although we never ended up taking video of a training session.
It may make sense to consider hiring a professional (the perspective from the tall cameras used by many professional sports videographers can be good, especially for field players) – at most showcase tournaments, there is an approved company that takes videos. If all (or many) of the parents on your child's team chip in, the cost can be manageable.
Keep the purpose of video in mind – and this is the purpose of a lot of what you're going to be doing during the college recruiting process. No college coach will choose a player based on video highlights. What you're trying to do is convince the college coach that it will be worth their time to come watch the player at a game.
9. Consider putting your profile and highlights video on a personal website. We developed a website which included our daughter's profile, videos, photos, a schedule of where she would be playing next, etc.
10. Start the recruiting process earlier than you think you should. Freshman year is best. I can't tell you how many times we heard parents saying, "We've got plenty of time." Those are the same parents who two years later were saying, "I wish we would have started earlier."
11. Ask your club coach and director of coaching for an honest appraisal of what level of school you can play at. That will help you formulate a list of 10 schools you might want to attend from a soccer standpoint. See #12 below.
12. Research colleges from an academic and athletic standpoint. Use the U.S. News & World Report Ultimate College Guide (or something similar) and SportSource's Official Athletic College Guide for Women's Soccer. Choose 10 target schools for academics (divided fairly equally between schools where a student of your academic standing should be easily accepted, schools where acceptance will be a bit more challenging, and schools where you anticipate acceptance will be difficult) and 10 target schools for athletics (divided fairly equally between schools where a player of your skill should easily make the soccer team, schools where making the soccer team will be more challenging, and schools where making the soccer team would seem to be quite difficult). Rely on your club coaches to give you an honest assessment of your skill level, and use that assessment in evaluating which soccer programs will be easy, challenging, and difficult for you. Then focus on the overlap between your academic list and your athletic list. Note: in our experience, goalkeepers need larger athletic lists because schools that are on your original list may not be recruiting for goalkeepers in your graduation year.
13. Begin to send emails to college coaches on the overlap list in your freshman year. Include your profile and upcoming game schedules (although realistically, they probably won't come and watch you until you're in your junior year/U16-17). Copy the head coach and/or recruiting coach, depending on who you are sending the email to. Same with the goalkeeper coach if that's your position.
As a goalkeeper, our daughter's athletic list of schools was large – at least initially. Because of this and because she has a really busy schedule, we settled on an approach to emailing coaches that was a bit different than what we had read was the best approach. Once our daughter had decided on the contents of the introductory email she wanted to send to coaches, I sent those introductory emails for her from her email account. Subsequent emails (thanking a coach for coming to watch her play, thanking a coach for their time at an ID camp, and later in the process, responding to emails from coaches) were sent by her. This made the process a bit more manageable for her.
It's important to personalize even the introductory emails a bit based on your child's research of the school's academic and soccer programs. Be able to tell the coaches why you want to attend their school and play soccer for them. In our daughter's case, we came up with the basic introductory email first and then for each school, she told me why it interested her and we came up with a paragraph to add which made each introductory email more specific to the school.
14. Begin to call coaches on the overlap list. You can almost always find their phone numbers on the team web pages of the colleges' intercollegiate athletic websites. Prepare a list of questions in advance – include more questions on your list than you think you will ever ask (otherwise, you will almost certainly have "dead space" during your calls when you can't think of any more questions).
We searched on the web for lists of questions, combined the lists we found, and came up with a list of over a 100 questions. Our daughter didn't come close to asking all of the questions we came up with, but it gave her confidence that she wasn't going to run out.
At one point, when it appeared that the NCAA was going to allow coaches to initiate phone calls earlier than it had before (the new rule was rescinded before it went into effect), we prepared a list of questions our daughter could ask when coaches "cold-called" her – and when she hadn't researched the program.
I have a feeling that our daughter's introductory emails weren't as effective as introductory phone calls would have been (our process was to send introductory emails and then make phone calls to the coaches who had expressed interest in some way, but now I wonder if it would have been better to just start out with phone calls because I suspect coaches get a ton of emails and a player's introductory email could easily be lost in the shuffle).
It will be a challenge for your son and daughter to make these phone calls, but they can start with schools for which they believe they could easily make the team – it may end up being practice, or depending on how well you and your child have judged their abilities, it may end up being one of the schools they seriously consider. Your child should keep in mind that college coaches talk on the phone with youth soccer players quite a bit – they know you're nervous. Sometimes (especially if they want your child badly), they will be nervous too. Your child will probably never be completely comfortable with this part of the process, but it's a good growth opportunity for them.
7. Prepare a soccer profile which includes the following information (we used a two-column layout for our daughter's profile – with soccer information on one side and academic information on the other side):
Contact Information: name; mailing address (we used a PO box); telephone number; email address (we set up an email alias for our daughter to use that forwarded to her email address and our email address – so we would be able to help her stay on top of contacts from coaches); website address (if applicable)
Personal Details: birthdate; Graduation year; height; weight; position; parents' names (and email addresses); a photo (either a headshot or an action photo)
Soccer Details: club team; high school team
Team Accomplishments: tournament and league season successes (championships, placing as finalists, placing as semi-finalists), both for club team and high school team; successes of teams you've guest-played with; successes of ODP/ID2 teams (it may not have played any part in how her profile was received, but we chose to put team accomplishments before individual accomplishments – as a subtle implication that team success was more important to our daughter than her own individual success.)
Individual Accomplishments: highlights of participation in ODP/ID2, Market Training Center; individual awards for club and high school participation
Soccer References: name, position, and contact information (phone number and email address) for current club and high school coaches, club director of coaching, past coaches, ODP coaches, etc. Goalkeepers should include goalkeeper trainers. Ask permission to add their information before you do so. Ask your coaches to write quotes about you that you can include in your profile
Academic Background: high school and its location; course of study (are you pursuing honors classes?); current GPA (simple or weighted); scores for standardized tests (SAT, ACT, and/or PSAT); academic honors; counselor's name and contact information (phone number and email address). Ask permission to add their information before you do so.
Community Service: List any community service activities in which you participate.
8. Prepare video highlights. You should start recording video at an early age – in our experience, it takes some practice before you become adept at capturing video appropriate for a highlights video. We started with our daughter when she was about 12 or 13, even though coaches won't want to see video of players at that age (highlights of when they are 16 or 17 are probably more useful). Take a lot of video (it requires a lot to get enough satisfactory footage).
In your final highlights video, use an arrow or a circle to identify your child. Post it on YouTube, and keep it up to date. For field players, off the ball footage is important. We've been told that goalkeepers need videos of both highlights and training sessions, although we never ended up taking video of a training session.
It may make sense to consider hiring a professional (the perspective from the tall cameras used by many professional sports videographers can be good, especially for field players) – at most showcase tournaments, there is an approved company that takes videos. If all (or many) of the parents on your child's team chip in, the cost can be manageable.
Keep the purpose of video in mind – and this is the purpose of a lot of what you're going to be doing during the college recruiting process. No college coach will choose a player based on video highlights. What you're trying to do is convince the college coach that it will be worth their time to come watch the player at a game.
9. Consider putting your profile and highlights video on a personal website. We developed a website which included our daughter's profile, videos, photos, a schedule of where she would be playing next, etc.
10. Start the recruiting process earlier than you think you should. Freshman year is best. I can't tell you how many times we heard parents saying, "We've got plenty of time." Those are the same parents who two years later were saying, "I wish we would have started earlier."
11. Ask your club coach and director of coaching for an honest appraisal of what level of school you can play at. That will help you formulate a list of 10 schools you might want to attend from a soccer standpoint. See #12 below.
12. Research colleges from an academic and athletic standpoint. Use the U.S. News & World Report Ultimate College Guide (or something similar) and SportSource's Official Athletic College Guide for Women's Soccer. Choose 10 target schools for academics (divided fairly equally between schools where a student of your academic standing should be easily accepted, schools where acceptance will be a bit more challenging, and schools where you anticipate acceptance will be difficult) and 10 target schools for athletics (divided fairly equally between schools where a player of your skill should easily make the soccer team, schools where making the soccer team will be more challenging, and schools where making the soccer team would seem to be quite difficult). Rely on your club coaches to give you an honest assessment of your skill level, and use that assessment in evaluating which soccer programs will be easy, challenging, and difficult for you. Then focus on the overlap between your academic list and your athletic list. Note: in our experience, goalkeepers need larger athletic lists because schools that are on your original list may not be recruiting for goalkeepers in your graduation year.
13. Begin to send emails to college coaches on the overlap list in your freshman year. Include your profile and upcoming game schedules (although realistically, they probably won't come and watch you until you're in your junior year/U16-17). Copy the head coach and/or recruiting coach, depending on who you are sending the email to. Same with the goalkeeper coach if that's your position.
As a goalkeeper, our daughter's athletic list of schools was large – at least initially. Because of this and because she has a really busy schedule, we settled on an approach to emailing coaches that was a bit different than what we had read was the best approach. Once our daughter had decided on the contents of the introductory email she wanted to send to coaches, I sent those introductory emails for her from her email account. Subsequent emails (thanking a coach for coming to watch her play, thanking a coach for their time at an ID camp, and later in the process, responding to emails from coaches) were sent by her. This made the process a bit more manageable for her.
It's important to personalize even the introductory emails a bit based on your child's research of the school's academic and soccer programs. Be able to tell the coaches why you want to attend their school and play soccer for them. In our daughter's case, we came up with the basic introductory email first and then for each school, she told me why it interested her and we came up with a paragraph to add which made each introductory email more specific to the school.
14. Begin to call coaches on the overlap list. You can almost always find their phone numbers on the team web pages of the colleges' intercollegiate athletic websites. Prepare a list of questions in advance – include more questions on your list than you think you will ever ask (otherwise, you will almost certainly have "dead space" during your calls when you can't think of any more questions).
We searched on the web for lists of questions, combined the lists we found, and came up with a list of over a 100 questions. Our daughter didn't come close to asking all of the questions we came up with, but it gave her confidence that she wasn't going to run out.
At one point, when it appeared that the NCAA was going to allow coaches to initiate phone calls earlier than it had before (the new rule was rescinded before it went into effect), we prepared a list of questions our daughter could ask when coaches "cold-called" her – and when she hadn't researched the program.
I have a feeling that our daughter's introductory emails weren't as effective as introductory phone calls would have been (our process was to send introductory emails and then make phone calls to the coaches who had expressed interest in some way, but now I wonder if it would have been better to just start out with phone calls because I suspect coaches get a ton of emails and a player's introductory email could easily be lost in the shuffle).
It will be a challenge for your son and daughter to make these phone calls, but they can start with schools for which they believe they could easily make the team – it may end up being practice, or depending on how well you and your child have judged their abilities, it may end up being one of the schools they seriously consider. Your child should keep in mind that college coaches talk on the phone with youth soccer players quite a bit – they know you're nervous. Sometimes (especially if they want your child badly), they will be nervous too. Your child will probably never be completely comfortable with this part of the process, but it's a good growth opportunity for them.
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