@squ1rrel Something to consider as a likely CS major: playing a sport with that major is going to be a challenge, especially at a top program (either soccer or CS). I suspect CMU, MIT etc don’t make any allowances for their athletes. Many (most?) coaches have an aversion to players with “lab” requirements so keep CS to yourself. My son expressed interest in engineering to a couple coaches and you could see a palpable reaction. It wasn’t exactly negative, but more like, “ok then…”, maybe just say “econ” (kidding not really). Just look through a roster such as Michigan (big time sports and academics). I don’t guess there are 1 or 2 engineers and if so, probably civil or ops, not CS/EE.
If you’re stellar academically, you’ll be limiting yourself if you fully immerse in the recruiting process. In some ways, you’ll be abdicating the decision to whichever coach(es) want you. If that matches your academic goals, great, because then you take a set of colleges where you have maybe 50-85% chances of acceptance up to nearly 100% as a recruit. If CS and soccer (coach) lines up at your perfect college, awesome. But I suspect your academic list is narrow. Leaving it to the collective soccer coach universe is…likely to be sub-optimal. By getting your grades to their highest means you’ll be perhaps working at the 80-95% acceptance range and then you get to decide where to apply with multiple shots on goal (and on goals of your choosing, not subject to what a soccer coach thinks of your game relative to his projected needs and all the other recruits he’s scouting).
Even if you’re BNT material, or could get to that level in 6 months (think about that, it’s a big country), you’ll have almost played yourself out of the appropriate academic schools. Or you’ll have the tough choice of leaving a national team “career” behind to go to college instead of doing everything necessary to become a professional player and leading the USMNT to a World Cup victory (ok, back to the finals, little steps).
Venturing into entirely speculative territory: every dad is a son’s strongest and most insane supporter, as he should be. There’s a likelihood that he and you have over-estimated your soccering skills especially after your hiatus. My son played in those national futsal tourneys. One of his teams won the nationals and not at the U-little level. That all means nothing to college soccer coaches. On the other hand, if your growth spurt put you well over 6 feet, and you’re a chiseled stud ATH-e-lete, then go for it. But if you’re a highly technical ball wizard, you’d better score buckets of goals, and be able to demonstrate the ability to absorb copious amounts of physical punishment. And be blindingly quick if not quick and fast.
tl;dr: focus on academics. You’re trying to figure out if the juice is worth the squeeze, and for most it’s all about the squeeze and the juice is happy by-product. Let the coulda shoulda woulda thoughts behind. Nobody cares that you could have been a contender (that maybe reads harsher than I intend - it’s just not productive to dwell on what might have been). Also, there’s a lot more money for merit scholarships though you said that wasn’t an issue. Ask your dad to buy you a car if you get a merit scholarship!
