OK, USC Upstate isn’t at your academic level.
If you do want to play, try to get footage of yourself playing (varsity is fine) and get yourself on coaches’ radar at the end of 10th grade with a video from 9th+10th showing different skills, especially passes and technique, so they can start tracking you. UChicago, Vanderbilt, NESCAC etc., might be interested even if you don’t play travel club.
@AmBuddha Lol ya I was involved with Revs academy for a bit of time in middle school, and the system is weird—they get rid of a large number of kids from their youth rosters every year and bring new ones in. Not a big fan of the program; I’m not sure if that’s how all DA teams work. They used to be good but their quality is declining.
I played with my local DA team in the winter for one session, where we scrimmaged the 03 team. We lost 5-1 but I scored our only goal lol 
however, it’s one of the worst DAs in the country and I don’t really like playing with them.
@MYOS1634 That’s my plan, I don’t think I really have the time to play club—I’m taking 5 APs next year (don’t panic—three of them are going to be easy), springtime will be chaos as I also might take the SAT then. Our school films our games and uses Hudl so I could probably make a good highlight reel, assuming I actually make the team (new coach this year after 40+ years of the same coach), and I perform well.
Would I just email them out of the blue with my highlights? Seems kind of informal to me, but I’m not sure how else I would approach it.
Also, I found some random futsal highlights of mine from a long time ago. Apparently my dad has a YT channel, if anyone wants to see them out of curiosity, PM me and I can show them to you lol
As best I recall, Chicago was ranked #1 for much of the season last year, and Tufts won the national championship, with a number of NESCACs competing in the national tournament. A top soccer player with good enough academic is going to be recruited at those schools, rather than a stand out academic with good enough soccer talent.
@Midwestmomofboys hence why I started this thread.
@squ1rrel I understand, I should have tagged @MYOS1634 who had referred to top academic D3s, when I responded that those schools would be recruiting top soccer talent with good enough academic credentials.
My advice has been that a top academic portfolio is not going to get someone in through a recruiting back door at schools which are both academically super selective and which field strong soccer programs. Top academics could get someone a roster spot and academic pre-read with a green light at solid D3 soccer programs such as Grinnell, to name a program we visited.
Also, for those following this thread, Vandy does not field a Men’s Soccer team, nor does University of Richmond (which was not specifically mentioned, but was a surprise to us when my kid was looking at schools).
@Midwestmomofboys Oof, a bit disappointed; Elliot Choy from Vanderbilt (whose YT channel has blown up in the past couple of months) is almost an idle to me. Even though they don’t have a strong CS department I always wanted to go there.
Should I email the coach asking how he got my information? It’s not like I’m going to the college; I may as well ask.
Re emailing the coach, since you are a freshman and the school is D1, I don’t believe they are allowed by NCAA rules to reply to you. You may not even be allowed to call them – the rules just changed as of May 1 this year (until a few days ago you could call them, though they couldn’t call you). I may have misunderstood the rule change, so hopefully someone else will chime in.
@cinnamon1212 Thanks! I’ve always been confused by these rules. Not sure why they’re so strict…
Every athletic recruit for college I’ve ever met, was focused on that goal; to play college level of their sport. One of my kids was a recruit, and my others were also athletes who played club in college and was active in supporting school teams. It was something ingrained into them.
It’s not easy being an athletic recruit. It’s not as though the consideration colleges give to athletic recruits is a give away. These athletes put in a tremendous of time and work on their sport to become a NCAA athlete, and once they get accepted to a school, the crunch gets worse. College level athletics is strenuous. It’s a given that you can handle the athletics.
It’s early yet for OP to know whether he is college material in terms of the sport. Give it a go. If you cannot juggle soccer with academics, or you don’t want to do so, then you should drop it.
You can do both, you can be a football player and a student at the same time. I feel like its just a matter of how you would balance your time with your studies and sport.
I could be completely wrong, but I think coaches will be hard-pressed to recruit someone who only plays HS (and not club) even if he’s a club-level player. I imagine most coaches would want a stronger indication of commitment to the sport, rather than go after someone who might very well drop after a season or two. Not saying it doesn’t happen but for the NESCAC and UAA type schools, I believe even with the emphasis on academics, those coaches (like every coach) wants players who are committed to the endeavor. Of course, doesn’t cost you anything to put together some video and reach out to dozens of coaches via email, though I would budget ($ and time) for some ID camps at the schools you’re most interested in.
@AmBuddha I agree with you that high school alone will rarely cut if for college soccer recruiting.
Ok, I know one exception – Femi Hollinger Janzen who played at IU (a top 10 D1 program), was 1st team Big 10, was drafted by the MLS and is now playing down a division in the USL. He was adopted from Africa as a child, raised by a Mennonite family and attended a small, Mennonite high school in Goshen, Indiana. While he only played high school soccer, he was Indiana Soccer player of the Year and Indiana Gatorade Player of the Year.
It comes back to the OP’s original dilemma – he expressed that he perhaps he was neglecting an opportunity to use soccer to get into super selective colleges, but acknowledged that he didn’t really want to play club soccer because it took away from his academics and that he probably wasn’t driven to play the way someone would generally have to be in order to train and compete to be a prospect at a competitive soccer program, let alone at an Ivy League or NESCAC D3 program.
Do your best with academics, do your best with the varsity team in HS, prepare a video, and see what happens. Your academics WILL get you into more colleges - you could aim for mid-level D3 soccer/high level academics for college
I don’t think ID camps are that useful, they’re a big money maker but I don’t think you need this to get onto the coaches’ radar if you target the athletics/academics combination well.
Also, by your reaction to USC-Upstate, you clearly indicate that top academics trump D1 soccer for you.
@squ1rrel if you are not playing club the chances are near zero to get into a D1 with solid academics as a soccer recruit. D3s might work but those will likely have no/limited merit money. I would guess if you aren’t playing club, you would have to go to a specific school camp and impress to be recruited even for top D3 academic schools
^OP is more interested in topnotch academics than in playing D1, if I understand correctly.
@anon145 merit money doesn’t matter much to me; I’m an only child and we have a solid income.
@MYOS1634 yes you are correct. Ideally a good CS school which I can play soccer for—that’s why MIT is the dream.
Here’s a list of underachievers who also play soccer Almost all engineers, a couple undeclared, one CS. This is the competition you are against just to play soccer in college.
https://minesathletics.com/roster.aspx?path=msoc
Every one of them played on a club/DA team. And Mines is a DII team!
@twoinanddone Yeah looks quite tough. Either coaches don’t want to recruit those who don’t play for clubs or all the good players play for clubs…I’d say it’s the former. Tough luck for me.
Actually, if you saw what Liverpool did today in the UEFA champions league, you would say that anything is possible.
Take care of the academic piece first and foremost. You can always play club soccer in college, though, even some club teams can be hard to make.