I am tutoring someone for SATs, who will probably be a recruited soccer player. He told me about a soccer college in England that gives students a US bachelors in business. He said that he was interested because he wanted to study business. I advised that if his goal was professional soccer that might be good. However, I thought that with the scores I was helping him to get, he probably could get into somewhere like Maryland or Ohio State if they wanted him for soccer, If for some reason he wasn’t good enough for Division I, he could probably get into an excellent academically Division III school with his soccer, and his parents could afford it. My feeling was that he soccer college in England might not be that good academically, and might have students who didn’t meet the academic requirements to play Division I.
I earlier tutored someone for SATs who went to a baseball academy in Puerto Rico. He and his parents thought it was a good choice, because he could concentrate on baseball and they had classes in English geared towards preparing students for baseball scholarships in the US, as well as minor league baseball contracts. My impression was that the academics were poor at that school, and most of the students were not well prepared academically, at least in English. That colored my advice on the soccer college.
I would be interested if others had knowledge of experience with these sorts of schools.
It is not clear whether you are referring to a soccer college or enrollment in the soccer academy system, which is well established in Europe. Additionally, I am not sure if you know that unlike the States, there is a world of difference between a “college” and a “university” in the U.K. A free standing college (unlike a college within a university) is not quite the equivalent of a trade school, but not too far off. It can be used to prepare a kid for university or for a particularized career – like the theatre. However, only a university in the U.K. would be the equivalent of a college education in the U.S.
Everyone has to make his own goals, but I would think unless this kid has already been identified as the next Christian Pulisic, getting recruited to a D1 program would be the safer route. Plenty of MLS players still come from D1 programs. Of course, each person has to chart his or her own route. All you can do is identify possible outcomes. How close did Jamie Vardy come to a career in a factory, despite following a sports management course of study?
If a soccer player is a current junior in high school, he would probably already be on the radar for top D1 programs by being seen through the Academy program and national tournaments in the US, including schools like Maryland or Indiana. We know kids who have flirted with the idea of going to Europe for school/soccer, and those have been the kids who did not have the interest from US D1 programs they were hoping for. The European players who fill up D2 and some D1 rosters are often guys who were released from their pro clubs between age 16-18, and came to the US to play soccer, get an education, and keep the dream alive. School and soccer for 18-22 year olds is not really the typical structure in England, at least based on our limited knowledge from players who made the reverse trip from England to the US to continue school/soccer.
As the parent of a D3 soccer player, I would be very cautious about encouraging my kid to look at school/playing in England.
He told me it was a soccer academy in England that gave an American BA in Business. It is not an English university. Yeh, my concern was that it would be much inferior academically to a D1 school.,particularly the ones I think he can get into. Possibly also it is mostly kids who didn’t get D1 scholarships. Yeh, he’s a junior.
I guess this would be considered in England like the colleges in Oxford not part of the university. This discussion confirms my guess that it would be bad academically. Thought someone might know of the school. Couldn’t find much with Google.
It probably is better for soccer than going to a D1 school, because you probably spend more time on soccer there. That was what I heard about the Puerto Rican baseball high school: that it was great for baseball, but bad academically.
The school is American University of London. It is a private university. They play soccer 4 hours a day in the soccer academy. I am looking into the academic level.
If a player is a current junior, he should talk to his club coach/director of coaching, about the type of schools where they might be interested. If he has done overnight camps, he should also have a sense of his recruitment level from the evaluations. Maryland is a top soccer program, and likely has its list of top recruits already in place, that doesn’t mean there won’t be movement on it, just that it is late for a top D1 prospect to start thinking about recruiting. Plenty of top D1 players play in the MLS, if that is the goal.
He can probably get into the level of Maryland academically. I don’t know about soccer. I think he probably can get a D1 scholarship, but is not a top recruit. If not, he is definitely at the level to play D3. I don’t think he thinks he is good enough to play in the MLS.
I do fully understand playing for the love of a sport. But, I must admit to be scratching my head. If a player is a D3 level player, or even a D1 level player with no prospects of going pro, why would he go to a soccer academy overseas? Again, everyone finds his or her own route. If it were me, and I wasn’t going pro, I would want to find the best education possible supported by soccer, as opposed to a place where I could play soccer four hours a day with a likely lower quality education. I am sure however your tutee will find the right path for him.
Yeh, that is what I advised them. I think they got a sales pitch from the soccer school, and didn’t understand how bad private universities in the UK are. That was why I compared it to the Puerto Rican baseball high school.
He has a 3.2 with no honors classes at an suburban high school that is probably about 80th percentile for the country. However, he should get at least 1300 on the SATs. We are doing a lot of lessons, he is coachable from soccer, and I am really good. I think he should be able to get into a decent school academically with that for an athletic scholarship and if not a decent D3 school academically as a recruited athlete. I wouldn’t say he has no chance of professional soccer, but he isn’t planning on that.
Every coach we talked with, from D1 to D3, gave some version of the advice that a student should imagine, what if they have a career ending injury the first day of pre-season training freshman year – are they still happy to be at that school?