GKUnion:
My son is a sophomore as well and in a similar position. Post showcase there is a barrage of camp invites, some from realistic programs and others from reaches to downright impossibilities. My son emailed a lot of schools pre-showcase so he’s now on an equally large number of mailing lists.
I’m sure a decent percentage of the schools reaching out to your son have some level of interest in them. Camps are a big money maker, though. My son has participated in a few school specific D1 camps, both in-state and distant out-of-state. Those have generated significant interest from those schools, which has really helped his confidence. Now he goes into a camp with a better understanding of what to expect and a reasonable expectation that he can compete.
Look for camp invite emails that mention something specific about your son. “Dear XXXX, we were impressed with your play in the showcase game against Team A.” If your club provides information regarding coaches in attendance for each game you can easily cross reference if they were there. It’s somewhat early in the process so attending the camp close by should help determine a baseline. If his camp assessment is very positive you may want to choose another camp this spring at a school he has more interest in. There’s a lot of good information on this forum. Search all of the soccer threads. Good luck.
Yes the generic emails or spam we have been pretty much ignoring. Just focusing on the email’s where coaches have been introducing themselves and mentioning of the event that just occurred… and personally inviting him to camp.
We have noticed that the D1 schools are much more conservative or careful in their communications which make sense as he is still a sophomore. The D2/3 are much more aggressive.