I don’t understand what the situation is. If your son will only attend a college where he can play soccer, he needs to be sure the colleges he apply to have club soccer. If he will only go to a college where he can represent the college as a member of the team, he has to get recruited. So he needs to be the best soccer player he can be and he needs to reach out to coaches, etc…at many levels of colleges. Getting recruited isn’t easy for a popular sport like soccer.
ETA: If you mean will coaches be “sympathetic” to his grades, why would they? His grades are what they are. Coaches will not care about his siblings.
I completely understand, my S22 was not academically motivated at all in HS — he kept his gpa just high enough to continue with soccer and marching band. We joked that he spent more time calculating his gpa and trying to hit the exact number needed to stay eligible that it would have been easier and less stressful to actually put in the effort lol. The good news is that he is absolutely thriving in college! So a lot of maturing can happen and there is hope!!
Anyway — some “mid” soccer programs we discovered that accept B students are Lawrence, Knox, Centre and Cornell College. I don’t think your son would be accepted at Bard (mine was WL with overall B average and very impressive music ECs). Bard has weak athletics across the board and not much support from the student body or admin. Centre was coming off an NCAA play-off run when my son was applying, I’m not sure what their current recruiting situation is but they love their athletes!
PS - My son shocked us all by dropping soccer his senior year of high school so no longer plays, but was recognized as one of the top goalies in our state his sophomore and junior year.
My only advice- make sure your son is carrying the load on this. Outreach to coaches- the emails should come from him (or from his HS coach). Making a list of schools to visit, scheduling tours and visits and meetings, a punch list of “here’s what has to happen”.
I’ve known kids like your son and I’ve heard every excuse in the book as to why Blossom’s plan won’t work- kid is too busy. Kid is in school during business hours. Kid can barely gulp down dinner between practice and sleep, how can he do the arduous task of pushing “send” on a few emails?
I am assuming the goal is for your son to get into college, to play soccer, AND to graduate from college with some semblance of a college education, right?
Therefore, the sooner he starts to pull his weight on the research, logistics, outreach, etc. the sooner the mental transition will start to happen- this is HIS life, his education, his future.
Without that mental transition- Mom and dad become research assistants and project managers and tour guides and financiers and transportation providers (known in therapeutic terms as “enablers”). Kid gets to college. First speed bump- ooops. Second speed bump- yikes. Third speed bump- kid decides maybe college isn’t for him at all.
There is no time like right now to get him invested in the process, the logistics, the outcome, the results. Without that investment you are building the world’s most expensive summer camp for him (i.e. college without the classrooms) and that doesn’t sound like your end goal.
Good luck. He isn’t the first late bloomer who decides college is really worth it…
My understanding is that club soccer can be quite competitive and have try-outs and cuts. Don’t assume that a college with club soccer will be an apt substitute for someone who failed to be recruited.
At many schools, this is true – club soccer teams may be quite selective and exclusive. But for this kid, it sounds like he needs to know he’s got a spot on a team to commit to a school, and the club scenario requires the acceptance first. So this plan B isn’t really for this kid in any case.
I depends completely on the school. Some club teams are very good. Some are pretty chill. I don’t think the OPs son would consider that playing college soccer though if I’m reading the tea leaves correctly.
My son, who has been playing club soccer since 8, plus travel and varsity, leading scorer on club, varsity captain, didn’t make club freshman year at Rutgers (to be fair none of the freshmen did). He had no interest in playing on a college team. My oldest got the starting goal keeper spot on club at TCNJ sophomore year, but it was competitive.
I know there’s overlap in program quality between DII and DIII… but how do the weakest DII teams compare to the weak end of DIII? Is that list worth looking at, or is even the bottom of the list out of reach? (Also, I don’t even understand why some of the schools at the bottom of the list are there - for example, Lewis & Clark, at the very bottom, is a DIII school according to all other info, but they aren’t on the DIII list.)
Re: club soccer, sure it may not be what this kid has in mind now, and yes making the team can be competitive.
But if the point is to keep the idea of college alive and the grades up over the next few years, I’d think understanding this option is worth a bit of time. Especially if recruiting fizzles or he hates the only schools that recruit him. Or, as often happens, he starts to realize that the life of a college athlete is not what he thought it was.
I know plenty of students who were sort of ho-hum about the academic experience of college but attended based on some interest they had a few years before attending. Plenty of them never ended up pursuing that interest once at school because of the range of previously unimagined options available.
I agree with this, but it can be difficult to know ahead of time one’s likelihood of making the team, or getting playing time if they do make it. Worth the risk for some though!
Of course even for recruited athletes that’s not always a guarantee of making the team even in the first year and certainly not after that, let alone a guarantee of getting playing time.
Amplifying this, and I couldn’t agree more. I’m seriously considering starting to do presentations/panels to students and parents about this. Like an anti-college recruiting counselor lol. At least we are finally making the move in D1 by recognizing the athletes are athletes first. But that’s unlikely to make its way to D3 where plenty of those student-athletes are also expected to be athletes first.
One of my best friends had two high level players. His daughter played on a team that won the surf cup and the U16 national championship, and she was their 10. She quit after her junior year in HS. Her brother played on a team that had 12 players get college offers. He played D1 one year, and then quit. They ask a LOT of collegiate athletes. It’s a careful what you wish for scenario.
I’m sure a ton of hoops and football players only go to college - so they can play their sport. If they couldn’t, they wouldn’t go to school. They’d find another path in life.
What’s the difference here?
Will the colleges want him on their team - is really all the question is.
I agree, I don’t know why Lewis & Clark isn’t on the d3 list. I do know the program is only a year or two old. They do appear if you enter them into the “matchup” function, but it just gives their ranking vis a vis every soccer program at all division levels, which isn’t hugely helpful. However they could be a good program to reach out to for the OP’s son – good thought!
As to D2 vs D3, I must say I am completely unfamiliar with the d2 landscape.
Should they not have a place to compete altogether? Most players aren’t getting athletic $$ anyway. In sports like swimming and TF many develop to be scoring athletes. If paying football/basketball players a salary means other teams get cut (even further) it’s a huge net loss IMO. Many of these star FB/BB players aren’t interested in their degree. Why can’t they just got straight to pro?
The NESCAC was mentioned earlier, but I am not familiar with New England. In the midwest, there are a bunch of strong D3 schools led by Wash U and U of Chicago. Rhodes, Knox, Grinnell, etc. If he has the ability, D3 schools give academic money to athletes, so if he gets hurt, he keeps the scholarship.
