Is he a strong enough player that a prep school might want him for a PG year? And would he be open to that, if so?
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No. Prep schools want prospective d1 players who are already being recruited by college coaches for PG years.
This whole discussion is a great illustration of a commonly overlooked truth: it is hard to get recruited. Not everyone can be. In menās soccer, kids have to be in the top 5% of all players nationally to play in d3. (Top 2% for d1).
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OWU and John Carroll are power house Menās soccer programs!
Massey is a good start for the OP to get a feel for the tiers of programs ā there are lots and lots of solid programs which are not inundated with recruits and donāt have the resources to do national recruiting, so if a student is proactive in finding those schools, emailing coaches, sending video etc., they will get on the coachās radar and be of interest. The best Menās soccer programs include some of the most rejective D3 schools in the country. But there are also plenty of schools where admission is likely but a roster spot on the team is not.
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Not in football, where 18 year olds could literally die if they played in the NFL. College serves as the minor leagues for the NFL, not sure I see that changing anytime soon, but who knows. A topic for another thread for sure.
Best of luck to OPās S26 this summer, wishing him good playing success and coach interest.
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I know that @James_West feels comfortable with the resources provided by other posters for the family to develop their own list. Thus, this post is for my own edification while there are so many expert eyes on it.
As we donāt know the OPās sonās interests with respect to colleges (potential fields, urban vs. not, regions of the country, etc.), what would people think of these schools? Iāve listed their Massey ranking, so is there a particular cutoff one would recommend for an athlete in an EDP league?
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U. of Minnesota ā Morris (401)
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Millsaps (381)
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Muskingum (380)
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Lawrence (378)
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Sarah Lawrence (377)
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Augustana (355)
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Beloit (342)
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Washington & Jefferson (325)
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Guilford (310)
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Wentworth (305)
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Allegheny (302)
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Illinois Tech (297)
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Emmanuel (295)
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Transylvania (271)
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Cornell College (265)
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Austin (262)
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Oberlin (259)
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Knox (245)
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Baldwin-Wallace (243)
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Clark (240)
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Grinnell (239)
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Susquehanna (236)
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Hendrix (233)
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Lake Forest (231)
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I disagree with those saying that it is hard to get recruited for D3 soccer. There are college programs (and some of them are even mentioned above) that are weaker than some of the good high school teams out there. I think thereās room for just about anyone who has a high school varsity level of talent.
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This is not correct. There are many club teams playing at levels far above a typical
HS varsity team (e.g. MLS Next, ECNL) which is why many club soccer athletes of HS age play year round for their club, and forego HS play. Not to mention there are several hundred thousand boys HS soccer players (with some fraction graduating in any given year)ā¦so clearly not room for all of them to play college soccer at any level even if they were as good as most club players.
@cinnamon1212 do you have data?
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This is definitely true. In fact, MLS-Next doesnāt even allow its players to play for their schools. Itās what you give up for the privilege of playing on an MLS-Next club.
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I always lean on this site for statistics:
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Here you go (from the NCAA):
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Thanks should be another very helpful resource.
D3soccerboards is another resource to learn about specific athletic conferences and schools ā google should turn up a not very flashy message board. Right now, in the off season, the boards will be pretty quiet but there are threads by conference so a good resource on past seasons. Some conferences are very competitive, such as NESCAC, where almost all schools recruit aggressively and competitively. Other conferences have a cluster of high performing programs, such as Liberty, Centennial, and NCAC, where recruiting will be national and competitive, though the bottom of the conference may be less competitive. Other conferences have 1-2 strong performers and then the rest of the conference is weaker, such as CCIW.
Something any athlete should consider when preparing for recruiting is what will they be satisfied with ā being on the roster, contributing significant minutes as a sub, starting? At the beginning, it may seem enough to just get a roster spot, but once you are on the roster, the competition continues ā for playing time, for starting spot, to keep the starting spot. Another consideration is how important is it to play on a successful team ā is it enough to train and play, even if the team is consistently losing? Or do you want a shot at going to the conference tournament during your college experience?
Finally, for perspective, my D3 Menās soccer player estimated he spent 25-30 hours per week in season on his sport ā including practice, travel and matches, team meetings, etc. Off season, it was 5-15 hours per week with workouts etc.
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Thanks for all the great input and helpful information. I apologize for not responding directly or thanking everyone for taking the time to offer your insights.
We do understand the club landscape in soccer. Not all kids who have the ability to play in the higher leagues choose to do so. In my area, if you want to be on a club above EDP, you are looking for at least an hourās drive three times a week to practice, driving for hours, or flying on weekends to games. Not all families want or can make that commitment. Also, some kids want to play for their high school and donāt want to sacrifice this experience to play for an āeliteā club.
His older brother is about to graduate from Northwestern, so we do have experience with the college search and selection process. We are novices in recruiting, so the information and input along those lines have been the most useful.
Iām involved in a college scholarship funding program for a particular study area. We work with specific schools that donate a place in the class or give free tuition to our scholarship winners. We have to fund room and board, books, and other expenses.
Is my kid good enough to be competitive on a lower-level D3 team? I think so, and so do his coaches. My original question is, Is there a college coach out there who will give him a roster spot to help motivate an academically talented kid to want to go to college? The input here is probably not, so thanks for answering this question. We will most likely try anyway.
Right or wrong, we require him to keep a B or 85 average to continue playing club and high school soccer. He does this with barely any effort. If he knew it would guarantee him to play soccer in college, he could probably get a 105 average. Thanks again.
ā
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I donāt want to publicly slam individual soccer programs. But I know of a good number that are so weak that our boys high school team could give them a run. And then if you look at these teamsā records, you see that they are still able to win against other collegiate teams. Itās astonishing, really. I canāt imagine that an experienced high school player couldnāt make one of these teams.
Now if literally every high school player wanted a slot ā of course thereās not room for everyone. Surely you know thatās not what I meant. Only a small percentage of players choose to play in college and many times it has more to do with love of the sport and lack of time than it does with ability.
Will be very hard to find such a coach. Coaches shy away from kids who may have academic probation issues and are at risk of dropping out after a year or two.
The reality is your kid will have to show coaches he is passionate about both school and soccer, and that college isnāt just an afterthought.
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Personally I would not have your S even address anything with a coach about needing soccer to be motivated to go to college/do well in collegeā¦and Bs are fine grades, no one will have an issue with that (if thatās where grades remain.) IME, itās implied that a student who is reaching out to coaches is interested in attending college. With that said I would also encourage your S to mention a few reasons why X college might be a good fit beyond soccer in their email/conversations, e.g., interesting major, etc.
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I agree with the stats on receiving scholarship money that show the very low probability of this for collegiate sports, particularly for a full ride.
However, I do feel that the stats regarding the probability of competing in college sports based on the # of college & HS athletes can be a bit misleading. The low % participating is sometimes interpreted that to play a college sport you have to be an outstanding very top HS player. Or some like to infer that if you are participating in a college sport, you are one of the top % of HS players.
There are many high school athletes that can play a college sport though they choose not to play a sport in college. Just in my small circle, I know many very good HS athletes that did not participate in HS sports by choice, where as team mates less athletically gifted may want to play sports in college and find a good school and fit.
It varies significantly by sport though I have seen D3 teams that have average HS players on the roster, some of them seeing significant playing time.
So, depending on the sport, if participating in a college sport is at the top of the list for the student or parents, there is a good chance that there are schools/programs out there for you.
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Parents like to make it out to be super competitive to continue sport in college. Itās simply not true. I could provide a list of very mediocre soccer players (and many other sports as well) that graduated from our high school and went on to play in college. We just had a runner commit to a D2 school that was a real head scratcher. Didnāt even make it past the district meet as a senior.
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Itās just like college admissions generally: pretty much anyone can be admitted to a college. But can anyone get admitted to a selective, or prestigious college? Definitely not!
Even with that, I donāt think I would concede that any high school varsity soccer player could play in college.
ETA, there are some colleges on the brink financially, who use athletics to fill seats. They may have JV teams too. I canāt speak to those situations, in fairness.
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Iām going to hazard a guess that the parents have aspirations beyond soccer. So the needle to thread here is for the kid to find a team heād be able to play on, and for the parents to pay for a college education which will actually educate their kid.
Thatās a little more complicated than youāre making it out to be. I also know a lot of mediocre athletes who are playing in college. Some of them at solid universities which will position them well for their future life ā even if they get injured and can no longer play in college. And some of them atā¦ how do you describe it, diploma mills?
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