Top soccer colleges in America

Discussion in 'College & Amateur Soccer' started by icius_07, Mar 3, 2007.

  1. icius_07

    icius_07 New Member

    Mar 3, 2007
    Lithuania/U.S.A.
    Hello,

    I am looking for the Top soccer colleges in America in the 1st division. My son is 17 years old and he is at home in Lithuania and looking to start his college education in America, but also play soccer at the high level. So sorry for my lack of knowledge but I am here not to long, and if you can please tell me the Top 25 soccer colleges for example. Thank you very much. Greetings.
     
  2. JoeSoccerFan

    JoeSoccerFan Member+

    Aug 11, 2000
  3. icius_07

    icius_07 New Member

    Mar 3, 2007
    Lithuania/U.S.A.
    Thank you very much sir.
     
  4. Dsocc

    Dsocc Member

    Feb 13, 2002
  5. TSAcademy

    TSAcademy New Member

    Dec 3, 2006
    Florida

    If he's looking purely for soccer here in the states... www.TSAcademy.net

    ...also, University of Maine has had a few players from Lithuania on it's team in the past few years.
     
  6. MarioKempes

    MarioKempes Member+

    Real Madrid, DC United, anywhere Pulisic plays
    Aug 3, 2000
    Proxima Centauri
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I always wondered what happened to Sneaky Pete!
     
  7. asdf2

    asdf2 Member+

    Oct 11, 2004
    San Francisco
    An interesting observation is that there are some great academic institutions on these lists if your son has the academic background and/or soccer skills to get in.

    Here's the top 15 from CollegeSoccerNews.com for example. UCLA, Virginia, Duke, Maryland, Santa Clara, Indiana and California (and I could be skipping a few) are probably on most lists of the top 50 universities on the planet. Even UCSB is a great school. Of course that makes them all hard to get into as well.

    UC Santa Barbara
    UCLA
    Wake Forest
    Virginia
    Duke
    SMU
    Maryland
    Santa Clara
    Notre Dame
    West Virginia
    Indiana
    Clemson
    Lehigh
    California
    New Mexico
     
  8. Ted Eck

    Ted Eck New Member

    Jan 24, 2006
    Lehigh and West Virginia...if we are basing it one season, and the best "school" Nwestern deserves a spot over those two.
     
  9. TSAcademy

    TSAcademy New Member

    Dec 3, 2006
    Florida

    ... Ted Eck was one of the most under rated players from the early days in the MLS.
     
  10. Topflight

    Topflight New Member

    Mar 12, 2004
    North Carolina
    Is you son on the Lithuanian U17 national team? if not good luck on getting a lot of money from a big school
     
  11. CalSoccerGuy

    CalSoccerGuy New Member

    Feb 2, 2007
    If Lehigh is on your list....Harvard better be....THE BEST school on the planet and a darn good side....plus they have John Kerr, Jr. who is fairly connected in the US and abroad soccer world.
     
  12. HighburyForever

    HighburyForever Red Card

    Oct 15, 2006
    Wooloomooloo, New South Wales
    Club:
    Zenit St Petersburg
    Nat'l Team:
    Russia

    Hi Icius. There is a kid named Yannick Reyering from Germany who now plays for the University of Virginia. He was in the exact same position as your son. He wanted to play soccer but also get a US education at the same time. I would recommend doing the same thing he did.

    If your son is pretty talented, contact the coaches at the top schools (mentioned above) and send them video tapes of your son. The best way to contact them is to go to each schools website and find their "Athletics" page. Each school should have information on how to contact coaches - either through email or phone.

    Good luck!
     
  13. Martininho

    Martininho Member+

    Feb 13, 2007
    Chicago
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If finances aren't an issue, you might also want to include Stanford. Private school, world class academic credentials, tremendous alumni network, and excellent support of athletic programs, including soccer.

    Location (Palo Alto, CA, about 25 miles south of San Francisco) not so bad, either.

    Best of luck
     
  14. Noco6

    Noco6 New Member

    Nov 30, 2006


    West Virginia academics is about is bad as you can get...you need about a 1.8 highschool gpa to get in...
     
  15. Dsocc

    Dsocc Member

    Feb 13, 2002
    Fixed your post.:rolleyes: Perhaps they are, but to be fair, WVU's APR for men's soccer is 950, while the average for all public institutions that sponsor the sport is 943. That means they graduate about 67% of their players within 5 years, which is a decent rate for athletics. By comparison, Maryland's is 945 and New Mexico's is 927. UCSB's is only 870, and they currently run the risk of losing a scholarship because of it.
     
  16. Gaucho95

    Gaucho95 Member

    Dec 13, 2004
    Oakland, Ca
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    There can be a big difference between the academics of a school and how the athletes take advanrage of it. The APR is not a measure of the school's academics... it's a measure of how many student athletes graduate in a given program. It comes down to the individual and if they take advantage of the opportunity presented.

    After graduation, your first employer or graduate school has no interest in knowing the APR of your team, I guarantee you that. They care about your degree, the university you graduated from, and what your GPA was.

    It makes very little sense for anyone to consider APR when choosing a school to attend. In light of this thread, you are not helping answer the original poster's question.
     
  17. Futbol0020

    Futbol0020 New Member

    Sep 6, 2006
    Chicago
    According to US News and World Report's 2007 "America's Best Colleges", you would not find West Virginia anywhere in the top 125 national universities.

    In fact, there are state schools from at least 35 other states that made the top 125.

    So I would agree that WVU is far below academic standards, unlike what you are trying to say with the APR.
     
  18. collegesoccer

    collegesoccer Member+

    Apr 11, 2005

    It does make sense to know the APR because a large part of the reason for low APR is transfers or players being ineligible. There might be reason for that and that is something that every student should know whether the school is great or not.
     
  19. Dsocc

    Dsocc Member

    Feb 13, 2002
    But it is a measure of how effectively the school educates, then confers, degrees upon its players, and in that regard WVU is better than the average public institution. And since the thread title is "Top soccer colleges in America" (and not "Top Academic Institutions That Sponsor Men's Soccer"), asdf2's original post listing WVU among College SoccerNews' Top 15 is entirely appropriate. You might try reading it. Then hold your breath that UCSB doesn't get clipped a scholarship for that 870 APR, since WVU won't have to worry about the possibility. Not enough distractions, I suppose.
     
  20. Dsocc

    Dsocc Member

    Feb 13, 2002
    Which has absolutely nothing to with either the thread, or asdf2's original post. How about you do a little reading?
     
  21. Gaucho95

    Gaucho95 Member

    Dec 13, 2004
    Oakland, Ca
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    Ummm... I never disputed the list nor West Virginia being on the list. In fact, I never mentioned West Virginia nor any other school in my post. Sheesh. I was merely pointing out that listing APR's was:

    1) Not a good measure of a school's academics
    2) It has little or nothing to do with what the original poster was asking

    As an aside, APR's don't work very well for equivalency sports because anyone who has even a partial athletic scholarship counts in the calculation (head count sports are much more straight-forward). Walk-ons don't count nor do athletes who are on academic scholarship. Sooo, if a school has figured out the system, I believe they can provide their more studious athletes with athletic scholarships and try to procure their less studious athletes with academic scholarships to manipulate the calculation. Yeah, I know it's ironic to find the less studious ones academic scholarships. I am guessing that some schools have figured this out a bit faster than others.
     
  22. Futbol0020

    Futbol0020 New Member

    Sep 6, 2006
    Chicago

    Considering the emphasis of any of these "soccer colleges" is to first educate and second provide competetive soccer opportunity, it has everything to do with it.

    What is his question?

    What school has the best soccer?

    What school that has soccer is the best college?

    Or what has the best combination of both?

    In every way academics has something to do with this, because a Lithuanian kid who wants to come play college soccer is more interested in earning an education through soccer than becoming a professional soccer player.

    I have not heard of many kids who come to the US from Europe to better their chances of playing professionally.

    Therefore, if he is looking at schools with above average soccer and academics, West Virginia drops to the lower 50 percent based on a long history of poor soccer and a currently below average academic rating.
     
  23. Dsocc

    Dsocc Member

    Feb 13, 2002
    Except that the academic money given to the less studious is most likely going to count against the 9.9 scholarship, since it's being awarded to athletes because they're athletes. The NCAA makes it pretty difficult to pull that off in equivalency sports. And giving athletic money to academic achievers, who can actually compete with other top students for academic money, ends up hitting the athletic program's budget when it doesn't have to.
     
  24. Dsocc

    Dsocc Member

    Feb 13, 2002
    His question was about the Top 25 soccer colleges, which, to even the most casual observer, involves the generally accepted Top 25 most competitive men's soccer programs. Not the US News Top 125 Universities. Not the schools with the toughest admissions standards. Not any other measure. Just the generally accepted Top 25 universities with the strongest soccer programs.

    Now, you can pick CollegeSoccerNews, or the NSCAA, or Soccer America, or soccerratings.com, but it's basically the same. There is no other standardization of this topic that I'm aware of.

    And given the proximity of WVU to western PA, and Pittsburgh, with an historically significant Lithuanian population, he might find it a tad smoother sailing than a number of other institutions you may suggest.
     

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