Does anyone have any experience with winter college ID camps? Typically these are one or two day camps. My question is outside of the kid who is on the U14 national team is there any benefit to freshmen and sophomores attending? Or do they just separate the junior and senior kids into a group and then the freshmen/sophomores into a group with little to no attention paid to the younger kids? Everyone says to start early and get to know the coaches and such but do they even pay any attention to the younger kids at these camps? I had a coach at one D1 program tell me they don't even try to look at kids until they are juniors but then he said come to our camp. Granted it was a small D1 and I get that coaches have to worry about the immediate need I just don't want to waste time and money if there is no benefit. I don't expect a lot of interest in a freshman or sophomore obviously but it would be nice to think they at least get something out of it.
I am with you. I am looking for the best options for my money/time. My daughter did the TDS combine as a freshman. We had a conflict for her sophomore year and she did it this year as a Jr. They don't discriminate or separate by age. They really highlight whomever are the best players in their Best XI. She wasn't highlighted as a freshman but was this year. As a freshman it was inexpensive, one day and gave her the experience. She had fun. It was nice to see her playing with a smile instead of so serious like she is most of the time. She didn't do any others until this summer as a rising Jr. I didn't see the point in it unless there were coaches from schools she was seriously interested in. Many don't have a large variety of schools. The residential camp she attended had two coaches from schools she was interested in. It was well worth it and run much like the ODP camp which she liked. I have heard good things about the future 500 camp in philly. It's not cheap but had many different school s represented. She may attend that in June if she hasn't decided on a school.
By junior year the kids are behind at the D1 level. They are looking to recruit girls who are freshman and sophomores. Some will tell you camps are a waste. Some that they are great. My daughter went to a bunch of camps. Almost all were good experiences where she learned quite a bit from different coaches. All of them reinforced her desire to play at the D1 level. Two resulted in offers- she stuck out in ways that impressed the head coaches. Even the ones that did not result in offers were not a waste of time or money with maybe one exception. In that one my daughter was a sophomore and was relegated to the "rec" group before she even got there based upon her club. Unfortunately her club was due to her being moved around as a military brat and not even getting a look at a new location by the "premier" club. Ironically she got an offer from a better program. In the other cases the better camps gave her feedback on what to improve; sometimes this was just something that was not "her". For example one program was looking for backs who were fast. That is not her. She is strong, has endurance, great footskills, can see the field and help carry the attack forward, but while not slow she does not burn up the track. Still, she understood this was a weakness and started to work on it.