It is obvious that prospective college players should look for - 1. the proper academic fit 2. size and/or location of the school 3. style of play to see if it is a fit for the player's development and whether he/she would be valued 4. life style stuff like dorms, food service 5. academic support/ ease of registration and the like 6. financial stuff 7. "Feel" - kid just feels comfortable on campus, with kids, coach etc. Can some of you out there give advice on what else to look for when considering college programs? I'm thinking other important information might be - Facilities - some soccer teams share fields with spring sports, some programs are going to turf, some are just crappy. How do you figure this out before you spend money and time on an unofficial visit? Roster size - some colleges seem to carry 30 plus while others are down in the low 20s. Is there any advantage to a prospective player of a large roster? What about the makeup of the team? What if the school your player is looking at signs a huge class the year before your player would arrive? Winning record - does a losing record signal an insecure program/coach? Half the teams out there are in the bottom half of their league, right? Support of the women's soccer program from AD - how do you figure this out? Do soccer recruits ever meet the AD? Are there red flags out there that prospective college players should look for? Any other suggestions? I would appreciate any advice. Thanks.
I think a lot of this stuff is hard to evaluate. The thing, IMHO, to watch out for from a facilities perspective is that the existence of a football team on campus can greatly increase the amount of weight room facilities and stuff, but how available that is to the soccer team? I really think the best way to evaluate a program is to talk to someone in the program. Although you might not know any players personally, many coaches or DOC's have an extensive network. Particularly if they have been coaching awhile, they might say, "Oh, one of my prior teams used to play against so and so who attends the school in question, and while I don't know the player personally, I can contact her old club coach, who I do know, and scope out the situation and maybe get some contact info." Of course you always have to filter out recruiting bias on the info you receive, but that is true in any case. I am very leery of "feel" in this situation. I know one kid who blew off University for a State school where things "felt" better. Turned out that feeling was completely wrong. Kid would have been better served going with better school. Kid's feeling are often influenced by arbitrary things, such as recruiting coach's personality or how things went on visit, that may not even be there when kid gets there. Roster size doesn't make a big difference to me. Player #20 probably doesn't play a lot more than player #30. Losing record may threaten coach stability. However, a team with a losing record may be less picky or a strong player may be able to make more of a statement. In all of this, would you want to go to the school if there wasn't any soccer? If the answer is no, find a different school. The kid's coach previous team was very highly recruited. However, ultimately, more than half didn't complete their college soccer playing career, due to injuries or changing priorities or whatever.
Kind of related - but on the flip side of the situation - here are some articles that hint at what coaches look for in their new recruits (scroll down to see the C.O.A.C.H. articles): http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/comp...=com_topdrawer&Itemid=260&sid=22&pageNumber=0
Thanks for the link to the Top Drawer Coaches articles. Interesting information and is what I would expect. I agree that one of the players criteria for selecting a college should be academic fit, including offering a strong program in their chosen degree area. The bigger challenge, for every future college student is how to figure out what degree program to look for. Most large high schools counseling programs offer LIMITED help. Any suggestions for how to help your player identify their long term academic goals?
Hi Nellie. We've recently been through the process with our daughter. I'm not a soccer expert by any means (never played when I was younger), so read the following with that in mind: One thing specific I might add to your list is to get an idea of where the coaches see your child playing (forward, midfield, defense) and then take a look at how deep they are at those positions and ask how many other players they are recruiting for those positions (and where your child falls on their recruiting list). That might give your child an idea of how difficult it will be to get playing time and when that playing time might become available. Of course, you can't predict the future completely, but if your child is a defender, doesn't want to sit on the bench the first two years, but the existing squad already has eight strong juniors and seniors that are vying for the back line positions, that will tell you something I think. My signature has the website address of a site we started not too long ago to document our journey through the process. We're not trying to sell anything (although we've talked about writing a book one day!) - just trying to offer our perspective, hoping it will help other families. This page has a system where you can get a link to a list of questions to ask college coaches (which might indirectly help you with the advice you're looking for). To get the link, you're supposed to share the page on a social network. We did that just to try to get the word out about the site. But if you (or anyone else reading this) is not comfortable doing that, just send me a PM - I'd be happy to give you the link to the questions. I just don't want that link to be shared publicly. Hope you understand.
Hi Norcal Dad - My post from 2008 recently resurfaced and I was a little surprised to see it. (In fact I didn't even recall posting!) I absolutely agree with your suggested question and know we/my daughter asked it during the recruiting process. My daughter did most of her looking at the time I posted and committed fall 2008 as a 2010 graduate and has just completed her third year of college soccer. Given the recent discussions about Stanford decommits, I'd like to emphasis point 1 of my list. This is really up to the parents to be able to see what their kid's academic profile is and control their choices. Kids are just thrilled to be recruited by some of these prestigious universities for their soccer programs - but they have to be able to succeed academically. We controlled the purse strings on travel so we didn't pay for visits where we felt the academics were not appropriate (too hard or too easy) or where we felt the travel was too difficult (You can't get there from here situations). It was hard because I would have loved to have said my kid is going to Stanford, eg.; she had worked very hard on her soccer and that would have been an honor, BUT I knew she is not a kid who loved school and I didn't want her over her head. (I am using Stanford as an example here). Don't get me wrong - I'm not criticizing the parents or players that have been discussed in the 2013 commitment thread as I certainly don't know what happened. I'm just pointing out how difficult these situations can be and how hard it can be to struggle through these decisions even as the adult parent of a player. Nellie (Yes we still have power after Nemo!)