Hi All,
Quick update. My son has started reaching out to coaches and getting a decent amount of responses.
While he has been sending his highlight video, most have responded thanking him and saying the best way for them to evaluate him is to come to one of their ID camps in person. I know it's probably hard to evaluate a player purely on video...but on the flip side, it's also hard for us to assess how much of this is genuine interest vs. just "come to our camp" and we'll see. I recognize the importance of being seen live, but being on the west coast and time/cost restrictions, it's probably not feasible for us to travel to so many camps...especially ones in the northeast.
So, I'm curious if you all have any advice on how to handle this/manage this with coaches? Are there any questions he can ask (via email) that will help to better assess how much interest there truly is? Is it appropriate to ask if they will also be on the West Coast at any point (a few have asked for his tournament/showcase schedules)? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!
As a practical matter, you will need to attend some ID camps in the summer between Sophomore and Junior year, even if you aren't super serious about any of them yet, if for no other reason than to give your kid a sense of the New England or Mid-Atlantic schools (assuming you are targeting some of those), how remote they are, how long the trip is (including whether there are direct flights and the length of the drive after the flight even if its direct), and to see whether your kid feels comfortable with the New England prep school kids, especially from boarding schools (it's definitely a different vibe from the kids at a lot of the west coast schools, even academically elite private schools, and it's often far less diverse if your kid has grown up playing in club with Spanish-speaking players etc). As Viking said, it also gives you a little bit of a sense of the style of play, the fields etc. We almost never play on fields in Socal with thick long grass for instance. I do think you can go to a multi-school camp, but try to make it on one college's campus. So, for example, if you go to Peak Performance Academy's camps when they are hosted by Amherst, you'll usually get other D3 schools like Hamilton, Wesleyan, Conn College, Vassar, St. Lawrence, Bates etc. Not as good as smaller camps, but if you've primed all the coaches that you are coming and interested, it can be OK if your kid is also assertive about introducing himself etc.
My suggestion is that you have your kid respond to the coaches who sent the most personalized letters and that are at schools that meet some of your non-soccer criteria in terms of academic quality, strength in your preferred areas (e.g., STEM or Humanities), size of school, location etc and ask if they can arrange a phone call. If the coach responds and is willing, that tells your kid something about their level of interest. Not a huge amount, but it tells something. Your kid can explain that it is a big trip and cost and they want to be able to explain to their parents that the school is serious about their level of interest so they will green light the trip. From the conversation alone your son might learn something about the school and the coach and it will probably get the coach to watch the video again before the call. Then, I would pick a couple that make sense geographically and timing-wise. You can also tour 1-2 more even if they aren't having an ID camp that works with the others in the area and let the coach know you're coming. They want to know you're serious and that can help. This is all a multi-thousand dollar investment, but if you're serious about sending your son to school across-the-country, it's kind of penny-wise and pound-foolish to not do it if you can swing it.
In addition, I would sign up for the Elite Colleges Soccer Camps run by Rod Laufaurie of Occidental (held at the Glendale Sports Complex). Their July camp has Wash U, Carnegie Mellon, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, Cal Tech, and Occidental. They typically run winter and spring break camps too and they're probably the best one on the West Coast at bringing in D3 schools. I think Bowdoin and Swarthmore were there over the Winter. That will get your son seen by a few more places at a much lower travel cost.
Finally, I don't know what platform your kid is playing with (MLS Next, ECNL, EA etc), but make sure you are sending out game schedules whenever he plays, especially if he is traveling east. Locally, Surf Cup gets some D3 coaches and he might be able to guest play if his team isn't going. It's not what it used to be, but it's still on the circuit for many coaches.
