After Freshman year start complying video footage of club and high school games. Play for a club team that has coaches with college contacts, make sure her club team is playing in known college showcases, have her make a list of schools where she would want to go to regardless of playing soccer, go to ID Camps...especially to the schools on her list, have her email the Coaches, have her Club Coach follow up for you.
My freshman DD will soon attend her first ID camp at a college she would love to attend (and love even more to play soccer for). What should she expect? Do these camps genuinely make an attempt to evaluate the girls and give feedback that will be useful in targeting their efforts to get recruited?
Unfortunately College ID Camps don't really give out evaluations on individual players; however you can get a more one on one eval at a Combine ID Camp, where there are more colleges represented evaluating talent. Expect that every girl showing up will be just as nervous as her. Tell her to go hard on everything and leave it all on the field. Her first camp will either open her eyes as to what she needs to do to get noticed for the next camp or she will be in awe of all the talented players out there. Regardless, this is her first camp and it will be exciting to watch her compete against girls her age and older. Colleges are always looking for recruits and it seems they are looking at younger talent every year. Just getting her name out there is the first step...good luck.
If it is a large camp with much more than 50 players in attendance, it is primarily a money making camp for the college team. It is still possible to get noticed, but she will need to really stand out. To get any feedback, she will need to talk to the coaching staff and ask for feedback. These camps are still valuable experiences for young players that do not get noticed since it allows them to play with and against older, more experienced players. If it is an invite only camp with a smaller number of players, it is easier to stand out and get some feedback from the coaching staff. Good luck to her!
While I agree, when does it become worth the ether the verbals commitment is spoken into? In other words, when is a reasonable time for players to commit and is there anyway to ensure that happens?
When did your daughter commit, I know you have said before.
HS sophomore, I attribute her early committment to making the Region IV ODP team for 2 years. It is another form of IDing players at a young age. Eliminate IDing players at a young age and it will curb the early college committments. I bet Rutgers wouldn't have verbally offered an 8th grader, if she wasn't on the U16 YNT.
Topdrawersoccer who ranks recruits is another form of early IDing. This is based on the 2019 HS grad class.
You and your daughter are happy with the outcome, so far?
It will be interesting to see how TDS tracks teams and players with the advent of GDA. TDS has typically been almost exclusively focused on ECNL. Lots of changes coming, for better or worse.
