And therein lies the problem with GDA. USSF imposes many unnecessary and stupid requirements that do not serve the interests of the consumers, so many top players follow your advice and play in other leagues such as ECNL. Rather than take steps to improve the platform, USSF and the GDA mafia delude themselves into believing "the kids love it" and that GDA is a smashing success, while the brutal reality is 12 or so clubs quit GDA after a single season (including some of the best in the nation) and they're shaping up to lose another 10 or so this season. By my count that's about 720 girls (12 clubs x 20 kids x 3 age levels) who didn't love it last year, and probably 600 more by the end of this season.
GDA will never be a successful platform nationally so long as it imposes requirements like requiring that kids miss at least 3 days of school before finals, another 3 to potentially play in the snow in the spring, and more flying to play league games. As long as it bars kids from playing HS soccer (or any other HS sport as a practical matter). So long as kids are required to practice four times a week only to sit entire games on the bench and then get chump time minutes against the likes of Albion and Pateadores. As long as it continues to burn kids out by forcing them to train 4x a week, every week. Etc. GDA will always lose most of the qualified players who have other decent options, because decent options are better than what GDA has to offer. USSF just isn't selling what most paying customers want, and it is doomed to fail unless it figures that out soon.
I am also sure that missing three days of school right before finals is no big deal when your kid does not attend a rigorous HS and is committed to a college that isn't an elite academic institution. Seriously, how hard is it to have a 4.8 gpa at a school where only 10% of the students test advanced at math and 35% test either below or far below basic? But smart people with high expectations understand it's stupid to risk or sacrifice even the least amount of academic achievement to play in FL right before finals when USSF easily could have scheduled it at a better time. For many, it's just one of many unnecessary headaches of playing in GDA regardless how much the GDA mafia claims their platform is perfect and should never be questioned.
In the end, there is one and only one good thing about GDA, which is that it provides access for some kids who, for whatever reason, don't have access to other clubs and platforms that already have similar access. For them, I'm sure they love it and they should because it is an improvement on their otherwise long odds of "getting found" by a college they actually want to attend. But you're blind if you can't see that USSF's rules are likely to make even this a fleeting benefit as more elite clubs and players leave for better options, giving colleges less incentive to fly across the country to watch mostly lesser players and teams.
