There are many boys recruiting tips in the sticky'd thread "Recruiting Tips for Parents Just Starting the Process" but you would have to read through pages and pages of stuff.
This forum is predominately girls soccer oriented these days. It wasn't always that way but its just the current subscriber base is.
Much of the write up for the girls side is applicable to the boys side except for some of the following:
- girls get recruited few years earlier because their puberty is earlier
- girls tend to be more emotionally mature than boys so coaches can rely on the players personality earlier
- scholarship count is different due to title 9 so mens program runs less in numbers across the board
- mens vs women's game is quite different so the coaches look for different attributes
- official visit for girls usually occurs after verbal commitment; whereas, for boys its a part of the recruiting process
- value of DA for boys is order of magnitude more important than for girls
As for the highlight video, we did one between 9th and 10th grade since our son started contacting coaches in the summer before 10th grade. We were not expecting any real interest; rather, we wanted to get onto their radar and have name familiarity. We focused on half dozen schools that we would be happy with, without any sports. It was a mix of D1~3 schools. We then made a second highlight video between 10th and 11th grade.
A side note on the game footage. Coaches prefer birds eye view rather than sideline view so that they can see player movement with and without the ball as well as spacing. Since some of the coaches are unable to attend games, we had two coaches ask for entire game footage. If you ever get one of those request, make sure to provide when your kid is on the field using time stamp as a guide (e.g., started, out at 25.45, re-enters at 48.21, scores at xx.xx, yy.yy and so on).
The email title always included HS graduation year and the purpose of the note. It would read something like
"Class 2024 club/team name - Surf Cup Games on 7/27~28"
And the content included short intro about the player, why you like this particular school and the player position with jersey number. After that, the game schedule, not just a link because the link requires the coach to do additional action. Also provide link. Keep in mind that almost all coaches will read and look at the email and any link on their smartphone, and not on desktop. In other words, make sure its easy to read on a portable device.
The email also is better if you have a highlight video link to include (or profile page with video e.g., College Fit Finder).
The last, make sure that there is a small picture (ID image like) of the player at the signature line, along with contacts info so that the coach knows what he looks like.
We did not do any particular school's ID camp until btwn 10th and 11th grade and felt that we should have started bit earlier. Many schools run winter and spring ID camps where the coach to player ration is much more in players favor. We should have sent our kid to those during his 10th grade year.
As for aggregated ID camps like Exact Soccer, where they have 30-50 schools, only do those once to get a feel for what an ID camp is like. We did one in winter of 10th grade and found it very informative. That said, its not a camp to get recruited from. At best, you might establish a relationship with a coach to follow up for games and get invited to their own ID camp. Our son attended 6 different school's ID camps with two of those schools (both on east coast) inviting him back for more of their ID camps to better assess his abilities and how he fits with their teams. He was recruited by both of these schools directly from ID camps and both coaches asked for full game videos along the way.
We felt it was important to stay in touch with coaches that showed any real interest. By that, we made sure they know how the season progressed, any personal accomplishments, tournaments schedule and grade updates. We targeted high-end academic schools and didn't care if it was D1, 2 or 3. No athletic scholarship for D3, btw.
It wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention DA vs Flight 1 vs Premier vs ECNL Boys. Since DA is how USSF ID national team player pool (there are exceptions but rare), and logistically, college coaches can goto the showcase/playoffs and see top talent, it provides exposure like no other (we typically had 40-50 coaches for showcase/playoff games). Between the clubs and USSF, they are looking at players that's been filtered to the top 1%. And there are more graduating seniors in DA system than there are open slots in all of college recruiting. Its not to say that a player won't be recruited unless he plays DA, but its a lot more work. As for the rest of the league, there's a lot of hype but in the terms of college exposure, they all are about the same.
Well, this post is well beyond reasonable length....good luck.
