I noticed a lot of questions about how to get recruited for college soccer, or transfer to a different division and there is a lot of good advice on this sub. Thought I would take some of that and make a rough guideline on the whole process and how to get started:

1.     Rate Yourself. You need to provide an honest assessment of yourself as a player. This one is a hard one, but be realistic with yourself. Not everyone will be able to play at the next level, so do you have the talent, skills, work ethic, size needed to play at the next level, if so what level? Some ways to help determine this could be the following:

• Teams you have played against
  • How is your game when you play teams that are better than yours, evenly matched, or worse?
• Other players
  • Have you played with or against players who have committed or are now playing in the college ranks?
  • How does your game and skills stack up against them.
• Coaches
  • Have your (HS or club) coaches had players play collegiately, can they provide an honest assessment if you have what it takes and if so what level – D1, D2, D3, NAIA?
• Other
  • If possible watch games at these various levels as well and assess yourself

2.     Profiles. Get your profiles, social media, video in order and keep them updated and refresh them. When posting videos, make sure you can be clearly identified at all times – there are 22 people on the field, make sure your videos highlight you. Also you might want to start up a separate email address account, so you can better keep track of any communications you may have with coaches/programs.

3.     Research. Remember that honest assessment of yourself? Utilize it here to research college soccer programs.

• Are your skills something that last year’s NCAA Champs would be looking for or even someone a top 25 team would be interested in?
• Look at conferences, look at results, look at rosters even.
  • Does the team have a sophomore goalie, who is producing shutouts – well they might not be looking for a new goalie
  • Or if they are a young team with a lot of freshman and sophomores defenders playing key minutes - They might not be need another incoming defender.

Remember that there are multiple levels of playing college soccer – D1, D2, D3 and NAIA, and even Junior College. And within those levels, are a whole range of programs from perennial powerhouses, to power conference teams to mid-majors to bottom of table programs. All are fine and require players at with a wide range of skills and talent.  Research where you might be a good fit, talent wise and opportunity to play. Remember you also need to find a good fit educationally as well, so do not discount that. Make sure the school has an academic program you are interested in.

4.     NCAA Eligibility. If you are serious about getting recruited, you will have to register for eligibility with the NCAA, you will have to pay $100 if you want to be at a D1 or D2 school. D3 and NAIA are different, learn more at the website - https://web3.ncaa.org/ecwr3/. During the communication with coaches step, some of them ask for your NCAA Eligibility Number.

5.     June 15 – Start of Official Recruiting for Coaches. Official recruiting for coaches starts on June 15 between the player’s sophomore and junior year at high school. That is officially when coaches can start communicating with players via email, phone, etc.. Note that this doesn’t mean coaches only start recruiting at this time, they have already been scouting and keeping an eye on players, so that is why it is important to have your accounts, profiles and social media updated ahead of time

6.     Recruiting Forms on College Athletic Websites. Almost all college athletic programs have a website where you can fill out a recruiting form. You can do this before that June 15^(th) date. Just note that some will ask for test scores as well, so have it ready. If there are programs you are interested in and that might be good fits (remember that honest self-assessment?) fill out the recruiting forms. Most of the time you will get back an immediate auto email thanking you. Keep track of what schools you filled out forms for, and when file them in your email inbox and find/create a system to track this stuff.

7.     Organize. Hopefully you have an email dedicated to the recruiting process, use that to set up folders for schools you are interested in to store any emails you get. Be sure to watch your junk and spam folder, sometimes legitimate recruiting emails get caught in there.

8.     Track. Make a spreadsheet to track the recruiting process. It can help to keep track of all of the following:

• What schools are you interested in?
• What schools are interested in you?
• What schools did you fill out a recruiting form with and when?
• What coaches have emailed or called you and when?
  • What did you discuss with that coach are there any next steps (request for unofficial visit, or official visit)?
• What coaches, were at showcases and tournaments that you attended or played at?

Basically, there is a lot of information that you want to be able to access and check on quickly, so when you get a call from coach, you can quickly remember what was discussed last time, and did he want you playing as a Forward, or a Left Winger etc.

Don’t know where to get started? To help, I created college sports recruiting spreadsheets for D1 Men's College Soccer and D1 Women's College Soccer with all the active programs listed. These are available through my Etsy store - https://www.etsy.com/shop/CollegeSportSheets . If D2 or D3 sheets are requested give me a heads up and I could look into getting one set up.

9.     Follow-up Emails. You will not hear from every program or coach you try to contact. But it can’t hurt to follow-up at least once to see if there is any interest. Good rule to follow is to keep it simple - who you are (what school you go to or club you play for), your position or positions and some stats, what your goal is or was (if you achieved it this season), links to your profile or videos page and make your ask - something like "I'd like to learn more about your soccer program and see if I might be a good fit" or "Can we schedule a call" or "Can you share what positions and roles you are recruiting for?" “Will you be at any local showcases or holding any yourself?” Also mention that you filled out the recruiting form on their website.

• Remember sometimes no response, is the response. It is ok to follow-up but be reasonable and don’t over do it. You won't hear back from everyone. Additionally, coaches can be very hot and cold in following up so don't take it personally if you start having conversations, and the all of a sudden the coach stops and you don’t hear from them.
• When doing cold emails, if possible send to and CC (carbon copy) all the coaches on the team that you can. You might not know which coach is in charge of recruiting or recruits in your region. If a conversation starts, the coaches will let you know who your point of contact should be.

10.  Social Media. You can also follow the programs you are interested in on any of the social media channels to get a feel for the program as well. Also monitor what programs are following you. If you see a new program following you, it could be a good sign to do some research on the program, fill out a recruiting form and send over an email to see if you can get a conversation started. (Also make sure your sanitize your social media accounts, make sure its something that your grandmother or elderly relative would be ok reading and watching.)

Anyone else have anything to add? I would be really interested to hear how the transfer portal has changed this because now programs can be actively recruiting not only incoming freshman, but everyone else in the portal. Curious if you see some programs now only recruiting through the portal.

My background, and why I created this list: I am a girl's grassroots club soccer coach (so I enjoy the sport), and I have a daughter who just went through the college sports recruiting process and landed at a mid-major D1 program for swimming. Going through that process was quite interesting and we learned a lot. During the college athletic recruiting process, I did create a special spreadsheet to track all the schools she was talking to, and thought other athletes in the recruiting process could benefit from this as well, so I adapted it to other sports like Track & Field, Cross Country and now Soccer (had someone reach out specifically asking for a Soccer specific sheet). The spreadsheets helped us to keep track of who she was talking to, what they discussed on their calls, and in general just kept everything organized for us, and thought they could help others - https://www.etsy.com/shop/CollegeSportSheets .

Good luck and I hope this list helps!

(mods let me know if I need to remove the links, I didn't see anything in the rules but more than happy to remove if requested).

Hey there, I am gonna be starting my first season of college soccer at a good D2 school this upcoming fall. I was wondering what should I be expecting in terms of competition and what pointers should I focus on while I’m there.

My goal is to go to a mid or high d1 eventually. Should I be trying to make connections rather than rely on the transfer portal. I was an extremely late commit for my class (2023) because of last second decisions for my career.

I'm looking at my local JUCO for the first two years of my college soccer career, mostly due to financial reasons. I just had a couple concerns that hopefully some current/ex JUCO players could answer

1. Most importantly, how serious would your coach and teammates take it? In NCAA, even D3 teams practice almost every day in season and in the offseason have various lifts and/or a spring season of friendlies. I once heard a negative comment that JUCO soccer just feels like High School soccer if it was extended, not in terms of level but in terms of the "seriousness".
2. Scholarships? I know JUCOs can legally give scholarships, but from your experience did you actually see this happen and if so what were the amounts like?
3. What's the program funding like? Did you get fully funded overnight away trips, meal allowances, cool free gear, etc.? This isn't a deciding factor for me just curious because some of the perks NAIA/NCAA players get are crazy.

Appreciate any answers!

Im a freshman and currently play college soccer for a D3 school. I had a very successful first season, but I have been experiencing severe burnout and need some advice.

Initially, I didn’t even want to play college soccer, but me wanting to quit was causing problems in relationships in my life, so I just stuck it out. I ended up committing and had a really good first season. I was actually having some fun again playing, which I hadn’t had in a while. Though I could feel myself burning out a little bit still. During the winter in the offseason, we were doing lifts and futsal, and I was doing okay with that. I really like lifting and since my coach wasn’t around for futsal, I didn’t mind it. Now that we’re in spring season, though, I’m having serious second thoughts. We are constantly doing early morning training and lifting 6-7 times a week. We were supposed to stop training after our game next weekend, as it’s the only game we’re allowed. So, in my mind, I was prepared for one more week of hard work and then have a rest period for the rest of the term where we were only lifting 3 times a week. However, apparently NCAA increased the amount of days teams were allowed to train, and since our lifts don’t technically constitute as official trainings, our coach has us scheduled doing something 6-7 up until the end of May. Some of the girls on my team mentioned they may talk to him, because it is unrealistic to have us all working 6-7 days a week, when we go to a highly academic school, and honestly just in general. We need breaks. I’m not sure if I can mentally handle this.

The reason I chose a D3 school was so that I could have a good balance between soccer, school, and social life. The only thing I feel when playing now is anxiety, anger, and sadness. My coach isn’t understanding when it comes to mental health, and has referred to those who quit as “mentally fragile.” I really don’t want to quit because I’ve made so many amazing connections and soccer has been such a big part of my identity, I feel like I won’t have much of a purpose without it. There are still aspects I enjoy, but I also want to be able to live my life. I don’t want everything to revolve around soccer all the time. I’m also worried about the problems this may cause me within other relationships in my life.

I’m fully aware that maybe I shouldn’t have committed to play college soccer when I was experiencing some burnout to begin with, but it didn’t feel like I had much of an option. I also think that my coach being very dismissive and malignant does not help the case. He has an incredibly large ego and gets very upset when people question him, quit, bring up concerns, etc.

If anyone has any advice on how to navigate this I would greatly, greatly appreciate it.

Considering ID one day camps for our freshman son so he can decide for himself whether or not to pursue more of them the next few years. Deciding between Ryzer and Exact 1 day that are on the same date. Any personal experience with either? He is sure what schools he's interested in, but at least one top choice will be attending both. I think someone in here said to avoid Exact, but they also have a list of committed coaches coming to 3 of his top choice schools...feedback and wisdom welcome!

Theoretically if you were to enter the portal as a D2 Redshirt Freshman after playing decent in the spring, it is a risky move to hit the portal in hopes of maintaining the D2 level to attend a better academic school?

Does anyone believe that it is truly worth the money to go to a college id camp? I have already played one year in college and to put it short we played like ass because nobody could get along so I never really got to showcase my skills/abilities on that team. From anyone's experience is it worth between 100-200$ to go to a college id camp to get recruited to a different school? Or should I just start sending out emails again to the schools that I am interested in? I just feeling like I am running out of time to transfer and I need to get away from this toxic environment at my current school

Context: I'm a Junior currently in high school, and haven't played academy soccer for the past 5ish years, but have kept up training and currently play high school. My former club coach is the u19 ECRL coach and I was looking to get on that team next year. I am NOT trying to play d1 or try to go the professional route, I just want to play d3 schools that are academically focused namely Emory, MIT, John Hopkins, ETC.

Would it be too late to get highlights during senior year and reach out to colleges? I know college recruitment starts early but I haven't played club in a while due to focusing on academics.

I was on the soccer and track team in high school before I committed to college for track & field to high jump. The school I chose and am currently at is Division 1 for all athletics. However, due to an injury, I have been asked to quit the track team at my college. Looking forward, I really want to play Division 1 soccer somewhere as I have always loved soccer the most.

I was multiple time All-Conference in high school and was always state ranked in saves. I am about 6'3" and believe I have the athleticism. Is it possible for me to start playing soccer again at the D1 level? And if so, what do the steps look like from here on out?

Edit: I play goalkeeper.

Hi all I'm looking to join a college soccer team I'm from the United Kingdom does anyone know any coaches I could get in contact with Many Thanks

hey everyone!

is it possible to live at home as a d1 athlete if I am local?

Thanks!

I’m looking to play college soccer in the near future as I approach university. But, I’ve noticed that many kids transfer a lot, some of them changing schools like 2-3 times in their 4 years of college. I have heard from a friend(a girl) who attends U San Diego, say that like more than half of their freshman roster is transferring… Why does this happen so often? Is it perhaps because coaches are cutting them or they don’t have them in their plans for the next seasons?

Hi all, I know this forum is full of struggling athletes looking to find college programs, if interested I can give me experience on my journey with a college recruiter.

Hi my name is Angel I’m 20yo goalie exactly 5’10 and I got a pretty interesting story, I never had the chance to play HS soccer due to my family being circus performers and traveling all over the states so I never had the chance to stay and develope, I had the opportunity to practice with ex pros and multiple academy’s for a day or two around the country. since I remember I’ve been playing goalie and enjoy it a lot and recently ive tried academys but either they aren’t looking for goalies or they are way to expensive and unfortunately money isn’t my fort right now and only option I’m getting suggested which I’m happy to take to have a better chance in going pro is College/university soccer. I honestly don’t know what I need to do or how to try out for them, I got my HS equivalente and ready to take the step to go where I have a chance in playing. Before I focus in a career I want to try to go into pro but I just don’t know how start where to go I’ve looked everywhere and sent emails but no one answers

With summer break just around the corner, I thought I'd write a blog about how college soccer players can make the most of their summer -

The Off-season can be a complex and confusing time for college soccer players. Two items stay constant in your mind all summer: Your Soccer off-season workout plan and the dreaded day one soccer fitness test. Summer break should be the least stressful time of year for student-athletes, as it is the only prolonged break from athletics and academics. Follow this guide to make the most of the off-season...https://collegesoccerinsight.com/2024/03/03/optimize-soccer-off-season-workout-plan-expert-tips/

Hello everyone I am a 17 year old in year 12 (Junior) in the UK. I would really love to get the opportunity to play college soccer. I currently play for a EFL league 2 shadow team/2nd U18 team. Academically I am quite a strong student. But I feel like due to me leaving my recruitment to this late and pretty average performances this season I would be at a disadvantage as to which colleges may give me offers as well as the fact I am an international student. I also wouldn’t really mind walking on for a school.

Just wondering if anyone could be of any help with what my steps should be right now.

Any help would be appreciated. Our son didn’t play last season. He was injured for a bit, but I’m not certain that was all of it. He is a freshman and I think this is about just getting where he needs to be. How does he get a redshirt? Is it automatic, does he have to go to compliance? Coach isn’t the most communicative, and kinda a dick, so I am just trying to understand the rules and protocol. Thank you in advance.

Hello guys, I consume cannabis almost 3x a week and I'm committed to a njcaa d2 program for fall of 2024, I was wondering if anyone knows if they do test for cannabis in JUCO soccer so I can stop now and start detoxing to be safe when tested.

NRG Stadium, AT&T satadium, metlife and more.
Ticketmaster and seatgeek

https://copaamerica.com/en/tickets/

Hi everyone. Hope you are doing well. I am Nemanja from serbia and I would really appreciate if ther is someone who playes d1 college soccer(internatinal would be better since i am not from us) or someone who can reach me out to them. Thanks

Hey guys,

I played one season at a university, then transferred to juco & redshirted for a season. now this next season I dont know if I want to play. How does this affect my eligibility? Does my clock still run even if I stop playing? I want to take another year but I dont know if this will use one year of my eligibility. I want another year to focus on my academics and get everything in order but not play soccer.

Why doesn’t Ohio State WSoc have a keeper coach? It’s surprising in the Big Ten. Looking at last year’s performance, it is really hurting them. I’m afraid some programs just aren’t serious about the position.

Hello everyone, recently I have been looking into moving from division 3 soccer to division 1 competition. One problem I face now is getting into contact with the programs I am most interested in. I have now emailed almost 15-20 different teams since the beginning of February (about one month ago) and still have gotten no responses. For each coach I email, I fill out the recruitment questionnaire which is found at most teams’ website. I want to transfer from my school but I am not in the transfer portal yet because if I leave the team I play for now I am worried that I won’t be recruited to a new college program. Can anyone give me advice as which steps I should be taking moving forward? Thanks!

I found a recruiting website on Whop, just for D3 soccer. Pretty much the same amount of data as other sites worth $100.

https://whop.com/d3-soccer-recruiting/