How to get scouted to play college soccer?
The numbers don’t lie: there are approximately 850,000 high school aged soccer players in the United States. This breaks down to roughly 106,000 per age group per gender.
At the same time, there are approximately 88,000 roster spots for college soccer across DI to DIII as well as NAIA and JuCo. That’s roughly 11,000 per age group per gender. Depending on international players and other extenuating circumstances (including new roster rules that should be bringing some programs roster numbers down), that means that somewhere between 7-10% of high school aged players will go on to play college soccer.
So how do you get scouted to be one of those 7-10%? For the most part, it will take more than, ‘play well and they will come.’
Do You Get Noticed At College Showcases?
Yes, you can get ID’d at a college showcase. But here’s the truth of the situation:
If you’ve been to a couple of college showcases, then you probably noticed a few games that have 100+ people watching while many other games are just the standard parents on the sidelines. The games that are packed are the ones that all the college coaches are watching, and it’s usually because they have identified a player or two that they want to watch.
It’s usually the same few players that each coach is going after. If you are one of those players, offers will come to you (and it is just ‘play well and they will come’). If you are on a team with a couple players getting heavily recruited, you will get more looks if you play well in front of the coaches in attendance.
It is massively frustrating if you are not in those situations. Often, there isn’t much of a talent gap – it’s more of a visibility gap. So, for everyone else, you have to do a lot more legwork before the college showcases so you can get the visibility with the coaches of programs you want to target.
How to Get Visibility With College Soccer Coaches Before a College Showcase
You have to get in front of coaches well before the showcase to get on their radar – the sooner you start, the better…which means start reaching out to coaches during your freshman year (they won’t be able to reach out to you until after June 15th the summer before your Junior year, but you can reach out to them).
If you are not a freshman anymore, don’t sweat it – there’s no time like the present to get going.
We have both self-paced and guided college soccer pathway programs to help you get to your dream school, but the gist is as follows:
Then, start reaching out to the coaches on your short list. Send them an email introducing yourself (your name, your club, your position, your graduating class, your GPA) and share your highlight reel. Every couple months, send them a follow up email giving them an update on how your season is going and add what showcases you’ll be playing in over the coming months. When you have your schedule, follow up again and share it with them.
When it comes to college ID camps, it’s impossible to go to a few dozen. Once coaches can reach back out, see which ones do and consider whether you want to meet them in person at an ID camp. When it comes to ID Camps, we’d also recommend trimming it down to 3 programs: your dream school, a realistic school, and a safety school. Keep up with the outreach to all the programs on your shortlist, but try to get to ID camps for those three and build a stronger relationship with the coaching staff.
If you are looking for help navigating this process, we’re here for you. Check out our college soccer pathwayand reach out with any questions.
