American Select Tryouts - What to expect?
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Anonymous
Also making the team in no way guarantees you will even make Orange. They like to take from a variety of clubs. Take it for what it is and don’t read too much into it. |
Anonymous
This is 100% true. Especially for the 27 and 28 teams. College coaches are not looking at them and when they start the recruiting process coaches will not care if they made AS or UA when they were rising 9th graders. College coaches care about how you play going into the fall of your 10th grade year and beyond. They care A LOT about your grades and how well you perform on and off the field. |
Anonymous
Why not have her play for a more competitive club then? Playing with/against top competition year round seems to be a better use of your money than 1 random weekend. |
Anonymous
Good points here and they track with our experience having been to AS. We went because it was a good way for our daughter to be seen one final time during her recruiting year. There were a lot of coaches on the sidelines of her games. We’ve heard since that top coaches don’t start looking seriously at players until midway thru the summer before junior year because they are busy competing in the NCAA tourney and want a some time afterward to unwind. These coaches finalize their lists in August. They were at AS scouting and we found it was good to get our daughter a last round of exposure. |
Anonymous
Anyone who signs up for AS thinking it’s a guaranteed spot on Capital is wrong. However, the 2026 team last year was comprised of 22 girls who were selected in the spring and at least 16 of them went on to make Capital in the summer. Anyone who says that AS doesn’t attract/select top talent is wrong about that. Making AS doesn’t guarantee a girl a spot on Capital but the teams are often comprised of very talented players who go on to play for highly selective high school clubs like Capital. |
Anonymous
+1. And yes, we already play for a top club. |
Anonymous
As one of the other posters said, my daughter already plays for one of the top programs as well. There are only two in the DMV for 27’s. |
Anonymous
| Ha. This guy. What a clown |
Anonymous
+1 on this. Play for a better club and play with better players and competition all year. We get it, your DD plays for Pride or Stars. Still not top clubs |
Anonymous
If you already play for a top club, then you are really throwing your money away. This 27 or 28 team will not be better than a top club. And if you are playing for a top club you will have just finished a summer season of playing against top competition. What advantage are you gaining by paying top dollar for playing another weekend with kids who arent any better than your travel team? |
Anonymous
We did it because our DD wanted to do it. It also gave her another experience playing against great talent in the DMV. She had fun doing it. |
Anonymous
+1 Why do other people care so much why girls are doing this? Maybe they just want to meet girls outside their normal team. Maybe they want to represent their region. Maybe they wanted an extra opportunity to play this summer. Just because you don’t see value in it doesn’t mean that others don’t. |
Anonymous
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Individual families will do this event for their own reasons, which is the way it should be. One thing is clear though, those running this event will generate in the neighborhood of $2M for ONE weekend when you consider registration and tryout fees. Add to this apparel fees and revenue from this one event alone is $2M+.
This is a revenue generating business above anything else. Those running the event will partner with the regional clubs who can attract the largest tryout numbers. Why would a club participate - they are probably paid a kickback for each player that attends tryouts. This could be a sizable amount of money for a local club just to work a weekend tryout. And who knows if the local club gets a cut of the actual registration fee. Each local club running tryouts and selecting teams is connected to helping generate $100K for the event organizers. What percent of this is paid to the local club? When you generate $2M for an event you can probably afford to bring in some college coaches to fill the sidelines. This above all else is why parents will pay what could amount to $625 in tryout and registration fees. The guess work is will these coaches be the ones from the schools your daughter really has on her short list of schools. Remember your DD should pick a school based on her academics and where she would be happy as a student first. Not count on a random chance some school will offer her. This is why attending camps if the schools your daughter really Wanda to attend makes a lot of sense. Again, everyone has their own reasons for doing AS. But the bottom line is it’s a big money maker with not a lot of ROI for many players. |
Anonymous
| I would add to the above ROI can be in the form of just having fun. Absolutely there can be a good return here. Probably on the recruiting side not so much for many players. |
Anonymous
When you go through the recruiting process, there are a limited number of weeks and you need to prioritize the events you do and often there are conflicts you have to address. There weren’t any conflicting camps during the same weekend when we did AS during our DD’s recruiting season. Which makes sense because all of the top coaches were at the AS event. Individual camps are important to do - but do them well before AS if your kid hopes to generate interest on Sept 1. As other have said, AS is the last event before the dead period. Our daughter received great exposure at this event. Multiple schools from her wish list were on the sideline. Had we not previously done the individual camps, AS likely wouldn't have made much a difference. View AS as a final opportunity to showcase her talents after your DD has done the requisite work to get in front of schools where they want to be seen. We have learned since that AS was more of a validating exercise for coaches who wanted to get a last look at her. We are glad we did it, as our DD received significant interest on Sept 1. The same money argument can be made for any of the tournaments the players participate in each summer. Event organizers are running businesses, after all. But the financials the PP cites don’t take into account what must be significant fees required to put on such an event. Field costs, refs, coaches, insurance, etc. The suggestion organizers clear $2M is rather disingenuous. It was a great experience for us and worth the money given that it was the last chance for our DD to leave those coaches with a final impression before Sept 1. |