Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The best players are picking the best academic schools which is why Stanford, Duke etc do so well. The best players are not picking Alabama.
Anyhow, your kid should short list the schools they WANT to attend based on either a focus on some particular academic subject or wide array of solid educational options in a wide variety of fields. They should also pick based on affordability as most soccer scholarships wont cover the whole deal. Then, IF they are offered something at one or more of those shorts listed schools, eliminate those that aren't, then pick the school. D1 or a lower division, whatever makes sense for them. They will most likely not be doing anything with soccer after college, so which team they end up playing on is less of a concern than which school they pick.
This is not good advice. It sounds like it should be -- but it is absolutely not realistic.
If you are looking at playing soccer you need to focus on where you can actually do that successfully. If and only if you are confident that the school, team and coach are a decent fit (and mind you, that often does not turn out) then you look at whether the school works for you personally and academically. Playing a sport takes up way, way, way too much time to not focus on that as the first deciding factor. A kid who is not getting off the bench, or not making the travel squad, or not getting along with teammates is going to be really unhappy. If a kid is really unhappy lots of bad things happen - only one of which would be grades not being good. I would hazard a guess that a kid who is struggling with team stuff is also going to be struggling with school. It is really impossible to turn those switches off and on.y
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