Reply to What's the benefit of Metro volleyball travel team?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=FPYCparent]My HS kid just finished a season on a top team at Paramount.  This was her first season with the club.  Hopefully, I can offer something objective.  :)
Unless you are willing to move somewhere else in the country (where youth volleyball is stronger across multiple clubs and high schools in the same region) ... and your kid wants to play high-level volleyball in college, she would be best served by playing Metro Travel or Paramount.  It's not impossible to get that level of exposure at another CHRVA club, but ... for now, it's almost built into the experience at those two clubs.[/quote]

There is a lot of confirmation bias that happens with these types of discussions, so I don't think its straightforward that if "your kid wants to play high-level volleyball in college, she would be best served by playing Metro Travel or Paramount." A few details:

1) Of 35 D1 commits (Prepdig) last year, more than half come from Metro Travel and Paramount clubs. They do have the highest concentration of D1 recruits on their U17 & U18 teams.  But there are other clubs that have D1 players and at least this year a not insignificant number of those are committed to college programs that are equal to or above the average schools that Metro Travel or Paramount players play for, either competitively or academically.

2) Both clubs add players to U17/U18 teams who are already well recruited at U16 at a different clubs. There are 3-4 examples in the 2025 class where switching clubs might not have helped their recruiting outcome at all -- the players already were deep in discussions with high D1 programs following their U16 club year.

3) Very few of the U18 players at either of those clubs started playing with the club at U14 or younger. For the class of 2024 only 5 of 14 Metro Travel players played U14 for them.  For Paramount it was 0 of 13.

4) Related to #3, while those clubs remind you all the time through social media about the recruits that were successful at those clubs, you never hear about those who weren't. By U18 as many as 50-60 players have played on their teams, with 3-6 players leaving leaving after each year. There can even be in-year turnover (5 leaving one of the teams this season). If you make one of their teams before U16 you a much more likely to [u][i]not[/i][/u] play for them by U17/U18 than you are to play for them. This has been discussed a lot in other threads and there is an argument that other clubs do a better job of developing young talent than either of those clubs, especially at the U11-U14 ages.

5) Finally, recruiting years for D1 are generally limited to the U16-U17 club years. Unless they've had multiple kids go through the recruiting process then families likely have very limited info. Or they may not be aware that another player at their age group at different club has dozens of coaches interested, even though they aren't playing at the open level at every national qualifier. Even within a club or a team with lots of recruiting success their info can be limited info because of the level of competitiveness, or a desire for privacy or a concern that talking about it will cause conflict within their team.

These facts don't mean the clubs are bad or performing poorly or anything negative.  By U18 you can absolutely say their players will play in college, a lot of them D1 and few of them high D1. That is a great accomplishment. We need more of that in CHRVA. We also need to remember that getting a spot on a Power 5 big name D1 school volleyball roster is incredibly difficult, with just a few hundred players in the country getting that chance each year.

But when it comes to choosing a club there's a lot of marketing and little information.  On this board discussions are often "Club A"=Good and "Club B"=Bad. Discussions like these help families make a more informed choice. As a PP pointed out, when it comes to choosing clubs each family needs to make the decision that serves them best and not assume that a certain club is the best place for everyone -- even if they want to play D1.[/quote]

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