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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What an off the rails thread...  college recruitment process question devolves into attacks on field hockey.[/quote]

College recruitment is sooo sport specific that only in the most general of terms can it be discussed generically.

[b]If you want to play college soccer, you most likely can.[/b] There are far more opportunities to do so irregardless of scholarships. A sport like field hockey? There are simply not as many programs available. While the amount of field hockey players is certainly less the smaller amount of schools offering the sport still limits ones choice of schools. [/quote]

I have to disagree with the bolded statement above.  Although there are more college soccer programs than field hockey programs, the number of US girls playing high school soccer is -- according to the NCAA website -- more than 6 times larger than the number of US girls playing high school field hockey.   The NCAA website says that 9.7% of US high school field hockey players go on to play in college.   Only 7.2% of US girls high school soccer players go on to play in college.

One reason the odds are lower for girls HS soccer players going on to play in college is that almost every girls college soccer program recruits/attracts foreign players.   So if foreign students make up 10% of the college soccer roster spots, then the real number of spots available for US girls is smaller than it appears from just looking at the number of college programs.    I could be wrong, but I don't believe US college field hockey attracts nearly the number of foreign players as US girls college soccer does.  [/quote]

[b]I said if you want to play college soccer you most likely can. I did not say, if you want to play DI soccer you most likely can[/b]. [/quote]

I agree with this.  I'd say about 30 percent of my daughter's friends decided they want to play soccer in college, and none of them is good enough for D1 (they are not ECNL level players).  Every last one of them will be playing in college.  They are heading either to 1st tier (academic) SLACS with not very strong soccer teams or 2d tier DIII schools with a range of decent to not strong soccer teams.

Also, the stats quoted above re 7.2 going on to play in college don't give you a great picture of what the real numbers are, because a lot of girls opt to hang up the cleats after senior year of high school.  They also don't take into account regional variations.  This area is a soccer hotbed, and an average team around here will be able to play at a much higher level than the average team in a less well-developed soccer area.  More kids who want to continue on from here will be able to than the national averages suggest.[/quote]

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