Reply to Using Soccer to Get into College

Forum Index » Soccer

Reply to "Using Soccer to Get into College"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Parents to 3 DDs that have recently started or about to start their Travel soccer journeys. Our girls enjoy soccer and we are doing our part with individual training to see how far their talents can take them, but they are not natural “elite” talents at least at this stage. They do well academically, again at this stage of their middle elementary school years, where they seem to be the top 1-3 students in their classes.

We know that it is possible to excel both at sports and academics but we imagine it will get more difficult in the coming years. Our top priority is that they go to great colleges. How can soccer help with that outside of the life lessons they are learning by playing a team sport.

There’s the obvious path of being an elite talent being recruited to play at these great schools and also the path of being academically great but how can we best leverage soccer played at a good but not elite level? If not being recruited by colleges, does it make more sense to try and make the HS team for a stronger resume? Or would it make more sense to dial it back in the later years and focus solely on the academics while playing less competitive soccer, say on lower level travel teams. How do college admissions value travel soccer outside of DA/ECNL when considering a prospective student? Is it just considered a regular extracurricular activity akin to playing an instrument at that point?

We know we have a ways to go and many things will change along our journey but just want to be informed as much as possible as we begin to focus their time on their strengths. [/quote]

I have a junior in high school who is going through this process right now. He plays for the DA and has been playing soccer since he was 3 years old. He loves it and is in conversations with college coaches who have seen him play and have contacted him. Though his grades are acceptable but not the top, he’s getting better opportunities than his older brother who was a good academic and played travel soccer. With that said, the college counselor at the high school said that if you aren’t playing at the elite level of sports it’s better to go narrow and deep with extracurriculars than shallow and wide. In other words, show that you have a deep dedication to something specific —- be it volunteering, a club of sorts or a sport. Playing travel won’t get you recruited, however good grades coupled with showing long term dedication to a sport, or the other things I mentioned,  is something colleges like to see. This came from a very experienced counselor who has sat on college review boards. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics