Chances of playing in College

It's even worse than the charts show, since many top-level players don't play high school, because of a year-round club or academy schedule.
 
It's even worse than the charts show, since many top-level players don't play high school, because of a year-round club or academy schedule.
Doesn't that cut the other way? Presumably, a higher % of the non-high school soccer players (e.g., the DA players) go on to play college soccer, so the % of high school age soccer players (as opposed to just those who played varsity in HS) who play college soccer should be slightly higher. You are adding a higher proportion to the numerator than the denominator compared to the proportion you had originally.

I've often thought that college is the wrong question (or at least too limited a question), since most kids actually don't ultimately try to play college soccer (self-selecting out at some point). Most kids do, however, try to play soccer in HS, whether in HS or year-round through Academy. The question, then, that most parents/kids should be asking themselves is whether they need to play club in order to make their HS team or a DA team. The latter question is undoubtedly yes, so the former is the more important. It varies wildly by HS, depending upon large public v. very small private etc. Still, that's what parents and kids thinking of making the plunge should consider more than they do.
 
Doesn't that cut the other way? Presumably, a higher % of the non-high school soccer players (e.g., the DA players) go on to play college soccer, so the % of high school age soccer players (as opposed to just those who played varsity in HS) who play college soccer should be slightly higher. You are adding a higher proportion to the numerator than the denominator compared to the proportion you had originally.
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No.
 
I checked back and see you must be referring to the fact that the number of players playing in college must already include those DA or non-HS players. Of course, assuming those players played DA at HS age would be inaccurate too. Nowadays, especially for boys, they are far more likely to have grown up in another country and not played in the US at all during HS years. The percentages would be even worse if you subtracted out the foreign players in college.
 
The link shows everything from D1 to JC.

I guess I worded the post wrong. If the player is playing on an A team there is no reason they cannot play in college. There is such a wide variety of programs that a player should be able to find a college that has a soccer program and their major. I also think the JC option is a good choice for players that are either unsure of their major or their family cannot afford 4-5 years at a university. My DD has a friend that played JC as a keeper the past two years and is transferring to a D2 on a good soccer and academic scholarship. She went to the JC first because her parents could not afford to send her to a university. Players and families just need to look at all options.
 
A friend of mine posted this. It has stats for both the boys and girls and list all college sports.

http://www.scholarshipstats.com/varsityodds.html?utm
This is interesting. If you do the math with 78 or so DA teams and 78 or so ECNL teams. Throw in the B team of the DA teams, even with full Rosters you are still less than 4500 players. So many parents sometimes so misinformed about B teams at top clubs. If your player is good they will be found!
 
The data that would interest me is the major that the players are in. I am a late college goer, just got my degree at 50, after my military career. As a father with college and pre-college age kids I took an interest in the college programs. The vast majority of college players, soccer included had what I considered the easy degrees; liberal arts, business, communications. It is very rare to see an engineering, pre med, hard sciences type in any athletic program. With the big emphasis on STEM at the elementary and high school levels little discouraging to see so few people who want that type of degree and play soccer.
 
The data that would interest me is the major that the players are in. I am a late college goer, just got my degree at 50, after my military career. As a father with college and pre-college age kids I took an interest in the college programs. The vast majority of college players, soccer included had what I considered the easy degrees; liberal arts, business, communications. It is very rare to see an engineering, pre med, hard sciences type in any athletic program. With the big emphasis on STEM at the elementary and high school levels little discouraging to see so few people who want that type of degree and play soccer.
The data that would interest me is the major that the players are in. I am a late college goer, just got my degree at 50, after my military career. As a father with college and pre-college age kids I took an interest in the college programs. The vast majority of college players, soccer included had what I considered the easy degrees; liberal arts, business, communications. It is very rare to see an engineering, pre med, hard sciences type in any athletic program. With the big emphasis on STEM at the elementary and high school levels little discouraging to see so few people who want that type of degree and play soccer.

My daughter is a rising sophomore and just played in Surf Cup on a B team. She is interested in Engineering as her major! She received several letters this weekend from top D3 schools and their Coaches with Engineering Programs. Keeping my fingers crossed that her dream of becoming an Engineer and playing soccer in College will become a reality:)
 
My daughter is a rising sophomore and just played in Surf Cup on a B team. She is interested in Engineering as her major! She received several letters this weekend from top D3 schools and their Coaches with Engineering Programs. Keeping my fingers crossed that her dream of becoming an Engineer and playing soccer in College will become a reality:)

This is fantastic. Sounds like your family has their priorities in check.
 
The data that would interest me is the major that the players are in. I am a late college goer, just got my degree at 50, after my military career. As a father with college and pre-college age kids I took an interest in the college programs. The vast majority of college players, soccer included had what I considered the easy degrees; liberal arts, business, communications. It is very rare to see an engineering, pre med, hard sciences type in any athletic program. With the big emphasis on STEM at the elementary and high school levels little discouraging to see so few people who want that type of degree and play soccer.

Many moons ago, I was recruited to play soccer at a fairly prestigious D3 college with a fearsome reputation for academics. It was starting play in a new conference that required air travel, overnight stays etc to lots of its games. I asked about how that would fit with taking lab sciences, since the lab portions of the courses were often offered toward the end of the week in late afternoon time slots. The coach hemmed and hawed a little. He conceded that it would be difficult and you might have to miss some sessions to make it work. This is probably still an issue and even more so in the D1 colleges with even more extensive travel. Students can make up for it by loading up on those courses in the offseason or in summer, but it's not easy. My guess is that it's not so much that the students are lazy and taking what you characterize as "easy degrees" (although I disagree with that characterization as a blanket statement - I know plenty of STEM oriented students who would die with the reading/research/writing requirements of a liberal arts major -- the view of these majors as "easy" usually is more about the ability to get a certain grade because of the department's curve rather than the amount of work or the difficulty of doing it very well), but they are forced to balance the requirements of soccer and classes and they end up constructing schedules/majors that permit for both.
 
Many moons ago, I was recruited to play soccer at a fairly prestigious D3 college with a fearsome reputation for academics. It was starting play in a new conference that required air travel, overnight stays etc to lots of its games. I asked about how that would fit with taking lab sciences, since the lab portions of the courses were often offered toward the end of the week in late afternoon time slots. The coach hemmed and hawed a little. He conceded that it would be difficult and you might have to miss some sessions to make it work. This is probably still an issue and even more so in the D1 colleges with even more extensive travel. Students can make up for it by loading up on those courses in the offseason or in summer, but it's not easy. My guess is that it's not so much that the students are lazy and taking what you characterize as "easy degrees" (although I disagree with that characterization as a blanket statement - I know plenty of STEM oriented students who would die with the reading/research/writing requirements of a liberal arts major -- the view of these majors as "easy" usually is more about the ability to get a certain grade because of the department's curve rather than the amount of work or the difficulty of doing it very well), but they are forced to balance the requirements of soccer and classes and they end up constructing schedules/majors that permit for both.
I guess i should have chosen better for my portrayal of easy vs hard majors....occasionally had athletes in some of my GE classes but rarely saw one in a calculus, or physics or chemistry....when I inquired about it....I went to San Diego State so can only go by what they said and what I have heard from other people... they said that many coaches avoided kids that were looking at the tougher majors and preferred/highly encouraged their players to choose classes that allowed for absences and easier work ie less study time. It also seemed that the liberal art professors were alot more accommodating than the science bunch. I just think that parents and players really need to look at the long term when deciding about school. If your kid wants to be a physicist, or electrical engineer, or marine biologist playing soccer may not be possible.
 
There is a reason why playing a collegiate sport is nearly impossible to do while studying a hard-science. From personal experience, I can tell you what it takes to get a geology degree. Most of your first two years are filled up with a couple of geology courses (Geol. 101 plus lab; Earth History plus lab), three calculus courses, four chemistry courses (one year of general chemistry; one year of organic chemistry), two biology courses (one year), three physics courses (three semesters) and breadth requirements. You are always taking at least two hard-science courses with lab. Most labs take about 2 hours to prep for, and two actual lab hours, twice per week. In other words, that is 8 lab hours per science course, per week, and that usually means up to 16 hours per week just for your labs.

By the time you get to your third year, you are taking very demanding geology courses with labs, and nearly every course has required field trips twice per semester. (The geology professors work together to get them all in on different weekends.) So, if you are a soccer player in the Fall, you usually have at least 6 weekends where there will be a conflict between your games and your field work.

You can play collegiate soccer and get a degree in the sciences, but you better set aside about 5-6 years to do it.
 
My daughter is a rising sophomore and just played in Surf Cup on a B team. She is interested in Engineering as her major! She received several letters this weekend from top D3 schools and their Coaches with Engineering Programs. Keeping my fingers crossed that her dream of becoming an Engineer and playing soccer in College will become a reality:)

If you keep her focusing on her school AND her soccer it will happen. One of my player's roommates is an engineering major and their program is top 10 in the country. She also juggles being a key player on the soccer team and moomlights playing for her country's national team. It can happen if the player wants it bad enough!! Good luck to you and your player!
 
If your kid wants to be a physicist, or electrical engineer, or marine biologist playing soccer may not be possible.

I disagree with you on this one. My player and one of her roommates are life science majors and one is an engineering major and this is at a D1 school with an extensive travel schedule. One of the roommates even has to balance national team duty. All of them have over a 3.6 gpa. It can happen it is all about the kid and her support system.
 
I disagree with you on this one. My player and one of her roommates are life science majors and one is an engineering major and this is at a D1 school with an extensive travel schedule. One of the roommates even has to balance national team duty. All of them have over a 3.6 gpa. It can happen it is all about the kid and her support system.
definately not the norm
 
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