University is a huge step in your soccer career. If you have chosen to go to college, finding the best one for you is the hardest part. You may be getting offers, speaking with coaches, or already have a couple universities in mind already. But regardless, you have to do your research first! Secrets of Soccer is here to help you find the perfect university!
No matter what division the school is, you want to go somewhere that satisfies all of your priorities first.
Don’t spend the next 4 years at a place that you absolutely hate.
There are more than 1,500 different universities that offer soccer among the different divisions. Don’t settle for just anything!
If you are having a hard time getting started, take a minute to read what SOS recommends you do. If you are in your sophomore year of high school, then it’s the perfect time to start looking.
When it comes to deciding on colleges,
…….you want to make a list of your top 5-10 favorite colleges. These colleges must be within your budget with scholarship opportunities and a comfortable location for you. Dependent upon, if you want to be close to home, far, or just far enough that you can go home sometimes.
Also, size of the school matters! Don’t forget to look at how big the school is! For me specifically, I knew that a really big school would be hard for me because it would be overwhelming. Keep in mind, big schools have big campuses, and you have to get to all of your classes/buildings on time.
Another thing to look into is…
…. the degrees that they offer. Even if you don’t know what you want to study yet, try doing a broad search in a specific field of study. Picking a school that doesn’t offer let’s say, “Communication degrees”, would obviously be the wrong choice for someone who possibly wants to study communications.
Furthermore, check out their living arrangements. This university will now be your second home. You really need to make sure that where you will be living doesn’t look/feel like prison. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you leave home. So, you want to go somewhere that makes it feel super easy and looks really welcoming to ease the transition process.
MENTAL HEALTH IS PRIORITY!
The reason I harp that finding the perfect university is priority, is because your mental health is priority! With school, soccer, and your own life away from home; college is a stressful place. Don’t let going to the wrong school be the main stressor in your life. You want to set up the next 4 years of your life to be as fun, stress-free, and successful as possible!
Never, I mean never, ignore your gut feelings. Always do what is best for you!
Finally, look at their athletic facilities and reputation! Their facilities will be a place you will be spending a lot of time at. So, making sure they are decent is really important. And I can’t say this enough, but REPUTATION IS HUGE! Know how they treat their athletes! Coaches can say anything when they are recruiting you, but other people’s experiences don’t lie.
Articles, reviews, and blogs…
…where people speak about their time at this university playing for Coach ‘such and such’ is a really good indicator of the type of atmosphere there. Another good way to check this, is visiting the colleges! As well as, reaching out to some of the players via social media to get real insight! I assure you that somebody on the team would be willing to let you know what it’s like there and how everyone gets along.
If you are still a sophomore, well reaching out to some players is fine but just know the dynamic within the team and college changes pretty fast from year to year so don’t follow their opinions like a compass.
So once this list is made, try to visit every school if you can, talk to other athletes, other students, and really get a feel for each one before making a decision.
The DIVISION does not matter!
I know every player has this big idea that D1 soccer is the best and in some ways this is true. But every division has its perks, and I can assure you that top D2 teams are just as competitive!
The main difference between divisions is the amount of money that they have and how they can offer it. Another difference is the amount of time that they are allowed to have their athletes during the seasons. It is not a big difference, but it is slightly varied between divisions.
Okay, that’s a lot of information.
It can be seriously overwhelming because not only do you want to like the college, but the coach has to like you too.
But if you follow these steps, it will take a lot of pressure off of the big decision.
Here are some of my favorite college search websites, that will make searching for your top schools super easy! Make sure you find a site that you can specify the sports that they offer and then go from there! Filter size, amount, location, degrees, and much more!
* BIGFUTURE COLLEGE SEARCH *
NICHE COLLEGE SEARCH
COLLEGE FINDER
The pressure will decrease because now YOU KNOW what YOU WANT!
You can now easily let coaches know what you are looking for! In some cases, if the coach knows they don’t offer some of the things you want, they can help direct you or even speak to other coaches that they know are looking for a player like you!
Finally, you can reach out to all of the coaches on this list! Be aware that there are restrictions for at what age you are allowed to speak directly to the coaches.
Please look up these rules before you start an email frenzy.
Check out this site to read up on these rules!
Anyways, my biggest tip of them all is….
… check out my other post “Applying to Colleges – things that make sense” to see how I stood out to college coaches when emailing them. And “Finding Scholarships” for all the tips to securing more funds.
Overall, I know it’s hard to get noticed by your favorite schools but do what you can to contact them! Whether it be by email every week, frequent phone calls, invites to watch you at your showcases, or having other coaches speak to them about you; you want to make them know how much you are interested in playing for them!
At the end of the day, yes, the coach may not reciprocate, but at least you tried and can cross them off the list. Just move onto the next and get them to SEE YOU! It shows a lot of character to put in effort just to get noticed. And I promise you the right coach and school will admire that!
Let SOS know if this helped you and how we can make this site better! SUBSCRIBE AND LEAVE A COMMENT! WE LOVE OUR FOLLOWERS! Help us make the soccer world a stress-free place!
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