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[eastofthe206]

haven't seen this topic addressed (I did search) and surely would appreciate the input of anyone who has walked down this path before:

DS is a Junior-to-be, has good grades, good test scores, plays on a very competitive club team, and has aspirations of playing at university/college level.  We're at the point of deciding: should he attend, on his own, one or some of the various College ID/Dev Camps?  if so, which one(s)?  Oh...one rule of the game is we can't choose a camp based exclusively on the school he is going to attend, 'cause at this moment we have no earthly idea where he either wants to attend, or will attend.  Surely I can't be the only one in this predicament?!?

First up on the West Coast I've been hearing good feeback on the Stanford program, so maybe start the list there:
Stanford Soccer Academy   http://stanfordsoccer.com/     though hosted by Stanford, coaches from half a dozen or more schools attend and are on staff

Anyone with experience of this process want to volunteer a good, or bad, experience they had?
Anyone researching this for the first time, like me, want to share what they have learned?

Many thanks... 

[Relaxed]

I believe the best bet is to attend a summer camp that is hosted by a school that he is interested in.  If your son has a list of maybe 10 schools he is interested in at some level, see if they have a summer camp.   The summer camps held at the Universities will only have coaches from that particular school so there is no real ID going on (except by that one school's coaching staff).  Going to a camp like this is the only legal way you can interact/train with a college coach at your son's age w/o violating a NCAA policy...so these camps are really important to get some quality time with the coaching staff you want to impress.

[plentyofgames]

That's good advice, but you should be talking great grades like 4.0 plus if he's thinking Stanford. You should also look around for camps where there are coaches from more than one school that he's interested in if you can. Some of the camps have several schools represented. For example the recently completed Crossfire camp had coaches from probably 20 schools both local and national. It's more bang for the buck since there's only so much time and money to spend on soccer camps.

[ritz bitz]

A good player resume and e-mails to the coaches from the player.  Look at your players schedule and have the player invite the coach to come watch them play.  Look for college showcases where the coach will be and put your name on the guest player list and see if you can pick up some games there. Think squeeky wheel and send multiple e-mails. You can do the e-mails they should just be in the player's voice.

Some ID camps are for identifying possible future players and some are fundraising opportunities for the school hosting them - it's hard to tell which is which.  Sometimes not a bad thing as they can be a good way to get quality touches on the ball.

Resume should include academic accomplishments as well as any other extra curricular activities.

[SoccerFlicks]

If you want to get a bunch of info on ID camps, use Captain U as your player's online profiling source.  For about $15 a month you can have access to coach emails, list your player's profile, photos, video and email to your heart's content.  In response you will hear back from someone who seems connected to the college program  - and ALWAYS they give you their camp information.

I had been hesitant to believe the responses were from college coaches - so during one of the recent showcases I asked the Gonzaga coach: are you truely visiting these profiles like Captain U says and looking through the information - he told me yes, they were and the ID camp invites do come from their staff.

I have been using Captain U for my player for about year now.  The service lets you know when a coach from the school has visited your player's profile (log in tracking) and stores your email conversations - emailing is done through their system.  So far, my player has contacted 20 or so colleges and heard back from about half with ID camp invitations - maybe they really want to see him play or maybe they are marketing for money, I am not sure yet which is true - maybe both.  I guess the question becomes, how foolish in spending do we want to be with this?


My player has been interested in going to ID camps and I am learning that some of them cost an arm and a leg to attend and at times seem little more than a standard summer camp parents use for babysitting.

From what you describe, my player is the same age as yours and we have been getting into this camp thing and trying to sort it all out as well.  Duke is the lcoation of choice, but right now they seem to be offering the babysitting camp and for about $600 to boot.  

So far the only one I see as taking player viewing seriously has been SPU.  A teammate contacted their program through his own Captain U account, the spam response was an ID camp invite, he went, he sent a follow up email about a tourney "come see me play" and from that player attending the SPU ID camp the coach said - I remember  you from camp and will come out to see you play.

One issue about camp that my player's sqaud has been working on is getting the boys used to playing side by side with bigger, stronger, faster "men".  The college player can be a full grown adult, so when mixing it up at camp players need to be ready to take on the bigger, stronger, faster "men".  I don't believe any other Club is doing this, but our 16/17 players are getting touches on the ball, play time experiences with some of the local Adult leagues and it seems to be doing well for them.

If you have specific questions maybe this other resource I have will help.  I paid about $160 to the Showcase of Champions basically for a handbook and my player got a few games - so maybe we can treat this book like the magic 8 ball: as a question about the college soccer ID stuff, and I will try to shake an answer out of this book.

[ritz bitz]

Captian U is how DD connected with the school she is attending in the fall - we did it all on the free resource they offer (I think that was dumb luck).  This is the most common profile site we ran accross that the college showcases she attended used.

[SoccerFlicks]

Captian U is how DD connected with the school she is attending in the fall - we did it all on the free resource they offer (I think that was dumb luck).  This is the most common profile site we ran accross that the college showcases she attended used.

Now that is a blessing!  Good for your player, Ritz!


The freebee lasts 14 day from the time of sign up and gives you a taste of everything they offer.  Come the 15th day, and forever after, the free aspect changes - the player profile page remains active and you can update the basic details and include one photo.  You loose the emailing and profile visit summary - you can get those back if you start paying for the service.

I just logged onto my player's account - just as an exmaple here is what the profile visits page looks like:

Which coaches have seen your profile?

06/06/2011 - Duke University
05/26/2011 - California State University-Fullerton
05/24/2011 - Duke University
05/23/2011 - Western Washington University
05/23/2011 - Seattle Pacific University
05/18/2011 - Gonzaga University
05/18/2011 - Seattle Pacific University
05/17/2011 - Seattle Pacific University
05/17/2011 - Seattle Pacific University
05/17/2011 - Oregon State University
05/17/2011 - Gonzaga University
05/17/2011 - Gonzaga University
05/17/2011 - University of Portland
05/17/2011 - Duke University
01/13/2011 - Seattle Pacific University
01/04/2011 - Gonzaga University

Is paying for this information worthwhile?  I am not sure yet.

Here is a copy n paste of what the email page looks like (I removed the personal infomation and put in ...):

Write a new message See my incoming mail or See my sent mail

Duke University  2011 Duke Soccer Academy Winter Camp <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD...  Jun 3 
California State University-Fullerton  Re: ... at Cerritos Memorial Challenge Cup J...  May 26 
Seattle Pacific University  RE: SPU Men's Soccer 2011 Summer ID Camp [cid:image002.png@01CC1AEF.F75E9AA0] H...  May 25 
Western Washington University  RE: ... Thank you for your interest in West...  May 23 
Duke University  DUKE SOCCER CAMP 2011 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transi...  May 19 
Seattle Pacific University  RE: ...[cid:image001.png@01CC154B.57A0ACA0...  May 18 
Oregon State University  RE: ... Hi ...- Thanks for your int...  May 17 
Duke University  No Subject <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN&...  May 17 
Seattle Pacific University  Re: SPU Men's Soccer 2011 Spring ID Camp [cid:image002.png@01CBFAA3.89A4E710]...  Apr 14 
Duke University  Train and Play Like a Blue Devil- 2011 Duke Summer Soccer Camp <!DOCTYPE HTML...  Apr 6 
Seattle Pacific University  Re: SPU Men's Soccer Spring ID Camp 2011 [cid:image002.png@01CBDCD8.D3BDD070] H...  Mar 7 
Duke University  Duke Soccer Camp 2010 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transi...  Feb 25 
Whitman College  Re: ..., Thank you for your inter...  Jan 26 
Seattle Pacific University  RE: ... Thank you for your email. U...  Jan 13 
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly)  Cal Poly Men's Soccer ..., Thanks for the interest in our program her...  Jan 10 
Duke University  Duke soccer ..., Thank you for contacting the Duke Soccer Office. We w...  Jan 7 
University of California-Berkeley  Cal Soccer Thanks for your interest in the Cal Soccer program. If you have no...  Jan 6