High school soccer players targeting 2026 college scholarships need a 3.5+ GPA, since most aid comes from academics. Goalkeepers face tougher odds because coaches often have targets already, so they must start recruiting now: attend ID camps, email coaches with templates, create "Every Touch" highlight videos, and film training from behind the goal.
What do I need to do to get a scholarship as a 2026? I'm going to do a goalkeeper version and a regular version, so watch both. Goalkeeper version. The main reason I say a separate section for goalkeepers is because obviously college coaches know if they need a 2029 and 2020, 2030 when it comes to goalkeepers. So that means to get a scholarship as a 2026 goalkeeper is possible, but also very difficult because they already know what they need. And it's possible that the goalkeeper they have is the one they are having on scholarship, so you're not going to get one. Or you're going to get one, but you might be the backup one. So it really is important that at 26, if you want to be a goalkeeper, you have to be very aggressive and start the process in an aggressive way right now. That's just in order to play college soccer, let alone get a scholarship. Now, this is both for field players and for goalkeepers. If you want to get a scholarship, have good grades. The most money you're going to get is from academics, no matter what. Now, it's possible that because of soccer, you're going to get into the school, and because you get into the school, they're going to give you scholarships. So it's still a soccer scholarship, even though it's technically academic. You just would have never gotten it if it wasn't for soccer. We have some students, for example, who had like a 3.3 and they got $100,000 but would have never gotten into the school without soccer. But it was an academic scholarship, but they would have never gotten it without soccer. So it may as well just be called a soccer academic scholarship. Now that can't be official, so they won't ever say that, but that's basically what it is. So to get a scholarship, you need to go to ID camps, you need to go to games this fall, you need to ask the coach if you can go to the games this fall and shake their hand, you need to go to ID camps, you need to create your email template You need to respond to the schools. You need to make multiple Every Touch videos. As a goalkeeper, you need to make training videos, many of them, in which case you have to get a phone behind the goal and like record those because the goalkeepers need those. If you're training with any players in college or training with players older than you in some extra training session, get that on video. Training video can go a long way when it comes to updating teams. They're still going to need game video, of course, but training video can be very helpful. You're going to need your high school and/or club coach to be a reference for you. They will not make calls on your behalf over and over again, so do not depend on them to do so. You need to be the one doing the emailing, but once they respond to you, you can then have your coach maybe make 2 or 3 calls and leave a voice message because they're probably not going to get them on the phone. And that will go a long way in the recruiting process, especially for D3 and D2 schools. It can also help with D1. Now, some D1 coaches have direct connections to clubs and they go, hey, how's this kid doing? I want him to come to my school. And that's how they reach out to you before June 15th, is they reach out to your club without you knowing. And technically that's not illegal because they're just talking to some random guy who is not the kid, even though of course they're still recruiting you that way. The bottom line though is if you want a scholarship, you have really good grades, above a 3.5 GPA, and start the process, start the process as soon as possible. If you want more help, call me, link in bio.
