A recruiting consultant tells young soccer players that MLS NEXT alone won't get you into elite colleges. You need strong grades, character, a polished highlight video, and to attend your target school's camp multiple times. Ivy League programs want the full package.
I'm playing MLS NEXT, so going to a top academic school will be really easy for me, right? Well, MLS NEXT can help, but there's only about 75 top academic D3 schools, and everybody wants to go to the exact same top academic school. So just because you're playing MLS NEXT doesn't guarantee anything. Don't you think there are some players who are not playing MLS NEXT who probably are the level for Division 1 and maybe are local and they're closer to the school? Do you think those same kids who can generally afford to play MLS NEXT also have great grades and also want to go to the top academic schools just like you? Do you think your team is going to have every player play college soccer at all those schools? You think they're going to take everybody or they're only going to take some of you? What's going to make you different? Do you think you can depend on your club coach to do all the work for you? You know, what's going to make you different to the other players that you get recruited instead of them? Well, I do have an amazing video. Can I show you? Well, this video isn't really correctly formatted and the order isn't great and you haven't zoomed in enough. So I know you're a great player, but this video doesn't really do you justice. And also, you don't have enough video. This is not going to be enough to get recruited. Remember, your focus is top academics, so it's not only about your soccer ability. You have to obviously keep your grades up, but they want to know about you as a person, which is why the self-interview is really important and why we want to follow up multiple times showing we are good communicators. If there's a dream school you're thinking about, like a Columbia or Princeton or an Ivy League, you should be prepared to go to their camp 3 to 5 times. This is a lot of work. Have I managed to make you want to quit? Hell no! Where do I begin? Comment "call" and we can schedule a call with you and your parents.
