Soccer Scholarships For International Students.
College soccer is one of those college sports where you’ll see plenty of international talent and that won’t be changing any time soon! International athletes currently account for over 20% of spots on college rosters at the NCAA Division I and II levels.
The USA offers international soccer players the chance to continue competing at a high level, whilst studying abroad, getting a fantastic education and also pursuing their professional sporting career. The MLS Draft has three rounds of 28 picks, where professional clubs draft top college prospects to begin the careers with their club, which makes playing college soccer even more attractive than it already is.
Follow our guide below and on how to secure your scholarship
Soccer Recruitment Video.
If you’re an international, its going to be quite difficult for you to get in front of a coach and prove yourself, so your recruitment video is going to be the biggest asset you have to grab a coaches attention, so you need to make sure its done well! Coaches watch thousands of recruiting videos a year so its important to make yourself stand out. This video should showcase every aspect of your game that you feel would make you an attractive asset to a college coach, make sure that your BEST plays feature first, we need to grab the coaches attention and make them watch the entire video to come us the best shot at having them reach out to us.
Start Your Recruitment Process Early.
This is something that we cannot stress enough. Every single year thousands of talented athletes miss out on an opportunity to play at the college level simply because they began their recruitment too late and nobody had scholarships available to bring them on board. Its important to begin your recruitment process as early as possible (we recommend freshman year) and start to build relationships with college coaches. This way we can actually make sure that there are scholarships out there that can be made available to us! Here are some tips we’d like you to follow.
- Reach out to as many coaches as you can and don’t ignore any divisions. The more doors that you knock on the more opportunities that will be made available to you. We recommend reaching out via email first, but try to be unique in your email. Coaches receive thousands of emails a day, try to stand out from the generic email most recruits send.
- DO NOT ask about scholarship money. Yes we’re all aware that this is the end goal, but its important to develop a relationship with a college coach first. Once that relationship has been built, you’ll be able to ask where you stand in the schools recruitment plans and whether or not they have scholarship money available.
- Always provide coaches with your most up to date information. We recommend creating a recruitment profile and simply providing the coach with a link, this way the coach always has your most up to date information and hand and as you update your profile, the coaches information will do the same.
What Are The Academic Requirements?
- Provide the NCAA with your up to date information from your entire education, high school upwards.
- Proof of graduation. These can be shown in the form of certificates, diplomas etc
- Take the SAT/ACT test and send those scores directly to the NCAA
- Work with your school in the US (if you have one locked in) directly to begin your VISA process. Your school will issue an I-20 which will allow you to begin your VISA process and go and get your F1 student VISA.
NOTICE: You must register with the NCAA Clearinghouse to play sports at the NCAA level.
Requirements are different for the NAIA level
- Register with the NAIA Eligibility Center, This MUST be done at least two months before classes start.
- Take the SAT/ACT test and send those scores directly to the NAIA using code 9876
- Send all education records to the NAIA, these include high school, college and University if you have those.
- Ensure that all records have been translated to English
Worried that you’re not eligible to play at the college level and want some support? Book a FREE scholarship assessment call.
