Internespo > Guide > Recruiting > Search for Colleges

Time to start searching for schools that will check all of the boxes for your college experience. There are many ways to conduct your search, and it may take some time to narrow down your choices.

Key Takeaways

• College search tools, like the Internespo Search, can help you find the right college
• Other tools like College Board help you find colleges based mainly on academic critera
• Make a list with your favourites and next best alternatives and start contacting coaches

The College Search

Once you have figured out the things that are really important to you, it is time to start searching for schools that will check all of the boxes for your college experience. There are many ways to conduct your college search, and it may take some time researching to narrow down your top choices.

1) College Search Tools

• • Similiar to Internespo’s College Search, you can use other resources to find your college.
  • For instance the College Board Search can be a great tool to find schools for your list.

College Board

One of the most useful resources to find colleges is the College Board Search, where you find information on nearly every college in the United States. The key different to Internespo is that College Board offers an overview of all schools, regardless of their sport programs. On Internespo, you currently only find Colleges that have a Men’s Soccer Program.

On both websites you can filter for key criteria that you are looking for in a school. For instnance, you can filter for your sport,  the type of school (private or public), the size of  its student body, the location, as well as extra activities offered. Lastly, you can filter for costs to find schools that meet your budget.

College Match

Another great resource for the beginning of your college search is to use College Match, which is basically a quiz of ‘filters’ that apply to you, to help provide a list of colleges that meet all your guidelines.

Search based on athletics

For some athletes, the college search is focused solely on the athletic side of a school. If you want to be a part of one of the best teams in the NCAA Division I, then a good starting point would be to research the top performing teams from the latest NCAA Championships to compile a list before researching those schools further. Or maybe you’re not sure which schools you would be good enough to play at, in this case you can start researching schools via College Locations or academically ranked programs you’re interested in, and then look into the sports teams and their rosters to see if you could match up to the current players on the teams.

     Tip – Where did your teammates go?

• • A good way to find schools you could potentially play at, would be to look at past teammates or competitors you matched up with, and where they went on to play in college.
  • This can help to see programs that could be a good fit for you athletically, and provide a starting point for finding other colleges at a similar level.

2) Make a List

The most important thing in your college search is to make a list. Identity the colleges you are interested in, and label the pros and cons of them all. This will help you keep organized as you do your research.

Make a Backup List

Additionally, it is important to have a backup list, this would be a few schools that you are most likely to be accepted too, and could choose if you aren’t accepted or can’t afford your top picks. But make sure your backup schools are still ones that you would be happy to attend (ie. desirable location, etc.)