Recruiting advice
Are college ID camps worth it?
Yes — an ID camp is one of the best opportunities for a coaching staff to watch a specific athlete play in person instead of on film. Whether any one camp is worth it for a specific player comes down to three things: the communications you send before and after camp, whether the camp you picked is level-appropriate, and whether it's a single program's own camp instead of a crowded multi-school combine.
1. Email the program before you go
Send a short email before you register if you can — name, grad year, position, club, a sentence on why that program, and a link to film if there is one. Without it, a coach meets dozens of unfamiliar faces in one afternoon; with it, your name is already attached to something before the whistle blows. A full template is here — the app's coach email templates do the same thing automatically — intro, before a camp, after a visit — filled in from an athlete's own profile.
2. A camp at one school you want beats a combine with twenty
There is a real difference between an ID camp run by one program's own coaching staff and a big multi-school showcase or combine where a dozen or more programs share the same field. A combine pools in prospects for every program at once, so even a coach who wants to watch closely is working through a much bigger group of athletes. Going to a combine instead of a program's own camp also means you never show that specific school you are interested in them, never get a feel for how that coaching staff actually runs a session, and never see the campus. Picking the camp at a school you are genuinely interested in gets you all three.
3. Go across divisions, not just the one you assume
The only way to find out where a player actually fits is to be evaluated at more than one level. Going only to the division you assume you belong in never tests that assumption — real interest could end up coming from a level higher, a level lower, or right where you expected, and the only way to find out is to be in the room. Cast a wide net: go to camps across D1, D2, D3, NAIA and NJCAA programs and let the coaching staff's actual interest, not a ranking site, tell you where a player falls. Explore camps by division to find a spread worth attending.
Questions
ID camps, answered
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Are college ID camps worth it?
Yes - an ID camp is one of the best opportunities for a coaching staff to watch a specific athlete play in person instead of on film. Whether any one camp is worth it for a specific player comes down to three things: the communications you send before and after camp, whether the camp is level-appropriate, and whether it's a single program's own camp instead of a crowded multi-school combine.
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Should I email a college coach before an ID camp?
Yes, before you register if you can. A short email - name, grad year, position, club, why that program, and film if you have it - means a coach already has a name attached to an athlete before the whistle blows, instead of meeting forty unfamiliar faces in one afternoon.
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Is a single-school ID camp better than a multi-school combine?
For getting recruited, usually yes. At a camp run by one program's own coaching staff, every rep is in front of the people who would actually decide whether to recruit that athlete, for the whole session. At a combine, a dozen or more programs pool their prospects onto one field, so even that coach is watching a much bigger group - and a combine alone never shows a specific school you are interested in them, lets you feel how that coaching staff runs a session, or lets you see the campus.
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How many ID camps should I go to, and at which divisions?
More than one, and across divisions - D1, D2, D3, NAIA, NJCAA - not just the level a player assumes they belong in. Casting a wide net is how a family actually finds the program that fits best. Without going to more than one school's camp, there is nothing to compare a program against, and no way to find out what a player might end up liking - a coaching staff, a team culture, a campus - that they never expected to.
Finding the camps is the part we do
more than 1,260 programs monitored daily across four sports, so the camps that fit an athlete's targets and divisions are never hard to find — free to download and browse.
Coverage
over 3,650 camps tracked across 4 sports
We check more than 1,260 college programs in all 50 states — men's soccer, women's soccer, softball, baseball, with new sports being added — and count every ID camp they announce, more than 1,080 of them on the calendar right now. Every date and registration link is free to browse.