1. Make a very general list in terms of what you as a player/student would like in a school: ie: size of school, classroom size, and location (big city), climate, etc. At 16, it's difficult to take into account things like field of study, etc...but anything they feel strongly about right nowshould be included on the list.

2. From there, use the list to start picking out schools. Included on this site are 4 lists which detail D1, D2, D3, and NAIA schools for women's soccer. (Men’s soccer list to come.) We encourage folks to make 3 lists...1-list for the dream schools, 1 list for realistic schools, and 1-list for safe schools (if all else fails, a school a player knows for sure they could play at as well as get into academically). We also encourage everyone to cast as big as net as possible. Combined lists can be 100 schools large. The bigger the list, the greater the chance of findinga program that mutually fits the player and the college program, which is of course the ultimate goal.

3. In terms of making contact, everything you will ever need is available online. The coach contact information/email can be found on a school's athletics site, typically under the Athletic Department Staff Directory Link. It takes some time to track all this down, but the school sites will be the most up-to-date information. You can also learn a lot about a school, it's programs, enrollment and soccer teams through this resource.

4. Create an email template to send making sure to change the school and coach name every time, attach player’s profile, and start emailing away. Showcase Tournament websites are a good resource as well. In terms of the emails/letters to coaches, it is vitally important that the emails are written by the players. Coaches get thousands of these and spot a parent voice a mile away. Feel free to help out with the editing though :)

5. Check the forms & links to the leftfor further information.