Navigating the Summer ID Camp Season (Without Wasting Your Weekends)

Summer is coming, and with it comes one of the most important — and most misunderstood — phases of the college recruiting process: ID camp season.

You've got a list of schools you like. You have a limited number of free weekends. Camps cost money, require travel, and eat into recovery time during an already demanding stretch of the year. The pressure to get it right is real, and the margin for error is smaller than most families realize.

Here's what nobody tells you upfront: attending the wrong camps, in the wrong order, for the wrong reasons, doesn't just waste money. It can quietly set your process back.

Two Formats, Two Very Different Experiences

Large multi-school ID clinics are attractive because of the names attached. You see 20 programs on the flyer and it feels like an efficient use of one weekend. The reality is more complicated. With 100+ players on the field, no staff can meaningfully evaluate everyone. And those school logos on the website? Sometimes that's a head coach. Sometimes it's a volunteer assistant who agreed to show up for a few hundred dollars. Both look identical on the registration page.

Individual school camps mean you will be seen — but understand that most programs arrive with a short list of players they already came to evaluate. How sessions are structured usually reflects that list. Players the staff is actively recruiting get the most exposure. Players walking in cold get placed everywhere else.

Neither format is bad. But neither is a guarantee of anything either.

The Stat Coaches Love to Quote

"80% of our roster attended an ID clinic."

What that actually tells you: coaches recruit players they're already interested in and invite them to camp to evaluate in person. The camp didn't create the interest — the interest already existed.

If you're showing up with no prior contact, you're having a fundamentally different experience than the player next to you who got a personal email from the coach two months ago. The number is the same. The experience is not.

Making Smart Decisions With Limited Weekends

Start with an honest list. Not a wishful list of schools you've heard of — a list that actually reflects your level, your priorities, and what playing time might realistically look like. If you're fighting for minutes on your club team, stacking your schedule with top D1 programs isn't strategy. It's avoidance.

Attend camps across a range of levels. The responses and feedback you get from different programs will tell you more about how coaches see you than any self-assessment will. That information is valuable, even when it's hard to hear.

Prioritize schools that have already shown interest, then add a few reaches. Don't build your schedule around programs that have never responded and hope a camp changes that.

And be deliberate about recovery. A player who shows up exhausted and a half-step slow doesn't get the benefit of the doubt — they just look like a lesser player.

One More Thing Worth Knowing

If you're heading into this summer without a clear strategy, that's the first problem to solve. This is exactly what we help players and families navigate — not just identifying the right schools, but knowing which camps actually make sense for where you are in your process and how to walk in with a real advantage.

The summer ID season can genuinely move your process forward. But only if you know what you're walking into.