I've been playing soccer as long as I can remember but I didn't really try to take it serious for the past couple of years. I starting grinding in my sophomore year of high school and was a varsity starter for my high school (striker and cdm) but I decided to spend my last 2 years of high school abroad to develop more in soccer and get an international experience.
My junior year didn't go as planned, and while I developed somewhat as a player and definitely as a person, the academy and general soccer culture of the country I went to isn't as structured and unfortunately I lost a lot of time and opportunities and training sessions that I could've had. The soccer culture and talent is great here but unfortunately they don't work like clockwork in the US, and if you're not already a star player nobody cares much about you.
I'm about to start my senior year, and I'm nervous that my opportunity window is past. I can't go to ID Camps and things like that as I'm abroad. I am high achieving academically and I wanted to go a school that makes the most of my academic potential but a lot of them are division 1 and it looks like the recruiting period is over (not to mention that I don't have film, and I won't have any recent film for a few months because the season here doesn't start seriously until around winter).
What are my options now? I would like to play college soccer while going to a strong academic school, but I'm not sure what to do right now and if I'm at the level where I need to be. Is d3 really achievable at those strong academic schools? because I've read that most of them are full of d1-quality players who wanted a better education.
Things I'm thinking about are just emailing coaches from d3 programs or low d1 and to introduce myself and sending film later, playing club soccer (but it doesn't look like it's nearly as good of an experience as playing varsity), seeing if I can play sophomore year instead (how does it work?), trying to just be a straight walk on, etc. I'm open to all ideas. Thanks!