RosterWise™ Data and Analysis Methodology — How We Build College Soccer Roster Intelligence

Our data sources

RosterWise’s 2025 college soccer analysis draws from four categories of authoritative sources. We do not use data from third-party recruiting services, aggregator sites, or unverified databases.

Roster data comes directly from the official athletics websites of every NCAA and NAIA college soccer program in the United States. These are the same roster pages that coaches, athletes, and families access publicly on each program’s athletics site. RosterWise captures the full published roster for every program — every player, every position, every class year, every hometown — from the source of record.

Division and conference data comes from NCAA.org and NAIA.org, which maintain the authoritative membership lists for their respective associations. Conference assignments in our dataset reflect the 2025 NCAA season membership, including the 2024 conference realignment (Pac-12 dissolution, ACC expansion, Big 12 expansion).

Institutional data — school enrollment, location, academic profiles, and other characteristics — comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s IPEDS database, the federal government’s comprehensive source for postsecondary institution data.

Historical context — such as NCAA championship records — comes from official NCAA and NAIA sources. RosterWise does not use crowd-sourced data, Wikipedia, or unverified aggregators for any factual claims published on this site.

What we capture

For every player on every roster, RosterWise captures the data published on the program’s official athletics website:

• Position — the player’s listed position (e.g., Midfielder, Defender, Forward, Goalkeeper)
• Height — where published by the program
• Class year — as designated by the program (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, Graduate, Redshirt)
• Hometown — the player’s listed hometown and state or country
• Previous school or club — the high school, club team, or academy listed on the roster entry
• Jersey number — where published

Player names are captured for internal data integrity but are not published in any aggregate analysis on this site. RosterWise does not download, store, or publish player photographs. Individual player data is not shared with third parties.

Capture date and dataset vintage

Roster data was captured in April–May 2026 (specifically April 26 through May 16, 2026), reflecting the 2025 NCAA season rosters as published on official athletics websites at the time of capture.

College rosters are living documents. Players commit, transfer, graduate, and depart throughout the academic year. Our analysis represents each program’s roster as it appeared during this three-week capture window. This is a point-in-time snapshot — not a continuously updated feed.

Players who had entered the transfer portal and been removed from the program’s published roster at the time of capture are not included. Incoming recruits who had committed but did not yet appear on the published roster are not included. The data reflects what was published, as published.

How we define key terms

Clear definitions matter when publishing aggregate statistics. Here’s how RosterWise defines the key terms used throughout our analysis.

Roster member

A roster member is any player listed on the program’s official athletics website roster at the time of capture. This includes active players, redshirt players, and players listed as injured — as long as they appear on the published roster. It excludes coaching staff, support staff, and committed recruits not yet listed.

International vs. domestic

A player is classified as international if their hometown, as listed on the official athletics roster, is outside the United States and its territories.

Domestic includes players from the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Classification is based on the hometown information published on the roster. When a roster lists only a country name (common for international players), that country is used for classification. When a roster lists a city and U.S. state abbreviation, the player is classified as domestic.

Class year

Class years use the program’s published designation. For aggregate analysis, RosterWise normalizes class years into five primary categories: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, and Graduate. Redshirt designations (e.g., Redshirt Freshman, Redshirt Sophomore) are grouped with their base class year in most aggregate statistics unless the analysis specifically addresses redshirt distribution.

Position groups

For soccer, positions are normalized into four groups:

• Goalkeeper (GK) — goalkeepers, goal keepers
• Defender (DEF) — defenders, center backs, fullbacks, wing backs
• Midfielder (MID) — midfielders, central midfielders, attacking midfielders, defensive midfielders
• Forward (FWD) — forwards, strikers, attackers, wingers

Players listed with multiple positions (e.g., “M/F” or “Midfielder/Forward”) are classified by the first position listed, which is treated as the primary position.

Conference assignment

Conference assignments reflect 2025 NCAA season membership as published by NCAA.org and NAIA.org. The 2024 conference realignment — including the Pac-12 dissolution, ACC expansion, and Big 12 expansion — is reflected in our data. Programs that changed conferences between the 2024 and 2025 seasons are listed under their 2025 conference.

Coverage and completeness

RosterWise’s 2025 soccer dataset includes 2,235 programs out of 2,246 total — a 99.5% coverage rate across all divisions and genders. The dataset contains 66,888 players.

Coverage by division and gender

Excluded programs

Eleven programs are excluded from the dataset:

• Rosemont College (D3, men’s and women’s) — program discontinued, transitioning to club status
• Alverno College (D3, women’s) — program paused for the 2025 season; did not compete
• Medgar Evers College (D3, women’s) — 2025 season cancelled; all games cancelled
• Jarvis Christian University (NAIA, men’s and women’s) — no roster data available on athletics site
• Mission University (NAIA, women’s) — roster page published only coaching staff information
• Mercyhurst University (D1, men’s and women’s) — mid-transition from D2 to D1 (NEC); roster sizes of 58 (men’s) and 49 (women’s) are not representative of established D1 programs
• University of New Haven (D1, men’s and women’s) — mid-transition from D2 to D1 (NEC); roster sizes of 46 (men’s) and 36 (women’s) are not representative of established D1 programs

No division/gender combination falls below 98% coverage.

Data completeness per field

Not every program publishes every data point for every player. Here’s how complete our data is across key fields:

Height and previous school coverage are lower because some programs simply don’t publish these fields on their roster pages. Aggregate statistics involving height are computed only from programs that publish height data and are labeled accordingly.

How we compute aggregate statistics

RosterWise computes aggregate statistics through a three-step process designed for accuracy and reproducibility.

Step 1: Program-level aggregates. For each of the 2,235 programs in the dataset, we compute roster size, international count and percentage, class-year distribution, position distribution, average heights by position, and geographic diversity. These program-level aggregates are the building blocks for everything else.

Step 2: Division-level and conference-level aggregates. We roll up program-level data into division × gender combinations (e.g., “D1 men’s”) and conference × division × gender combinations (e.g., “Big Ten D1 men’s”). Division-level statistics include averages, medians, minimums, and maximums. Conference-level statistics include averages and totals.

Step 3: Sanity checking. Every aggregate is cross-checked against the raw data. Total players in program aggregates must exactly match the total players in the raw dataset. Division totals must exactly match the sum of their program-level components. A sample of individual programs is spot-checked against raw roster data to verify counts. Any discrepancy is investigated and resolved before publication.

All aggregate statistics published on the Insights pages of this site trace directly to documented queries against these pre-computed tables. The queries are stored in the project repository for reproducibility.

What we don’t do

Transparency about our methods includes being clear about what we don’t do:

• We don’t estimate or interpolate. If data is missing for a program — for example, if a program doesn’t publish player heights — we exclude that program from height-related aggregates rather than guessing. Missing data is documented, not filled in.
• We don’t publish strict rankings where the differences are too small to be meaningful. When conferences are separated by less than two percentage points in international composition, we describe them as a group rather than ranking them 1st, 2nd, 3rd. A 0.2% gap between two conferences doesn’t mean one meaningfully recruits more internationally than the other.
• We don’t publish individual player data. Aggregate insights on this site describe patterns across programs. Individual player names, hometowns, and other details appear only within the RosterWise app, where they come from publicly available roster pages.
• We don’t share data with third parties. RosterWise does not sell, license, or share individual player data or program-level data with other companies, recruiting services, or data brokers.

Limitations and honest caveats

Every dataset has limitations. Here are ours:

• Roster data reflects what programs publish. Programs that publish incomplete rosters — for example, listing some players without a position or without a height — have incomplete data in our dataset. We work with what’s published.
• Hometown data is sometimes limited. Some programs list international players with only a country name rather than a city and country. This is sufficient for international/domestic classification but limits geographic analysis within countries.
• Graduate students include redshirts and fifth-year players. The “Graduate” class year category captures a range of situations — true graduate students, fifth-year seniors, and players using additional eligibility. Programs don’t always distinguish between these on their roster pages.
• Transfer portal timing. A player who entered the transfer portal after our capture date would still appear on the program’s roster in our data. A player who entered the portal and was removed before capture would not appear. This is inherent to point-in-time data.
• This is a snapshot, not a continuous feed. Our analysis represents the 2025 NCAA season rosters as they existed during our April–May 2026 capture window. Rosters before and after that window may differ.

Every recruit’s journey is different

Aggregate statistics describe patterns across programs. They tell you that, on average, D1 men’s soccer rosters carry about 29 players, or that NAIA men’s programs have the highest international percentage of any division. These are real patterns based on real data.

But they don’t determine outcomes for any individual recruit.

A program with a higher-than-average international percentage may still be the perfect fit for a domestic recruit. A program with a smaller-than-average roster may offer more playing time. A D3 program with no athletic scholarships may provide a better overall experience than a D1 program with a partial scholarship.

The numbers provide context. The decisions are yours. RosterWise gives families the data to ask better questions and make more informed choices — but no aggregate statistic can replace the personal research, campus visits, coach conversations, and honest self-assessment that every recruiting family needs to do.

How RosterWise uses this data

RosterWise uses its 2025 soccer dataset in two ways:

Aggregate insights published on this site. The Insights pages present aggregate statistics — roster sizes, international composition, class-year distributions, conference-level comparisons — drawn from the full dataset. These are free, publicly available, and documented with the methodology described on this page.

Program-by-program analysis in the RosterWise™ Soccer app. The app provides the same roster intelligence at the individual program level — position depth, class-year gaps, international composition, recruiting pathways, coach tenure, and personalized My RosterFit™ scoring for every D1, D2, D3, and NAIA men’s and women’s soccer program. The app costs $40, one time. No subscriptions, no ads, and access for your athlete’s entire recruiting journey.

Corrections

If we discover an error in published data, we correct it promptly and note the correction with a date. We do not silently update numbers. If you believe you’ve found an error in our published analysis, please contact us at [email protected].

Data reflects 2025 NCAA season rosters as published on official athletics websites, captured April–May 2026. Analysis by RosterWise (Grobe Games LLC).