Girls Academy
Pre-Professional (L1) · Girls
A top-tier girls platform, club-governed, alongside ECNL.
Overview
The Girls Academy began play in 2020-21 with 69 clubs, formed by clubs left without a league when U.S. Soccer shut its Development Academy in April 2020. It was not a breakaway from ECNL, which matters when you are reading old forum threads about the two.
It now describes itself as over 120 member clubs across eleven conferences, at U13, U14, U15, U16, U17 and U19, with league play from August to national finals in June and July. The member clubs govern it, and it runs a player advisory panel that nominates a player-led board.
Its published technical standards say "High School Competition is permitted" and cap a roster at 30 registered with 18 on game day. That document is the 2022-23 edition, the newest the league posts publicly, so confirm both with the club. From 2026-27 the GA moves to seasonal-year age groups, with registration and team formation running 1 August to 31 July instead of the calendar year.
- Level 1 on our girls ladder, alongside ECNL, with its own national showcase circuit
- High school soccer is permitted in the league’s own technical standards
- Member clubs own the league, and a player advisory panel nominates a player-led board
- Its current technical standards are not public; the newest posted edition is 2022-23
- Younger than ECNL, so any club’s track record here is a shorter sample
- About 120 clubs nationally, so which platform is in range depends entirely on your metro
Who plays here
249 clubs we catalogue play in GA. Open one to see every league its teams actually enter, not just this one.
1974 Newark FCPre-ProfessionalNewark, CA
7 Elite Soccer AcademyTravel / SelectSalt Lake City, UT
AFC LightningPre-ProfessionalPeachtree City, GAAjax UnitedPre-ProfessionalModesto, CA
ALBION SC Atlanta MetroNational EliteGA
ALBION SC Boulder CountyNational EliteCO
ALBION SC BrooklynNational EliteBrooklyn, NY
ALBION SC ColoradoPre-ProfessionalLongmont, CO
ALBION SC DallasCompetitive RegionalTX
ALBION SC DenverNational EliteCO
ALBION SC HawaiiNational EliteWailuku, HI
ALBION SC Las VegasPre-ProfessionalNVCollege commitments
2,121 college commitments from 97 New York and New Jersey member clubs, taken from public commitment lists. Those two states are the only ones these counts cover.
These counts cover this league’s New York and New Jersey member clubs only. “Unverified” means the school matched but the program level did not. No league publishes college placement by youth league, so read this as one slice of two states rather than a scoreboard. We never print a current youth player’s name.
Rules
What this league asks before your kid can register: the ages it runs, whether they can still play the high school season, and who sanctions it. The college-exposure and cost lines are our read of the league, not a figure the league publishes.
HS soccer policy
Players can also play high school soccer
Age groups
U13-U19
Geographic footprint
National
College exposure (our read)
Elite
Cost level (our read)
Premium
Governing body
US Club Soccer
Founded
2020
The other leagues at this level
Leagues on the same rung of the ladder, so you can hold a club’s pitch against what the alternatives actually ask of a family.
Pathway from here
Level 1 is the top of our ladder: MLS NEXT on the boys’ side, ECNL and the Girls Academy on the girls’ side. Clubs here run national schedules and the showcase events college coaches travel to. Each league counts its own college commitments and nobody audits those counts, so the answerable question is about the club rather than the badge: where did its last three graduating classes go, and at what division.
Every league at this level publishes college numbers about itself and none of them are audited, so they are worth reading as marketing. What you can check is the club: ask which coaches came to its showcases in the last two seasons, and where its last three graduating classes went and at what division. A club that can name programs has the data.
Which GA clubs are inside your drive time?
Put in your ZIP and the finder shows the Girls Academy clubs near you alongside everything else at that level. Or tell us about your kid and we’ll rank them with the reasoning spelled out.