All IMG Academy 150 and Regional player rankings are only accessible with a Premier Membership. Find out why we made the change and become a Premier member today.

The 2015 Girls IMG Academy 150 Rankings fall update is out today. The top three of Kayla McCoy, Katie Cousins, and Taylor Racioppi aren’t going anywhere in the near future, but several others are steadily moving up in the top ten. Dorian Bailey at no. 4, Tegan McGrady at no. 5, and Anika Rodriguez at no. 6, in addition to Racioppi, are currently in Jamaica at the CONCACAF U17 Women’s Championship. Bailey, McGrady, and Rodriguez earned a start in the U17 WNT’s 8-0 romp of Trinidad and Tobago in the opener. Ellie Jean makes the biggest jump from no. 10 to no. 7 after recovering from a stress fracture in her back just in time to don the captain’s armband for the USA.

Click here to see the 2015 Girls IMG Academy 150 player pool.

Gwinnett SA forward Sh’Sh'Nia Gordon, formerly of D’Feeters in Dallas, has excelled since her move to Georgia, scoring nine goals and adding five assists to help her new team to a 12-0-0 record in the ECNL and a top ranking in the Grande Sports Academy TeamRank Top 25. The West Virginia commit climbs from no. 64 to no. 52 in the IMG Academy 150.

Sporting Blue Valley’s Cecelia Kizer has also made an advantageous move…on the field, and debuts at no. 121 on our list as a result. The stalwart defender for Doug McLagan’s U17 ECNL squad moved up top for the 2013-14 season, and has moved from being the team’s most stingy defender to the team’s leading scorer, tallying 11 goals and three assists in 13 games. Mississippi will look to capitalize on Kizer’s versatility in a couple of years.

Not only has the IMG Academy 150 received scrutiny, but the regional lists have been updated as well. Keep checking back this week as we unveil newcomers such as VSI West Florida Flames midfielder Sabrina Cardona, Sunrise SC defensive midfielder Dallas Dorosy, Pride Predators midfielder Tanner Haughn, and many, many more.

As far as how we arrive at the rankings, it’s no simple task.

We keep a national database of players as the starting point for our rankings (if you’re not in it, enter a profile here).

We track an extensive list of selections to national team camps and other honors including USSF Development Academy (Boys), ECNL (Girls), and U.S. Youth Soccer National League event and season awards, plus U.S. Soccer Training Centers, ODP, id2 and other player identification programs.

From there we look at additional signs of top player performance in a club environment, with the help of an extensive network of observers around the country. The priority here is for club, college, national team and other select team coaches on the ground, but especially when we can gain corroborating opinions. The more layers of opinions we can gain accumulate the better, as our role is primarily to aggregate those viewpoints, rather than making our own determination as to a player’s quality.

As a matter of policy, we never share which coaches said what about whom so that coaches will be freer to share their assessments. Another policy is that parents’ opinions about their own children are not considered, but you are welcome to provide feedback about honors and other details that may be of help to us in keeping their profiles up to date as well as our challenge of sifting through thousands of players nationwide. That kind of data can be helpful, but the: “How can you not have rated my kid? He is awesome” communique, while compelling, will be consigned to the virtual trash.

In the end, there’s always some level of subjectivity about players, because after all, how good someone is relative to someone else is largely a matter of opinion, but we do our best to make our rankings as educated an opinion as can be.

The rankings will be updated every quarter. Keeping current rankings for 8 classes of 150 players each is no small task, and it is counterintuitive to think the rankings would change daily or weekly. We will announce each update.

So that’s it. You can see the newest version of the rankings here.

---

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU

ECNL Girls N. Atlantic Players to Watch

Women's NCAA Tournament Round Two Preview

Hornets Add 7 on National Signing Day