PLEASE NOTE: The Summer 2013 update is the last IMG Academy 150 update that will be free. Starting with the Fall 2013 update, the IMG Academy 150 will only be accessible with a Premier Membership. Click here to become a Premier Member.

The 2017 Girls IMG Academy Top 150 is out today, and the scoring prowess of forwards Catarina Macario at #1 and Madison Haley at #2 keeps these two at the top of the list. The young Macario was a standout during the recent U.S. U15 Girls National Team scrimmage at the U.S. Soccer National Training Center, while Haley had a goal and an assist for the U17 WNT against England last month, and looks to be a sure bet to make the roster for the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup qualifiers.

Battling for one of those top two spots however is PDA midfielder Frankie Tagliaferri, who climbs from #10 to #3. Tagliaferri, like Haley, had a goal against England when she travelled with the U17 WNT a couple of weeks ago. In addition to Tagliaferri, Eagles SC defender Tara McKeown, Sockers FC forward Emma Thomson, and West Coast FC forward Julie Doyle all made significant jumps in the IMG Academy 150 with this update. All three took part in August’s U.S. U15 GNT camp, and Doyle received multiple recommendations for her ranking. Click here to see where they are ranked.

Players new to the list for this youngest age group in the IMG Academy 150 include #59 Angeline Daly and #89 Madison Murnin from Concorde Fire, as well as #126 Samantha Draxler from Utah Avalanche. Midfielders Daly and Murnin have moved to ECNL club Concorde Fire from their respective clubs in Florida, and look to help Brian Moore’s squad improve upon its 2013 3^rd place finish in the Southeast Conference. Center back Draxler also made the move to the ECNL for this season (from La Roca FC), and will be a welcome addition to a defense that has struggled to keep a clean sheet.

Not only has the IMG Top 150 received scrutiny, but the regional lists have been updated as well. Keep checking back this week as we unveil newcomers such as World Class FC’s Erica Bardes, Crossfire Premier’s Grace Wall, Sereno’s Chloe Christakos, West Coast FC’s Serena Camacho, Tennessee SC’s Julia French, 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.