<p>First week Dec. S is going to a college interview and a coach will be taking son on a tour of the campus. Son has aready met the coach and coach has also called. There seems some genuine interest. Should we bring up the issue of an athletic scholarship? Son will, pending the interview, receive a huge merit scholarship. Should we bring up an athletic scholarship, too? (College does not have a football team.) Also, this 'letter of intent', do all Div.1 sports recruitments get one of these and should we bring this up also? Or should we not push our luck on both issues.</p>
<p>Also, it may be between this Div.1 college and a Div.3 where the coach already likes son and it looks quite good. Is there anything we could mention to the Div.3 college to sweeten the deal? Son would already receive a big merit award there.</p>
<p>We just don't want to aggravate any coaches. Son really likes both colleges.</p>
<p>Some D1 schools do not give any athletic scholarships (i.e. the Ivies and some others). Others don't give them in certain sports. You might just ask the coach if there is any athletic money available for your son. The DIII is probably not going to be able to sweeten the deal much, but you never know. Once you have an idea of the total package from the DI, it is certainly fair to tell the DIII coach your situation and see what happens. A lot depends on how badly the coach needs your son. A top Ivy recently came up with an astronomical "need based" package for a classmate of S's they are desperately recruiting for a sport.......</p>
<p>Without knowing which sport you are talking about it's hard to tell you which way to go. I think you should be able to scout out what sort of athletic scholarships this specific school offers in this sport. That's valuable information to have. Check out the NCAA website.</p>
<p>For lacrosse (the sport I know about) a fully funded D1 program may offer up to 12.6 equivalent full rides. A team generally carries about 40 kids and the dollars are spread around among the 40. Very few actually get a full scholarship. One school dangled dollars in front of my son -- big whoop -- it was enough to transport him back and forth a few times making it cost the equivalent of attending a school closer to home with out a scholarship.</p>
<p>The coaches are generally pretty upfront about scholarships, but unless you are talking football and basketball, it's my impression that the majority of full rides only exist at parental cocktail parties.</p>
<p>The 'letter of intent' is a committment by the school and the athlete tied to an offer of aid. It would only be D1 schools.</p>
<p>There's some question in my mind whether the merit scholarship is counted against athletic dollars for a recruited athlete. Definitely something to check out.</p>
<p>My D's teammate was offered both an academic and a sport's scholarship and assumed she could add them together. She was thrilled. At the last minute she discovered that the athletic one would reduce her scholastic one and she did not attend. She did not do her research well enough or ask the right questions and was devistated as her family did not have enough money for her to attend as it turned out.</p>
<p>When you think about the cost of tuition these days, I can 't see why you could not add the scholarships together. Doing so would still not cover a full ride for some schools if an athletic scholarship be maybe 1/4 tuition.
Thanks for any input.</p>
<p>And always worried about the rogue coach. You know, that coach who seems nice at first then turns into a raving maniac. Don't want to rub any coach the wrong way!</p>
<p>When it comes to mingling different scholarships, it is hard to find GENERAL rules and you have to look at individual cases. Several rules may come in play: problems with mixing athtletic and other aid if the student does not meet a number of academic criteria, problems with not being able to double-dip if federal funds are used in the awards, and the list goes on At the end, you need to find out all the details from the school and apply the particular school and NCAA rules to the exact situation of the potential awardee. </p>
<p>Not all schools use the Official Letter of Intent.</p>
<p>Your son also needs to make some decisions about his goals. </p>
<p>If he is really a candidate for a substantial athletic scholarship at a D1 school, does he want to play D3? If he is assured merit scholarships at both places, does he really want the time commitment to play a D1 sport? </p>
<p>If he has to choose between athletic and merit scholarships, what will he do? The merits typically require maintaining an acceptable academic record. How high must his GPA be to keep the scholarship? How likely is he to achieve this if he is playing his sport intensely (for example, what is the team gpa, what proportion of the athletic scholarship athletes graduate on time)? If he takes the athletic scholarship, then he keeps his money only as long as he stays with the sport. How likely is he to get to college and decide he would rather spend that time and effort in the lab, library, or on stage?</p>
<p>getting back to your first question...with college costs as they are, I think it is entirely reasonable to bring up the subject of athletic scholarship possibility with the coach, as long as you are sure the coach has genuine interest. I can't imagine the coach being "put off" by your addressing the subject. Often they go to bat for you in admissions and also financial aid.</p>
<p>My nephew played a sport at an ivy where he was recruited...the coach managed to get him a terrific package. This in contrast to minimal (just loans) packages at other schools. While ivies can't give athletic scholarships they sure can bend the rules for those they want, and often it's the coach's word that helps the most.</p>
<p>Oh, and yes, absolutely ask about an athletic scholarship if the university offers them. This is expected. After all, they offer the scholarships to attract top athletes who might go somewhere else if it were not for the money. If your son don't discuss it, the coach may conclude that he is not particularly interested.</p>
<p>I attended school on a Division 1 scholarship (full ride) - I went because the school I attended and Stanford were the only USNWR top 10 schools to offer athletic scholarships. I likely could have qualified for merit academic aid - albeit not as much as the athletic scholarship provided. But don't forget, keeping grades up and academic focus along with devoting 40 hours a week to athletics (don't forget to factor in the fatigue - practices and games or contest are not intramurals and are intense beyond that imagined in high school) is a tall order. And since NCAA athletic scholarships are renewable yearly, no matter how hard one focuses on academics there is always a nagging thought that the sport must come first. Outside of football, there are only a few scholarships each year in each sport (at most), and you feel the pressure to produce. And production is largely a function of prodigious amounts of practice and preparation - at an intensity level that is high virtually all of the time. If I had the chance to do it again, I would have been far more patient and diligent in obtaining merit and other forms of aid. I was a really good student but thought of myself as an athlete first - easy to do when you are 17 and you get in the media, etc. I wanted the "ego" kick of being on scholarship - and did not think all facets through. If your son is recruited, he will clearly have a place on the team, yet keep open the opportunity to place the kind of emphasis he feels he needs on school. </p>
<p>I have had other posters infer that being on athletic scholarship is no different than those with musical or dramatic or artistic interests. Well, I think the arts are great - but there's no way that those activities drain one physically like top level Div 1 (in most sports, it really is professional athletics) athletics does - there were times that all I could do is crawl to class and flop in the back row. And then there's the constant threat of injury - to be great - you are always redlining physically. Its just a different ball of wax. </p>
<p>I don't mean to discourage athletic scholarships - but anyone on them who really wants to be a legitimate student in a challenging major at the schools discussed here at CC better really be prepared for what they are taking on. Note that this message is particularly relevant to this board because parents who are on this are likely to have kids that are pretty darn good (or great) students, and its import is greater to this audience than the vast number of kids going to school on athletic scholarships with 950-1000 SATS (old test) and a 2.8 or so - many of whom major in the hidden curriculums Div. 1 schools have for athletes. School (at least as I and other CC'er understand it) and Div. 1 athletic competition were by far, far and away the most stressful thing I have ever done - not even close. And to this day I wish I had made more of my undergraduate education....it is not a bad regret - but it is a regret....</p>
<p>"While ivies can't give athletic scholarships they sure can bend the rules for those they want, and often it's the coach's word that helps the most."</p>
<p>I have heard this before, but I have to wonder what tools do they have to break the rules? Unless I am mistaken, all help at the Ivies takes the form of need-based aid. Differences can be found in the allocation of loans. work-study, or grants. Harvard and Princeton have all but removed loans for the families that need the most aid.</p>
<p>Do you have any examples of how coaches bend the rules of the Ivy League and the NCAA?</p>
<p>There are abilities and atributes many athletes have which are desirable to any college, such as leadership and teamwork. If a player was a team captain in high school this speaks volumes on his application and he doesn't have to rely on a coach to further his cause. Everyone is looking for a team leader, it's like having a hero at the front line.</p>
<p>Xiggi,
an example you asked for might include the cushy part time jobs the star athletes get....ie working at a girl's volleyball game, delivering water during move in day to the new freshman, the types of random, short term jobs where kids pick up some fairly nice $$$ for no real effort but time.....the athletes do not have to seek the work, the work finds them.... not too shabby.....</p>
<p>I can't compare apples to apples, which would be one ivy where N was recruited vs another ivy, same situation, because it didn't happen for him. Several ivies showed initial interest...as various recruits verbally committed the positions get filled, then you're out. One ivy was nicely persistent and that's where he went; a pile of thin letters greeted him April 1 from the others.</p>
<p>But I can compare 2 selective schools, one the ivy and the other a non ivy top tier private where he was not recruited. Using the same FAFSA and profile, the ivy package was nearly half the total cost (some loans but mostly grant) whereas the other private offered just a small loan. Even though the non ivy doesn't guarantee to meet 100% of need (his need in truth wasn't much) the difference was so large that the conclusion we drew was the ivy sweetened the deal...I'm sure it was ivy- and NCAA- legal, with some help from very creative financial officers.</p>