<p>I'm new to CC and i'm so glad i found this site!</p>
<p>My daughter is a rising senior and is being recruited by all of the major swim schools in the US. she had thought she wanted to swim at one of the Ivies, but that's now changed. she wants swimming to play a larger role in her college life, and i can't really blame her. she's an excellent student, great scores, and has Olympic Trials time standards. she's a sprinter.</p>
<p>our issue has to do with the fact that my wife and i are self employed and our incomes fluctuate significantly from year to year. for 2011 i predict we would qualify for significant need based aid at the ivies, which is our "baseline". she has been told by three schools directly that she is definitely a scholarship candidate. a couple have said "significant".</p>
<p>her first choice schools have told her to go through the FA office to get and early "read", but i have a good idea what our EFC would be by using calculators at similar schools and FAFSA, etc. we have been reading all we can about which is better, the FA first and then supplementing with athletic aid, or vice versa. she should earn a full ride scholarship, or close to it, in my opinion...</p>
<p>should we do the early FA read? it seems like there are 2 schools of thought on this: get as much athletic aid first, or the other way. what's the consensus here? i do not want to hire a negotiaotor or consultant if possible as i don't know who to trust.</p>
<p>Hey Chris - you came to the right place, welcome. If your daughter were to swim at an Ivy it would be a purely need-based award, as you know. If she has her sights set on a scholarship school - the coach probably wants you to get an early read from the FA office to know what percentage of his allotted 14 women’s swimming scholarships he’ll have to offer to get your daughter to attend.</p>
<p>I would go ahead and submit the docs to the FA office and let the coach come up with a total award package.</p>
<p>(and don’t hire a middleman / negotiator - coaches want to work with a kid and his/her parents)</p>
<p>I agree with varska - get the early read - take it from there. I suspect it all falls into place; also she should go to school where she wants to go. And if she doesn’t know that now she will probably get a feel for it when she visits the schools and meets the girls on the team.</p>
<p>Congrats on the Olympic trial cuts! What an achievement. I am sure the schools will clamor to have her. </p>
<p>Also keep in mind that the need-based aid will change every year but the swimming won’t. If you and your wife have a great year one year, you could have to pay up.</p>
<p>My daughter is also a swimmer but she stopped with times just shy of junior nationals, so she was looking at different schools. She wants to swim in college but her eyes are not on Olympic trials - she ended up with a nice blend of athletic and merit aid, and we were pretty happy with that. Although we do end up having to pay the rest!</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter and enjoy the search. Does she want to sign early or wait until spring?</p>
<p>Thanks Varska! I appreciate your input. What if the FA office comes back and says we don’t get a reduction in EFC? I’m trying to figure out how badly they want my daughter, who just got a new Trails Cut this morning at US Nationals. She’s very high on the Collegeswimming.com recruiting web site and we’ve been told that she’s a “top recruit” by several sets of parents whose kids have gone through this process.</p>
<p>I read in one of those recruiting books that “you always want as much athletic aid as possible” as it doesn’t fluctuate with income changes from the parents. If that’s the case, why not supplement the athletic grant with the FA? Give us your offer up front so to speak…</p>
<p>Like I said before, we are FA candidates this year, but who knows going forward? Without trying to sound arrogant, “how badly do you want her?”. This scholarship stuff wasn’t an issue for us a couple of months ago as she wanted to go to an Ivy league school and we knew where we stood exactly. Now we’ve got this complicated situation and we’re supposed to negotiate…</p>
<p>Congratulations to your DD on her athletics.</p>
<p>You might also want to consider the scenario of what may happen if she becomes injured. Would she still like to be at this school for four years?</p>
<p>Are you happy to pay tuition if an injury prevents her from swimming? </p>
<p>Athletes confront a very different lifestyle at college- dorm life can be a challenging adjustment: noise, lack of privacy, temptations of parties, boys. </p>
<p>Different food, close living quarters and the subsequent spread of viruses, no wake-up calls and no private nursing of sickness by mom, all can combine to alter the student’s athletic performance. Be sure you are all prepared for changing circumstances over the course of four years.</p>
<p>Budgets can be cut, coaches can shift money to younger, faster swimmers, etc. Ask the school if they guarantee four years of athletic $ even if the athlete is injured (most do not). Hopefully none of these scenarios will develop for your DD, but its best to be prepared.</p>
<p>Very good points ALL and ones My wife and i constantly mention. We went to Williams College so we definitely value small liberal arts schools. It kills us, sort of :), to have her choose to go to school elsewhere! At the end of the day, she’s got to make the choice. Her ideal school would be Williams or Amherst with a Stanford/Cal swim program. Unfortunately they do not exist.</p>
<p>Anyway, we do have confidence that she’ll make the right choice. The best thing any aspiring college athlete can do is work equally hard in the classroom so he has many options. it’s nice to be able to say “no thanks” to the best schools in the country…</p>
<p>now we need to focus on how to achieve the lowest COA possible no matter where she goes. Can anyone guide us on the preferred strategy of athletic aid vs need based FA? What should come first?</p>
<p>Bear in mind that an athletic scholarship is a one-year deal. Tales of ‘four year full-rides’ notwithstanding. So you may negotiate as much athletic scholarship money as you can to protect yourself from having your FA award reduced if your income goes up, but there is no guarantee her scholarship will remain constant. (In reality, athletic scholarships are seldom pulled or reduced, but it is possible.)</p>
<p>If the coach from 1st choice school asked you to go through FA office first - you should probably act in good faith and do just that. I would let the coach know your concerns about the award being reduced in the future.</p>
<p>Another little trivial tidbit that could save you thousands - if the coach offers a choice between a flat dollar amount or a percentage of COA, take the percentage - COA increases every year and your ‘set dollar amount’ award will be a smaller and smaller percentage as costs rise.</p>
<p>Lastly, remind you daughter that someday she’ll have to hang up her goggles, and when she does an Ivy degree <cough, harvard,=“” cough=“”> might be a nice thing to have. ;-)</cough,></p>
<p>Varsky-
Thanks for the reply. I think i agree with going through the early read. my only issue is that i know where we stand using institutional and FAFSA methodology. of course, those calculators are not “official” but in the ball park for sure. </p>
<p>we definitely agree that the academic reputation is a great thing. i have discovered that the elite athletic networks are pretty strong, they are just different. i do know that D1 athletic connection open a lot of doors in the world and, depending on the school, the alumni network can be invaluable. so, you and i are definitely on the same page.</p>
<p>i will be speaking with the coach after nationals, when we’re allowed, so i will bring this issue up and guage his reaction…</p>
<p>I was talking with another parent of a scholar-athlete and thought I’d jump in here.
The other parent has a D1 athlete with significant athletic scholarship plus other private scholarship and can speak to that…
in our case, I have a D1 scholar-athlete about to attend an ivy…and we are slef employed so have some experience with that bit…</p>
<p>It sounds like your DD- with Olympic aspirations and times to draw such attention can probably find full athletic support from an excellent program at a D1 school. </p>
<p>FWIW a parent acquaintance of mine has a dd who is a swimmer and she choose a large D1 school for the coaches and chemistry because of her Olympic aspirations. Also the school gave her a full ride and the support will continue through 5 years since being in the pool so much means she cannot carry a heavy load…
Could she have gone ivy–probably–yet the ivies only give need based aid.
And this swimmer felt the large D1 program was the better vehicle to get her to the Olympic pool. </p>
<p>Our student is going to attend an ivy.
The school fin-aid office did a fin pre-read and I can tell you that it is helpful to get that pre-read from FinAid if the coach will request it for you. Generally coaches will be requesting that for you around the time of the OV. Fin Aid offices have limited time for pre-reads and in our case, the pre-read request had to be sent in through the coach. </p>
<p>As far as the calculators go etc–the ivies vary ALOT in aid. ALOT. </p>
<p>Also, you will find that what the IRS says is your income is NOT what the finaid office says is your income. As a self-employed person, they will add back certain allowances and deductions. They will want your business tax returns, your personal returns and a lot of info. For example, anything you put away for retirement - the finaid office adds back as income…in that those dollars can be put towards tuition instead of a SEP, IRA etc. Sadly, being self employed works against you a bit–things that wouldn’t show (such as employer contributions to your IRA) do show when you as a self-employed business owner put $ into your SEP… Also all charitable contributions get added back in…Deductions for things like health expenses etc etc…</p>
<p>So bottom line–take every financial pre-read you can get from a fin-aid office.</p>
<p>thanks for this excellent post! i completed the early read app for the school today. based on what i submitted we will probably not qualify at all for any aid, but this will be a good starting point.</p>
<p>my DD’s Olympic aspirations are relatively new. she’s really focusing on 2016, but who knows? </p>
<p>i definitely agree with and am aware of the self-employed tax issues. as for medical expenses, the folks i’ve spoken with say they get subtracted?</p>
<p>i would LOVE to be able to make contact with your friend whose daughter is on a full ride. we really need to understand how the packages are most favorably put together and what, if any, negotiating strategy would be appropriate. you can send me a PM if you get permission from your friends.</p>
<p>Snet you a PM on the 18th. Let me know what i can do to help. no expert, yet having been through the process, might be able to give some insight.</p>