Athletic scholarships

Parents Forum
1

<p>Curmudge could address this much better than I, but I just wanted to ask, if many have gotten athletic scholarships or have their kids?</p>

<p>I seem many complaints on the boards, about athletes getting preference/money, but while I do know two athletes who are in Ivy schools ( who of course don't give money for sports), the other athletes that I know of, top ranked women, who were * the* player for their state winning class div 4 team, and they either received a scholarship to a school that IMO, they could have gone to anyway, or they weren't offered anything, as in Darnellia Russells case, the star of Heart of the Game & the Roosevelt High school basketball team.</p>

<p>I guess I was just surprised.
Is it any different for boys? I realize if all the top kids from all the top teams around the country go to college, there is only so much enticement the schools need to do- but I was wondering if there are more scholarships offered for young men. The womens category seems ultra competitive.</p>

2

<p>One of my sons got a full athletic scholarship. He could have chosen any of the Ivy's and gone there if he wanted to (we do not qualify for financial aid though so he would have had to pay for it). His high school class had just under a thousand kids and no one else that year got a full ride, however one kid did get into a top Ivy through sports (no athletic scholarships for Ivy's, just financial aid so he may have gotten $$$ depending on his situation) and a few received partial scholarships (both boys and girls) for sports. It seems to be about one full ride per year in his high school, evenly distributed between boys and girls (i.e. one year a girl gets one, the next two years its guys, etc.).</p>

3

<p>
[quote]
or they weren't offered anything, as in Darnellia Russells case, the star of Heart of the Game & the Roosevelt High school basketball team.

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</p>

<p>Well, there were certainly extenuating circumstances of her own doing there, quitting school and becoming pregnant. Can you blame major college coaches from shying away?</p>

<p>I think there is somewhat of a misperception about how many scholarships there actually are to go around out there. While the "revenue" sports like football, basketball (both men's and women's) and ice hockey (ditto) have enough scholarships to go around for almost every team member, the "lesser" sports, such as track, wrestling, baseball, lacrosse, etc. have a very limited # of scholarships to spread around amongst various players, and almost no one gets a true "full ride." For example, the major lacrosse programs have 35 or 40 men on their roster (3 lines), but only have 12.6 scholarships to divvy up, which means that some players are out of luck.</p>

<p>See this link for details: <a href="http://www.campuschamps.com/rulebook/ncaa_scholarship_limits.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.campuschamps.com/rulebook/ncaa_scholarship_limits.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

4

<p>
[quote]
some players are out of luck.

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</p>

<p>Alternatively, some coaches in lesser sports is divvy up the scholarhips on a prorata basis, so every player gets the same % of scholarship.</p>

5

<p>It's probably easier to attain some sort of academic scholarship than an athletic one, assuming either way you're planning ahead a few years. </p>

<p>As far as recruited athletes, the experience at my small, fairly normal public school has been that only recruited athletes have gotten into Ivies in the last few years. They are still wonderful, well rounded people that will add a lot to the school though, so I do not view recruiting athletes as bad. When there are so many applicants at these schools they have to pick somehow and someone who is going to add to their sports program is probably a good way.</p>

6

<p>I think the whole "athletic" preference/scholarship complaint is overblown. This has been discussed on many threads, and I don't have time to look up all the stats, but the NCAA specifies how many scholarships can be given for each sport in each division and there really aren't that many when you look at the big picture of the school.</p>

<p>For example, Div 1 basketball is allotted 12 scholarships by NCAA, which would average out to 3 scholarships per admitted class. Not even a discernible ripple in the pool of D1 school admittees.</p>

<p>(Whoops, ArtV I just read your link - you provided the info - Thanks)</p>

7

<p>The amount of money a school gives for athletic scholarship varies by sport in each school. I don't know if you can say it's more competitive for girls than boys, it depends on the sport, the division they play in, and how fully funded each sport is. Of course, the revenue sports get the biggest chunk of money, but the average seems to be 10-14 full scholarships per sport, if it is a funded sport. </p>

<p>My D, a junior, has just gone through the recruiting process. She received various offers from each school. They ranged from full scholarship (2), 80% (2), 70% (2), and no athletic $$, but promise of need/merit aid (Ivy-1 and Patriot League-2). What is offered is based on many different factors - how badly they want you, what money is available for that year (what has become available due to a scholarship player graduating), and basically, the style or method of the recruiting coach. Some believe in spreading the $$ around so they can get more players, some offer a higher percentage but take less kids, and if they really, really want you - the full ride, but they are very few. But that also limits the number of recruits he/she will take for that year. The level of the player's interest in the school also will play a part in how much is offered. The coaches are very savvy in how they read the interest of each kid. Some kids who really want to go to a school will take no offer of aid if it will get them into that school.</p>

<p>On my D's team, only 3 out of 17 girls, were offered full rides. But, all but one received some form of athletic money (all in Division 1).</p>

8

<p>I forgot to mention, these kids were recruited from my D's club team, not their high school teams.</p>

9

<p>Well, there were certainly extenuating circumstances of her own doing there, quitting school and becoming pregnant. Can you blame major college coaches from shying away</p>

<p>Right- however- she showed enormous strength and determination, she returned to school, returned to her team, graduated with honors.</p>

<p>I don't know what her test scores were, but she had family support & you know that girl is going to graduate-
anyone can get pregnant, but not everyone chooses to have the baby.
I don't think she should have been penalized for that choice.
I am Pro-choice. :)</p>

10

<p>Hi folks. Just checked back due to that horrible shooting at VT. </p>

<p>My son plays division 1 tennis.He would have gotten an athletic scholarship if it weren't for the fact he received the school's President's scholarship, the most the school offers. The coach receives a discretionary amount to build a team. If he can build the team without you, the athletic scholarship money may be used as a lure. But if student is receiving other scholarships and coach can do with or without student, as he frankly put it to my son, " yeah, you would be good on the team, but look at Johnny, he doesn't have the other scholarships you do and is a better player, so I need to use the little I have for him."<br>
If they are really interested in you, student is a standout at his sport, they will offer a scholarship. This is down right because of talent and/or skill. However, many kids fall into the catagory of being a good athlete, not an outstanding top in their sport athlete.And that is where my son fell. He would have gotten an athletic scholarship, it would have been used as a lure, if he did not already qualify for so much other money.
You know what, we would have NEVER done it differently. I mean, we could have spent in excess of $10,000 - $15,000 annually for a coach and lessons so son could have gone to regional and national tournaments. We could have done this so our son would have been competitive in the higher scheme of competition. But instead, we saved the money for his education and took a more resonable approach and spared ourselves the grief, stress, risk of injury, emotional consequences, etc. And we are really glad we did it the way we did and am sure my son feels the same way. Sport is only one facet to our son's life.</p>

11

<p>List of scholarship limits by sport and gender</p>

<p><a href="http://www.educationplanner.com/education_planner/paying_article.asp?sponsor=2859&articleName=NCAA_Scholarship_Limits%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.educationplanner.com/education_planner/paying_article.asp?sponsor=2859&articleName=NCAA_Scholarship_Limits&lt;/a> </p>

<p>Those expecting to get the "free ride" are likely to be surprised at how little is offered unless their student is among the best in a highly competitive state. Its also interesting to compare the numbers. Why anyone would want to offer 20 scholarships in womens rowing is mind boggling considering the other limits.</p>

12

<p>Title 9 is the only reason. Women's crew is the only w sport that can use 80-100 members on the team and balance football.</p>

13

<p>Good grief.</p>

14

<p>As an addition to backhandgrip's comments above, it is worth noting that tennis, especially at the D-I level, is a very different animal than most college sports, in that the recruiting is so international. Many of the top teams only have a few American citizens on their teams, with lots of players coming from Asia and South America. So I'm sure that it comes as a shock to some parents that little Johnny or Susie, who placed highly at the state tourney, isn't even on the radar for the top-level college coaches.</p>

15

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<p>I hope it doesn't seem like I'm picking on emeraldkity or anything, but the reality is that very few of the elite academic schools even offer athletic scholarships. Many are either D-III or D-I non-scholarship (Ivy & Patriot league, which also generally doesn't have scholarships, except for hoops). </p>

<p>Looking down top 40 of the US News nat'l uni rankings, here are the schools that do not offer athletic scholarships: Cal Tech, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Wash U, JHU (except for lacrosse), Chicago, Emory, CMU, Tufts, Brandeis, NYU, Rochester, CWRU. Twenty names on that list, which works out to exactly 50% of the "elite" schools that don't offer scholarships (there is a 3-way tie at 38th, where I cut the list off).</p>

<p>Beyond the top-40, most of the schools are public universities or "second tier" privates, which generally have much higher acceptance rates. My point is (if I have one) that since there are so few athletic awards to go around at these top-flight universities, it is fairly uncommon to see a student-athlete earn an athletic scholarship at a school that is "over their head", academically speaking, if they are a halfway decent student to begin with.</p>

16

<p>My son was all state in wrestling all four years of high school. He was offered an athletic scholarship at a DIVI school. It was partial tuition. I don't even think it was half. He was, however, also offered a full tuition academic scholarship which he chose instead. </p>

<p>The year he graduated from high school, There were only a couple of boys offered athletic scholarship in a graduation class of 500. There were quite a few more girls. I always thought it was easier for a girl to get a scholarship because colleges were trying to increase their numbers for Title IX</p>

17

<p>we've noticed a trend that more recruits are coming in to d1 programs from the ranks of the junior colleges. this is a revenue sport, women's basketball.</p>

<p>has anyone else noticed this in other sports? revenue or non-revenue?</p>

<p>d1 wbb can award up to 15 full ride scholarships. partials are not awarded, just full-ride. not all 15 have to be used. </p>

<p>same trend among d2 programs........recruiting from the junior college ranks.</p>

18

<p>After re-reading it, I realized the link I posted is titled in a way that makes it misleading. Its titled "annual" scholarship limits......but the numbers are for the entire sport for that year, for everyone from freshman to seniors and above.</p>

<p>For example, in mens tennis, at 4.5, there is on average, one scholarship available in each entering class. </p>

<p>With baseball at 11.7, there are fewer than 3 available each year, depending on how the coach manages his athletes and other factors.</p>

<p>If you factor in reshirting at the truly big-time programs, the number available per year is even lower. </p>

<p>Frankly, this is one great reason for a terrific athlete to look hard at the Ivies over some other schools. In some sports, you'll be just as competitive, and you won't have any coach trying to run you off after the first two years when he'd rather have your scholarship than you. There are a lot of stories that concern athletes being asked to give up some of their aid for the good of the program and the team.</p>

19

<p>institutition data can be found here:</p>

<p><a href="http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/main.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/main.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>for athletically related student aid see revenues and expenses.</p>

20

<p>Several years ago when Rice won the NCAA baseball tournament, they had a great many players on their roster from junior colleges. Looking at their roster today, they seem to have about 10 players who are transfers or jc players.</p>

<p>ASU has about 12 such players, but others like Miami and Georgia have few. </p>

<p>I think the number vaires quite a bit depending on the local environment and how you choose to run the program.</p>

<p>Condor, are you saying that no one splits the womens basketball scholarships? I'm guessing that with 15 on the team, you don't really need to split them. Thats one of the highest ratios of scholarships to starting positions of all the sports.</p>