So my daughter is on a high level athletic/academic D3 team (and was recruited by handful of ivies and most nescacs). She’s a Junior - missed frosh year with injury and soph year due to covid - so she will graduate with 2 years of remaining eligibility. She’s considering several Ivy / D3 masters programs for post grad - question is if a coach is interested in her would they have the ability to support her application in a similar manner to the support provided for undergrad application process. The program she is considering is typically 2 years in length so presumably there could be some benefit to the coach.
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I would expect some coaches could support that app. Only way to know for sure is for her to start contacting coaches and ask.
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Agreed - thank you - wondering if anyone here has direct experience with this type of situation
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Every situation is unique…whether a given coach has any kind of influence with grad programs, whether the coach needs a player like your D, who else is available, and on and on. So many athletes in the system trying to use all of their eligibility, it’s unlike anything any of us have seen.
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Keep in mind grad students can’t compete at Ivies. That’s why those athletes go places like Duke, ND, Stanford, UNC, etc for remaining eligibility. I don’t know about D3 grad students competing.
With Covid extending the window to six years there are now a ton of athletes exploring grad school who probably wouldn’t have in the past.
On your actual question: I think it varies but generally no, athletes aren’t going to get the same level of support into grad programs especially at the selective schools. I don’t have direct experience though so look forward to other replies.
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The Ivy League did allow grad students to compete this year ('21-22), but AFAIK they have not extended that waiver/policy. Ivy League to Allow Senior Student Athletes to Compete as Grad Students Due to Covid-19 | News | The Harvard Crimson
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I believe that was a one year only policy.
A lot of kids are going to be graduating from Ivies with a year of eligibilty left, the next 3 years, which is unusual. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. My son changes his plans of how to use that year almost daily.
He has been on a physical grind for years, so one very strongly considered option is to hang up his shoes with a year left on the table. He loves a lot of things about his sport, but he doesn’t love being beat up all of the time, and the thought of a real job with a real paycheck sounds a lot better than going through couch cushions looking for quarters to buy Natty Lite. He is having fun being a student, but being a POOR college student is starting to get a bit old. He isn’t at all sure he wants to stretch that out for another year.
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Yes, thanks for pointing that out. It’s an important exception and one I probably should have mentioned to avoid confusion.
My memory is that it applied only to athletes remaining at their undergrad institutions. With the decision coming after grad application deadlines at many of those schools, I don’t think many athletes were able to take advantage. I do know quite a few Ivy athletes ended up elsewhere as grad students this year and would undoubtedly have stayed if they could.
In any case, I think it was a one time Covid thing designed largely to soften the blow of spring sports being cancelled last year (the announcements came around the same time).
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It’s definitely a tough decision. With more fifth and sixth years in the system, in some sports getting the same competitive experience a “true” senior had in the before times might require an extra year. (Because fewer of the older athletes are moving on).
At least that’s what I’m seeing in track, where a junior in the top 20 might have reasonably expected in the past for 8-10 of those faster to be gone the following year, now they’re still around.
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Wrestling is the same. There are 2 issues, one the competition level is much higher, because there is an extra class in there. There isn’t a full 25% more athletes, but there probably is close to an extra 25% of the truly top level athletes. They are the ones who stayed.
The other issue it causes is with rosters. There have been a couple other factors that contribute in his specific situation, but my son is a junior and 1-3 years younger than most of his “junior” teammates. Guys who should be graduating are still around taking up starting spots.
Those problems are not just on high academic schools, they are everywhere. Which also leads to more guys looking to transfer, both to other D1 programs, and to D2 because they realize they may never get their shot at their original school. Maybe it is happening to D3 too, I just haven’t seen that. D3 is a bit of a different deal I think, but maybe there are transfers from D1 and D2 into D3, I’m less familiar with that.
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Wrestling issue is exacerbated by the high percentage of redshirted athletes - redshirting approach more utilized and prominent in wrestling than any other sport
There is an important distinction between undergrad and grad adnissions. Undergrads are typically admitted by the school, and grad students are admitted by the department.
The department probably cares less about the athletic rankings than the school.
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This ^
Response and guidance I was looking for - cheers
That is exactly how I understand the situation.
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This is true for some grad schools, but not others. OP’s D has to start calling coaches, and doing research on grad programs.
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This is also correct. Most of the graduate transfers tend to wind up in a school’s cash cow graduate programs. I suspect some coaches have connections with certain grad program directors, but no one is getting into a PhD program through athletics.
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One needs to be careful. I was technically admitted by the university, for instance, but the decision was made by the department.
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Also a lot of greyshirts, especially at Ivy schools. And several of the top guys took Olympic redshirts to focus on the Olympic trials a couple of years ago. So you can end up with a current sophomore who graduated HS in 2018. Plus there are a decent number of medical redshirts given too.
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The rule for eligibility was ‘5 years to play 4’, so once you entered college, your clock started running. Sometimes they gave an extra year for a medical issue, but I think you had to apply for it. Covid gave spring athletes an extra year for spring 2020 (but not winter sports like basketball). But the Ivies didn’t play at all in 2020-21, so I think those athletes got another year. I think you really have to go sport by sport and school by school to see how many 5th and 6th year seniors there are.
Some of the rosters on teams are HUGE. I counted 50 players on a women’s lax team. When only 15-20 or so get on the field in a game, that’s a lot of bench sitters.
I know a lot of Ivy grads are playing on other teams this year (and next?) to use their last years of eligibility in men’s lax. These 5th and 6th year grad students are older, more experienced, bigger than the 18 year old freshmen, and are getting a lot more playing time. Many are Ivy league grads; I don’t think they had much trouble getting into a grad program at Duke, Denver, Syracuse. I know Duke has a fund to pay for scholarships at the same level ($$$) that the students were getting when they were on an athletic scholarship so I think the NCAA is ‘overlooking’ the max number of scholarships per team.
So it depends. If the coach really wants the grad student, I think he can get him/her into the school, but maybe not the program the student may want. However, the players also have to be really really good because that student is no longer competing against the 15 or so freshman trying to be recruited but against all the other students on the team and maybe against other transfers. The coach won’t have 3 years to develop the player but only 1 or 2. It is easier to show you are the best as a swimmer or runner but harder to do in a team sport.
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The 20-21 academic year didnt count against eligibilty for anyone, and it didnt count toward the 5 year limit, either. Complete freebie for everyone. The NCAA did not want a season of football and basketball where athletes were sitting out to preserve eligibility, so they removed the risk.
The issue with Ivy League athletes is that most of the schools limit athletes to 8 semesters on campus. Students had to choose to take a leave of absense to preserve their time on campus, not their NCAA eligibility. Things were further complicated for incoming freshman last year. If incoming 2024 freshman decided to take a gap year during AY 20-21, they would count against the class of 2025 slots for the team.
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