Our S24 (Spain) is currently working with a recruitment agency to study architecture at the university in the USA and combine it with competitive golf.
I would to ask you how you see the possibility of combining this 5-year degree (one without a scholarship) with the competition and travel. Do you think he should choose another more affordable major?
He is studying 11th grade (STEM) with A+ grades in technical drawing
As an alternative to a 5-year program in architecture, your son may want to consider a 4-year program in architectural studies, such as at HWS.
It sounds difficult to me. Architecture is a time-consuming, challenging major. I was an architectural engineering major so I had to take a few architectural design classes. Yikes, they were hard and I didn’t sleep much!
@mathmom any thoughts?
Studying architecture is very very time intensive. they spend hours upon hours working in studios on drawings, plans and models. Even the 4 year plans can be very intensive with time. I dont want to sound negative; but just sharing what it’s like for a kid. two other ideas maybe: graphic design? or golf management?
This is a question to ask the coaches that your S is talking with. Some coaches do place constraints on what majors their players can pursue. Architecture is a demanding major in terms of course load and hours spent working outside class.
For sports, you can look at the average hours spent per sport on the NCAA GOALs studies, by level here (golf is broken out on some pages, and combined with ‘other’ in some pages).
This depends on your family financial situation. Architecture (at least in the US) is a relatively low paying career, but it’s not clear whether he’s a US citizen, or an international student who would return to their home country after college. I encourage your S to investigate architecture career paths and outcomes by school. If the career center doesn’t post that info, he should contact them and ask. Good luck.
I was an architecture major and was considering playing a sport in college. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to be an Architect more than I wanted to be a college athlete so I played at the club level at my large university. My school offered a Batchelor of Science in Architectural Studies in 4 years, followed by 2 years of grad school to earn Masters in Architecture. I was able to play club for all 6 years. Architecture is one of the most demanding majors in terms of time spent. Lots of late nights in studio building models, drawings, renderings, etc. If he does want to do both, he would need to be able to manage his time very wisely. And of course, speak with the coaches about the time expectations of his sport(practices, competitions, travel) before commiting.
Thank you very much for the number of responses in such a short time.
Indeed, the first thing the recruitment agency told us is that the career of architecture greatly restricts the options: not all universities have architecture and not all of those that have architecture have a men’s golf team, added to the fact that there are five years of study and one without a scholarship.
We haven’t started talking to coaches yet (possibly starting in the summer). Our son is determined to study this degree and he must be clear that perhaps he should change his mind regarding the major or study the major in our country.
It sounds like he understands the constraints that major places on his college search. Then throw in the fact that some college coaches won’t allow/recruit architecture majors, and the desire for scholarship, he is likely looking at a small subset of options. What level of golf is he looking to play?
If you are looking for golf scholarships, that narrows things even more. That will eliminate all NCAA D3 schools, and the D1 Ivy League schools. For NCAA D1/2 schools that do provide men’s golf scholarships, coaches are limited to 4.5 and 3.6 scholarships, respectively, per year.
So, most golf athletes only receive a fraction of a scholarship. Beyond that, some schools may give need based aid (if the family qualifies), and if the school offers merit aid, they might stack some merit aid on top of any athletic scholarship. He might also look at NAIA schools.
What is your annual college budget?
I will say that I fully intended to continue studying piano seriously after I started college, but I found engineering too time-consuming and dropped that idea after about two weeks. I don’t know how people do it, although some obviously do.
Our annual budget is around $20,000 after aid. Obviously with a high golf level and medium-high academics. Our junior golfers are highly valued in the USA.
That’s a significant constraint for I’m assuming an international student.
If he is looking at high level golf schools with architecture that aren’t tippy top academics, say like U Arizona or U Alabama, the coach is going to be the final arbiter on the major selection. Is your S having conversations with coaches, and if so, has he asked any of them about being an architecture major?
As indicated above, he will start talking to coaches in the summer, but the recruitment agency insists that this career is quite limiting.
I would be worried about the time commitment for architecture and being on a competitive team. Architecture is probably the most time demanding major around. All nighters in the studio are common. Work load is intense. I stopped my study of architecture when I was assigned a project taking an estimated 70 to 90 hours of work, over six days, during midterms for my other classes😂. It is no joke. A five year program is required in the US to get an architectural license, or a four year program with a two years masters degree.
Although I understand cost is a consideration, I think the most important question is whether an architecture degree is compatible with the commitments of a competitive athlete.
I do think architecture is a limiting major for a high level golfer, for the many reasons posters have stated here.
I don’t understand why your S is waiting to speak with coaches? 2024 recruiting is happening now, and some of the top men’s programs will be full for Class of 2024 by the summer.
It is what the recruitment company advises us. Possibly they have already moved the prospect to coaches since signing the contract a year ago. Another thing is the call
Many people believe that athletes can’t major in some subjects but my experience was different. My daughter majored in civil engineering and completed her program in 4 years. She had no extra credits (AP or DE) going in and needed 131 credits to graduate. She did it. She worked hard. She started and played almost 100% of every game for 4 years.
She went to a Tech school, so a majority of the athletes (including the golf team that won a lot and several golfers were internationals) were in STEM. The school did not have an architecture major or program. There were merit scholarships and athletic scholarships. At the time D2 athletes couldn’t take need based scholarships without it counting against the team max (so the school didn’t give need based aid to athletes who were getting athletic aid) but I know this rule has changed. Your recruiting people should know how to balance the different types of aid. My daughter had athletic aid but also had merit, grants from the school, grants from the state and federal governments, loans, and an outside scholarship.
I think it is your son’s responsibility to figure out what academic programs work for him and then give that list to the recruiters. Tennessee? University of Idaho (which has a golf team with half the members being international)?
https://www.collegeaffordabilityguide.org/subjects/architecture/
You’ll have to check which programs have golf teams.
The architectural studies program mentioned upthread does not provide a professional degree, so you’d still have to go to a master’s program in order to work as an architect. I went that route and I have never, ever worked so hard or pulled so many all-nighters. I think that if you want to do sports and architecture a college with mostly engineering majors might actually be a better fit in terms of having more understanding coaches, but I could be wrong.
You may also want to post in the Athletic Recruits forum to get some additional perspectives.
I agree with this. Your son needs to figure out what schools have both. And he should have already been reaching out to coaches. Do not rely on paid recruiting services (such as NCSA) to figure out what schools are best for your son. Unless your kid is the next Tiger Woods, there is not a lot of scholarship money in college golf. It might be more fruitful to find schools that offer good academic merit money.
I think you are right! I think the Tech schools that have big(ger) sports program do have a way to work out things. For example, at my daughter’s school, all math tests were on Thursday evenings. This allowed the coaches to schedule games/meets on weekends and leave on Fridays. I know the soccer team had a lot of games on Wednesdays. My daughter had one science test and they let her, and others, take the test with the first section on Friday morning and then her team bus left for the weekend.
It was also helpful that she went to school in Florida and almost all games were within 3 hours of her school OR the out of state teams came to them. This was true with the golf team (and most others) too. If you are golfing in Ohio, you are traveling more to find the sun in February.