<p>I think I have this right, If a school offers 2 students a 50% athletic scholarship and 50% merit or need aid(In essence, 2 free rides)It would be considered as one athletic scholarship, counted toward the teams cap, not two. IE merit or need aid is not considered toward the teams cap. Correct?</p>
<p>Correct in baseball and I think in all other sports except football and basketball where it is full rides only.</p>
<p>I am curious about this w/soccer. I heard a DI coach say that need-based aid counts against his team’s cap for scholarships, yet on one school’s website they say that they encourage the student-athletes to apply for need-based aid in addition to any partial athletic scholarships they might receive.</p>
<p>I know merit aid is not counted against team cap for scholarships in soccer. Have no idea about need-based. I am curious about the need-based aid counting. That doesn’t make sense to me.</p>
<p>
because some unethical school would provide the NCAA limit of athletic scholarships and amazingly and coincidentally all the other top recruits wouild get financial aid/merit scholarships so they also could go for free (which would basically wipe out the NCAA scholarship limit). I believe that is what drives the rules about only having full scholarships for men’s basketball and football (the big revenue sports) … it limits the room for monkey business.</p>
<p>But NCAA rules are already in place to check merit scholarships. I know since we had to submit paperwork and provide info on merit aid our Ds received. I would think the same would be in place for need-based aid. (Can you tell we weren’t eligible for need-based! ;))</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?key=/ncaa/ncaa/ncaa+news/ncaa+news+online/2009/division+i/di+financial+aid+cabinet+ponders+counters_07_16_09_ncaa_news[/url]”>http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?key=/ncaa/ncaa/ncaa+news/ncaa+news+online/2009/division+i/di+financial+aid+cabinet+ponders+counters_07_16_09_ncaa_news</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.mndaily.com/2009/07/28/ncaa-considers-changing-division-i-financial-aid-model[/url]”>http://www.mndaily.com/2009/07/28/ncaa-considers-changing-division-i-financial-aid-model</a>
Edit: Just found this. Very interesting.</p>
<p>We were told by a D 1 school that need-based financial aid counted toward the team’s cap. I’m beginning to think that may explain why D has received fewer recruiting calls than anticipated, since she did indicate on recruiting questionnaires that she would be applying for need-based aid. I spoke at length with the coach from my alma mater who called to recruit D, and she was floored to hear that D had not gotten more attention, given her over 2300 SAT’s and over 4.0 GPA, her top 20 ranking in the country for her class in her best event, and minority status to boot. So, while some of the stronger programs might want her on their roster, they might not want her to count as a scholarship, saving those for national champion types. They may be able to get full-pay kids almost as good as D, such as by tapping the prep school population. Does this make sense?</p>
<p>If need based aid counts against the cap, would that mean that a student would count against the cap if they received need aid, but no athletic money and was on the team?</p>
<p>That’s what I understood, yes, for the reason stated in post #5.</p>
<p>Read the articles linked to earlier. Sounds like there may be some change coming.</p>
<p>There is some nuance is how need based aid is counted towards the team cap. A lot depends on if you are recruited or not and if there is an outside scholarship or not and that outside scholarship has athletics as a major component of being selected for the scholarship. </p>
<p>For example, let’s say you are a recruited athlete and the school gives you institutional need based aid that is not based on athletics–essentially regular old financial aid that all students at the school can apply for–and that’s it. That need based aid is not counted toward the team limit.</p>
<p>However, let’s say that you are the same athlete as above and then you receive an athletic based scholarship from outside the institution that is based on athletics. </p>
<p>Then it is at this point that your institutional aid, as well as the outside aid, is counted toward the team limit.</p>
<p>So if the outside award is small and the team is near its limit, you may have to decline that outside scholarship.</p>
<p>But in this case, need based aid, and need based aid alone, does not count toward the team limit.</p>
<p>Here’s a link from Boston College that describes this particular situation. It is quite recent and very informative. The above situation is ‘example 2’:</p>
<p><a href=“http://graphics.fansonly.com/photos/schools/bc/genrel/auto_pdf/outside-financial-aid-form.pdf[/url]”>http://graphics.fansonly.com/photos/schools/bc/genrel/auto_pdf/outside-financial-aid-form.pdf</a></p>
<p>That’s very helpful, thanks!</p>
<p>Looks like this model is about to change judging by north Minnesota’s post. It really does seem unfair.</p>
<p>Need-based aid alone definitely does not count toward the limit. My daughter was a “recruited walk-on”…her school only had one scholarship to give that year, so they had several girls who were recruited, but without a scholarship. She did receive need-based aid, but it did not count toward the team cap. The team already had used it’s full allotment of scholarships and one of her teammates (who had received a full-ride) was also encouraged by the coach to apply for merit aid to cover other costs (books, etc.)</p>
<p>Actually NorthMinn’s links were good news…looks like need-based aid won’t count toward the team cap if the proposed changes are accepted. But I am still confused, BC’s information seems to indicate that need-based aid currently does not count toward the cap.</p>
<p>Yes, it is pretty confusing. </p>
<p>Perhaps the difference has to do with ‘head count’ sports versus ‘equivalency’ sports?</p>
<p>I may be wrong here, but I think in some sports you cannot divide up 1 scholarship among several players. I assume that this is a ‘head count’ sport and typically the NCAA allows enough scholarships for the players on the roster. Football is like this. Maybe institutional need based aid, even when it is not combined with athletic money, counts in these sports toward the team limits?</p>
<p>And then with those sports in which you can divide up a scholarship among several players–like soccer-then you have an ‘equivalency’ sport. Typically, there are not enough scholarships for the players on the roster. Perhaps here, institutional need based aid does not count toward the team limit in these sports unless it is combined with other athletic aid?</p>
<p>Just guessing here.</p>
<p>It was a DI soccer coach who told us that need based aid could not be combined with the athletic scholarship or it would count toward his team’s cap…but BC’s info seems to contradict that.</p>