When my D was born I thought I had it all figured out: we have excellent state universities, so sign up for the state’s guaranteed tuition program, save some more for room & board, and we’re done. So then D starts swimming, and she gets fast … but not super fast (two junior nat’l cuts by a few tenths), and she wants to swim in college. But unfortunately my state’s best public universities are fast, super fast. So we look around for other options, and out of state cost for colleges for which she matches nicely for swimming are all around $65-$75K. We won’t qualify for financial aid, 100% sure of that, but that doesn’t mean we can drop $260-300K for the four years. The state’s guaranteed tuition program returns principal but the return on that is like almost nothing. So the principal plus meager return would barely cover one year of tuition at an out of state school. D is an excellent student but she does not have the scores that I can see most merit based scholarships coming our way to make up the difference.
So is it realistic to hope for something like 1/2 or 1/3 ride (1/2 or 1/3 of total annual cost) based on swimming at a smaller D1 or a D3? Just to be clear, this is for a student-athlete who would be getting no need-based financial aid. I do realize D3 does not give athletic scholarship but I keep hearing that they can instead provide help in other ways, e.g. merit aid for a variety of reasons. For D1 schools she’s interested in, she would be top 5 in the school in three events but her times would not score in the college’s conference championship. For D3 schools she’s interested in, she would be the top 1-2 swimmer in many events and she would score in the college’s conference championship. Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.
Once an athlete receives athletic aid, all need based aid from the school counts against the team totals, so basically once the student receives athletic aid, there is no need based aid coming from the school. The student can accept merit aid under the same terms as other similarly situated students. The school cannot steer merit aid toward athletes if other students aren’t getting them. Do not expect more aid because your daughter is an athlete. If she has the stats for merit aid, she’ll get it, but if not, nothing extra.
Usually D1 (and D2) swim scholarships are sliced pretty thin. They have a lot of team members to cover with those 8-14 scholarships. And that’s if the team is fully funded.
Can you use the prepaid tuition at other schools in your state? In Florida, you can use it at private schools and you get about what you would have received for a public school. So a Florida student going to a private school in Florida would get the $7000 for FPP, plus $7000 for bright futures, $3500 as a resident grant. Get an athletic scholarship on top of that and pretty soon you are talking real money.
In general, even if top 5 but if not scoring in champs the scholarship money for swim will not be what you are looking for. If she is a good student it would seem more likely to get merit aid at a strong D3 program.
To echo the above but give a bit more detail, swimming programs cut the scholarships very thin. If you figure there are 20-30 women on the team and they are limited to 14 total scholarships that is roughly half per athlete, even everyone were to get the same amount. In reality there is going to be one or two studs per class that get a full ride (or close to it) and many coaches tend to increase the scholarship each year with improvement there are probably a couple more that are full scholarship as well.
In the best case scenario that leaves about 7-8 scholarships for the remainder. Considering the conference scorers (that are not included in the above) have maybe been increased to about a half scholarship that most likely reduces the available scholarships to 4-5. This is where the chopping up happens.
Granted it was years ago but my swim team had people whose scholarship was “books” meaning they got their books on loan from the athletic department when they were available (they kept a library) or the department purchased them and they had to be turned back in to the department at the end of the semester. Others would receive a set dollar amount anywhere from $1,000 - $5,000. It leaves a lot left over to pay for.
The nixing of merit once athletic is offered is not always true I believe, at least in the case of a daughter’s classmate who has a combination of the two that total nearly a full ride. This is at a Division I - mid-major.
It is need based aid provided by the college that must be considered as part of the athletic team’s totals, not merit aid. As long as the merit aid is awarded to athletes under the same conditions as to other students, it’s fine. My daughter had merit aid and two other grants from her school that were available to all other students (not just athletes), but she had to meet the conditions for merit and the grants. Need based aid from federal or state (Pell grants, SEOG, work study) are all fine. A grant from an outside group that had nothing to do with athletics and state merit awards are okay too. None of that has to be included with the team totals for athletic scholarships. If the need based aid is from the school, or the outside grants have anything to do with athletics (scholarship from the hs booster club, award from the golf club, scholarship from a national sports organization) all have to be counted in the team total. Some coaches are fine with that because they aren’t fully funded anyway so can stay under the NCAA limits even if one athlete has to count an outside scholarship. You just have to check with the coach.
A school can’t give a merit award to an athlete if a non-athlete can’t get the award with the same conditions (gpa, scores, major, etc). One D3 school in NY recently got into trouble for giving athletes better work study awards and then better paying jobs under those awards.
D3 schools can give merit aid for a variety of reasons, but one of those reasons can’t be athletics. If a student is 4.0/1550 and that earns a merit award at ‘Green College’, it’s fine if that student also plays field hockey. If the merit scholarships are only offered to field hockey players, that’s not okay.
I read Green College as a ficticous name that represents all colleges.
We are in the same boat. The more reputable the college at the DIII level, the harder it is to get aid. We used athletics to be a hook to get into one of these knowing that the merit would be very small to non-existent. Think about it, when every kid who comes in is a 1540 SAT 4.5 GPA, who gets the merit.
That being said there are some great merit programs at some DIII schools. One my son was considering was Washington and Lee. If you are a Johnson Scholarship winner, it is full ride + summer enrichment money to go do something somewhere. One of my son’s friends got this and hid dad bought him a new car and still ended up ahead.
But the stories of “sure we’re DIII and can’t offer athletic scholarships, but here are some non-academic scholarships please come here” was never even hinted at when we were going through the process. Everyplace was pretty much, we want you to compete for us, we’ll help you with admissions (by help I mean, you still have to be an exceptional student, but the coaches advocate for you and when everything else is equal, you get the nod). All aid is then competed for with everyone else. My son is a National Merit Scholarship winner, and that one time $2500 + a local Kiwanas award for $445 was all the merit he received. We are thankful for every penny of it, but it really only puts a little ding in the $75k/year bill.
I was just making up ‘Green College’ because I don’t know which of the LACs are need based aid only and which offer merit money.
The OP shouldn’t be scared away from looking for a 1/2 tuition scholarship, or substantial merit at some schools, just prepared that big athletic scholarships aren’t common. I went into the search thinking we needed a HUGE athletic scholarship and almost didn’t look at the school my daughter ended up at because of the large COA. Even after talking to the coach and being offered athletic money I didn’t think we could afford it. Just kept hacking away at the COA. The merit aid was good, and increased because D’s ACT score went up. The athletic aid was pretty good (but not 1/2 the COA or even 1/2 tuition). There was a state grant for attending a private school. There were a few other things, including the dreaded loans. We liked them all, no matter how small, except the loans. In the end, there were 9-10 grants/scholarships/loans on her bill most years, with the merit aid and athletic aid being the two biggest chunks.
This is pretty much what we have experienced in our process so far at the DIII level also. The top DIII schools seem to not give out much merit aid, so there is little for athletes, What you get is coach support and even that varies from school to school.
To get merit aid, you need to follow the advice given to non athletes - target schools where you are clearly a top scholar compared to their student body, and use your academic stats to qualify for merit funds.
We went though this 2 years ago with my daughter in very similar situation, knew we would not get need based aid and she was not fast enough to score at conference at the schools she was looking at, but would have been top 3-5 for her main events. Our experience with swim money was about 3-5K in athletic offer and in schools where her test scores/GPA were competitive for merit, merit aid was about 1/2 tuition with most schools having ability to apply for the more competitive and less offered full tuition or at some schools even full ride on merit alone. These were at private universities that typically offer good merit scholarships with mid major D1 programs. IF you are in florida as it sounds like from the prepaid plan, have you looked at U Tampa? D2 woman swimming with very good merit aid, there is a chart on the website for automatic merit aid amounts for test scores, someone with junior national times would be very competitive for them and have ability to score at conference and qualify for NCAA D2’s. Also many Jesuit Universities have D1 M/W swimming and offer very good merit aid, such as Loyola MD, Saint Louis, Univ of San Diego. In the end my daughter picked at D1mid major with very good academic merit money, very small swim scholarship where she would be nonscoring at conference and loved her freshman year and team/school and is very happy. Also remember a large athletic scholarship really ties you to swim all 4 years if you need that money to afford the school, sometimes is better to not have that weight over your shoulders, their interests may change, academic issues may make it hard to swim all 4 years, nice to know you have the ability to remain at the school even if you make the choice to not swim all 4 years
Thank you so much for all the advice. Really appreciate it. Whew, D is not a merit scholar. She has unweighted 3.95/1370. So looks like not highly competitive for merit aid, not competitive for swim scholarship money. And no need based aid coming our way, and no rich uncle. I see where we are more clearly. Thank you, we needed to know.
Those stats are plenty high enough to get merit aid at many schools.
I agree that you should look at the schools in D2 Sunshine State Conference. Tampa, Barry, Lynn, Rollins. At least you’d know what kind of athletic and merit scholarships those types of schools can offer.
I agree you will get merit money depending on the school with those states, my daughters were very similar and she had several multiple 1/2 tuition scholarships, for an example, those stats are right at cut off for Presidential scholarship at U Tampa
If you looked at D3 LACs which do give merit awards, she could be competitive for those if you look outside US New top 20 or so schools (many of which don’t give merit awards). Dickinson and St Lawrence both have strong athletic programs, though I don’t know their swimming programs specifically, and give up to $20k or so a year in merit. Denison gives up to 1/2 tuition merit awards without any extra application, including for test optional kids, and has a top 5 women’s swim program. Other midwest schools like Wooster, Lawrence, Beloit, Knox all give 1/2 tuition merit, and have EA, with merit award included with the EA admission decision.