The coach said he’s going to be in the area so would like to get together for a chat with S19 and his parents. He’s driving to our town. The school in question is six hours from here. My only guess is that he’s got other kids in our metro area who he is also meeting. It’s in the middle of the week so it seems like the trip must be work related for him. That he’s going to drive out to our suburb does seem interesting to me.
@homerdog, the surest indicator of true recruiting interest is the amount of effort a coach is willing to spend on a particular recruit. Personal meetings like this are always a good sign, imho.
Alrighty then. Just got back from meeting and the coach just talked about how fun running is there and how S19 is in the A band (which we already knew) so that means he will get in. He said admissions loves him and “we need this student” was the message they gave him. No talk about moving to ED2 or any merit. Not a bad way to spend 40 minutes but nothing new.
S19 likes the coach and thinks he’d like running for him. Plan stays in tact. He’s waiting on 12 RD decisions!
@homerdog thanks for the update! It’s nice to be loved after how hard your son has worked so I hope he enjoys it. Sounds like he has a great option in this school!
Showing you the love - nothing wrong with that! Once officially accepted, you will have the opportunity to negotiate costs.
@eb23282 well…maybe on the costs but this is one of the few schools on the list that even give merit and it’s compeitive. I think only top 10 or 20 percent of kids get some there. So, I think he will get something it’s just a matter of what. And then, once he has all of his decisions in, he has to decide which school he likes best. But, yes, it felt great to him to be courted.
Thanks for the update. Looks like the coach has a lot of interest in your child. Why didn’t you mention the need for merit aid? The coach can sometimes help in situations like this?
I disagree that coaches can help with merit aid. Merit aid is to be awarded to athletes under the same standards as it is awarded to any other student. D’s coach had NO influence on merit aid.
I disagree. I know that coaches have influence. When I informed a DIII swim coach that the school was too expensive for our budget, My D received a envelope in the mail 5 days later with a “Leadership Scholarship” worth $6,000/year guaranteed for 4 years. She declined to attend that school but it is possible.
I have heard of some coaches having input on leadership type scholarships and had one coach state to us to let him/the coach know and not just admin if our student was interested in applying for that type of scholarship, which implies they had some influence. This was a fine D3 private school but not a top end academic. These types of schools often offer merit and other scholarships to many students to lower the price to compete with the higher tier academic schools. So you feel it is $65k but they are given us $x so now financially attractive.
As most know, many of the top end academics now offer little or no merit and need based only. If the school is a well sought after higher academic school in my opinion and experience, the coach does not have any influence on merit or need based aid. It is handed out without any preference to athletes.
As is required by NCAA rules.
Usually there is some truth to the anecdotal stories. Do I believe that an athletic coach knows what kind of merit aid an athlete might qualify for – absolutely. Do I believe that an athletic coach may call financial aid to suggest that an athlete would be in the running for merit aid, and ask FA to tell the recruit what merit aid would be coming his or her way – absolutely. But, I will go out on a limb and suggest that the same merit aid would be available to that same student regardless of his or her status as an athletic recruit. Put differently, I can imagine the same scenario if the conductor of the orchestra wanted to entice a promising musician to attend a college. I very much doubt that the coach can tell FA that it should give merit aid to an athlete over a non-athlete. It is just too big of a risk with little potential upside.
There is no doubt that being an athletic recruit at the D3 level provides benefits for admissions (provided the recruit is within admissions parameters). As to the rest (class preference, housing preference, financial aid preference), it hasn’t been my experience.
You Can Get Money to Play Sports at a Division III College…happens all of the time.
https://www.athleticscholarships.net/2012/10/23/sports-scholarships-division-iii-college.htm
Several of the coaches we talked to knew what merit aid my daughter would receive, not because they guessed but because they had submitted the transcript and scores to the admissions office (merit usually comes from admissions) and received the information before our visit. The coaches also use the merit aid to save on athletic aid (if a D1 or D2 scholarship school) so they want to know what merit will be before offering the athletic money. Of course it makes a difference if the coach can say “I’m able to give you $10k in athletic money but you’ll also get $20k in merit money and $xx in other grants.” My daughter didn’t get the highest athletic award, but she had more merit and grant money than teammates did, and the coach knew that.
With D3, the coaches know that too I had one coach that refused to discuss it at all and told me to go to FA. That school was quickly dropped.
Many D3 schools do not give merit money though. So, if you are full pay and the school does not give merit, you will be paying full price if you are an athlete.
The article in #72 refers to financial aid and grants – that is need-based aid. Certainly, the point that athletic recruits may be eligible for need based aid, so that it is not necessarily “D1/D2 athletic scholarships or bust,” is a valid one for families to keep in mind.
But D3 schools can’t give merit based awards to athletes that all students are not also eligible for. Maybe there is an off-the-radar school somewhere that is playing fast and loose with NCAA rules. But D3 schools in the top 100 are not generally going to be breaking the rules. As I’ve mentioned before, in my D3 athlete’s process, we talked with one US News 50-75 ranked school which had another sport sanctioned because a just-hired assistant coach had inaccurately suggested to one family that there might be additional money available because kid was an athlete. The team was put on something like probation, its records for 3-5 years erased, and personnel had to go through all kinds of training. And that was for saying something that was incorrect, not actually doing it. Every D3 school we talked to which gave merit “played by the rules.” The coaches were willing to give a prediction of possible merit, based on my kid’s academic portfolio – “this gpa and that test score, in my experience, means probably this amount of merit.” Admissions reps were also willing to say merit, again based on his academic portfolio, would probably be in a specific range.
To my mind, the relevant point is, for prospective athletes who want a small school experience, the lack of athletic scholarships at the D3 level does not necessarily mean those D3 schools would be unaffordable. Those D3 schools which do give merit may be an option. Of course, most of the top 20 LACs do not give merit but if a family is eligible for need based aid, those schools may be workable. For our full pay family without full pay resources, we went the merit route, and are pleased that it worked out.
@bester1 that article says that you can play D3 and still get money but it does not suggest at all that you can get money TO play D3 sports. There are lots of schools that offer merit aid or meet need and often that is a much better deal than a D1 athletic scholarship.
Yes…all I am saying from experience… sudden “leadership” 4 year grants come out of nowhere if a tough decision is being made.
@bester1, I really wouldn’t call that linked piece an “article.” It is from a site that provides recruiting services. To my mind, the piece should be titled “You Can Get Money AND Play Sports at a Division III School . . . .” not “You Can Get Money TO Play Sports at a Division III School.” One of its first points is that there are no D3 scholarships.
The piece admits – just as we have been saying – that you can’t get scholarships because you are an athlete.
Did the coach make a call for your daughter? I am sure he did. But, if your daughter applied for merit aid as a non-recruit, I bet she would have gotten the same envelope. If this was just for her being an athlete, think of the risks to the school. All you need to do in your next post is name the school and coach, and there is a decent chance that some one reading it would forward it right onto the NCAA. Parents do tend to talk about this stuff, and it is particularly risky if a recruit is not yet admitted (or at least committed).
Well, there certainly is precedence for the impermissible consideration of athletics when making merit aid awards at Division 3 institutions. See Denison for example -https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Denison%20Public%20Infractions%20Decision.pdf.