Has anyone ever heard of a D1 coach telling a a student that they could guarantee admission, but only if they did not apply for financial aid? This is from a need aware school, that meets 100% of demonstrated need (but is not need blind).
Is the student a high stats student being used to balance out deficiencies for top recruits ?
Possibly, she is at the 75% for ACT score and slightly above average GPA. I just don’t get the financial side of it.
You might have to ask the coach to clarify his comments, based on the following, and I’m assuming this is not an Ivy League school. Is the coach offering her a slot? Any athletic scholarship money? Have you run the schools npc? Do you have financial need?
Correct, not an Ivy. She has definitely been offered a spot, but no athletic scholarship money. We ran the school npc and it gave some aid, not a lot, but not worth walking away from either
Hmm, one thought…because athletic aid and FA don’t stack, I think that any FA you get might get counted against the team aid total. So even if you what you get is technically not athletic aid, it might reduce how much the team has to give out as athletic aid (to others).
Very interesting- so basically, if the coach has $100,000 in scholarships available, but my daughter gets $10,000 in financial aid, that leaves the coach with $90,000 for others?
In many sports, it could be as unfavorable as, “the coach can have four incoming players who receive money, and if your kid gets $1 in need based aid and plays, now only three other incoming players can get any money.” College sports rules are arcane.
My guess is that the system at this school is set up to prevent the coaches from using admission slots on high-need students allowing them to presere available athletic $$ for those that get no need based aid.
If an athlete takes need based aid, it might have to be counted against the team total and the coach might not want to risk that or have the room in the budget.
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This is very helpful- I had no idea about this. She has been handling all of the calls with the coaches, but I think it is time I reached out. However, it makes me really want to push for her to go to apply to the need blind D3 school where she is a higher priority recruit!
There are different rules for different sports. Baseball has minimums and roster limits where another sport could give $1000 to 30 different players. Many teams are not fully funded. The athletic director has to make sure there are as many opportunities for female athletes as male.
My daughters coach was limited by the NCAA to 9.9 full scholarships, but the team wasn’t fully funded so she did not have 9.9 x $55k (full COA) to give out. For her, the school could have given out need based aid and had it counted as athletic aid and still been under the team max, but they didn’t do that. There was athletic aid and there was merit aid, but no school need based aid for athletes (federal or state need based aid was fine to combine). Sometimes a student has an outside scholarship that has to be counted as an athletic scholarship (from a sports booster club, from the local golf club), and there was room for that in her budget.
I wish this was more widely known, especially in sports that aren’t fully funded. If I had known this several months ago, I would have pushed for D3. I feel like this was sprung on her after the official visit, when she is getting pressure to “commit” with no $ offered and pressure to not apply for financial aid.
I understand how it benefits the coach if you commit to their school and agree not to pursue financial aid, but how does that benefit you? That sounds like a sports version of ED. Commit without knowing what other schools might offer. If finances matter, I’d take my chances elsewhere.
You and your D might have a conversation with the coach and ask him questions that posters have raised on this thread. Once things progress to money talks, it is appropriate for parents to be involved. It sounds possible your daughter would get in without the sports slot, given her ACT/GPA. Then she would be free to apply for financial aid as well, but you/she would need to clear with the coach she could be a walk-on. Meanwhile, she could keep looking at other schools to either commit, or see if she can get more athletic money and/or fin aid elsewhere.
Being a walk on in a headcount sport may not be allowed if the student has accepted FA. If the coach has used all the money allotted, it may be against school policy to allow walk ons with financial aid. They just don’t want to do the accounting and reporting to the NCAA so set rules that the students can only have athletic aid. Some of the Patriot League schools only allow one type of aid.
It is fine to ask the coach all these questions. Why can’t we apply for FA? Can we walk on after applying and accepting FA? Is there merit aid available? Can we apply RD and still get in? My daughter asked me to do the financial aid part of the process after the first school. It was complicated and I became good at saying “I don’t understand, can you explain it again?”
Don’t put yourself in a position where you can’t afford school because you have agreed not to accept aid.