<p>I'm trying to get some information regarding the process of D1 baseball recuiting. My son is an average student (GPA-3.0: SAT-1610), but a talented baseball player in the northeast. There were many college coaches in the northeast showing interest in him last year (junior year) telling him that he's on their "radar", but this summer he is only invited to two D1 colleges for "unofficial visits". He has latched onto these two schools, but I worry that at the end they may not come to fruition. How do we know that these two coaches recruiting him are really interested. What are the steps he should take to secure a roster position at one of these two schools.</p>
<p>My son is also a senior athlete (swimmer) being recruited. He got a lot of “on our radar” communications last year too. He now has 2 official visits and offers of 2 unofficials. Baseball may be different than swimming but it is my understanding that if you are offered an “unofficial” you are on the “B” list. The coaches that invited my son for unofficials have basically told him that he would be given a definite “walk on” spot but probably no scholarship money. Needless to say he is taking his official visits first. Is there any way that your son would look at “one tier down” to secure official visits? I know my son is not willing to look at his B list - he does not want to practice 26 hours a week and give up “other college things” if he is not on scholarship. And he wants to be D1 and at a big school. We have always been advised for the kid to really ask himself " if I wasn’t an athlete would I want to go to this school" and my son is really answering this honestly. I really don’t blame him. </p>
<p>Thank you for your response. And yes, I have encouraged him to look at some D2 and D3 schools as well. I’m not sure what the timeline for D1 baseball recruitment is. Several D1 schools have told him their 2015 rosters are set at this point and other schools have told him they’ve just started recruiting for position players, which he is. I’m also not sure if he should be requesting an OV during the unofficial visit with the coach.</p>
<p>sheray,</p>
<p>I’m the father of 3 baseball sons. I’m going through this for the 3rd time. </p>
<p>1) How do we know that these two coaches recruiting him are really interested?</p>
<p>Ask them. Where do they see your son on their recruiting list? When will you be making a decision about his recruited position?</p>
<p>**2) What are the steps he should take to secure a roster position at one of these two schools. **</p>
<p>Get in front of them and perform extremely well is the best way to have a chance. Ask them about the camps/showcases they will be at this Fall, Winter and Spring. In addition, I would not limit my search to two D1 schools. The northeast is a high target area for some great D3 schools. I’d broaden my search to include those schools and ask these same questions to the coaches. You will quickly learn it is a numbers game. You’ve got to get in front of a lot of schools to find a few interested…</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Fenwaysouth, thank you for your insights. They are very helpful. </p>
<p>My son is a high school jr (class 2016) and is a RHP and just committed to a Div 1 in January. Your son should make a short list of where he is interested, then get in front of those schools. Go to camps at their schools, have him email them with a short (1-2 min MAX) recruiting video. Go to scouting events with teams that those college scouts go to and watch for recruits. Perfect Game events are heavily attended by college scouts. My son had a dream school in mind, and his travel team plays at that campus in front of the coaches, those coaches followed him at Perfect Game events and watched him grow, and then he attended one of their camps on their campus and got a call the next day to come for a visit. He needs to make himself visible to those on his short list and be where they are. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thank you for your thoughts. Just in the past 2 wks my son received 2 scholarship offers to play division 1 baseball. One private and one public institution. The private school is offering him a 50% scholarship and the public, 25%. Both schools tell him that he’ll likely start as a freshman. Before he signs a NLI, do you know how one should evaluate the value of each scholarship? </p>
<p>First, congrats on the offers. It’s all good from this point on. He’s accomplished his first goal - he’s going to get a chance to play college ball! Breath a sigh of relief, celebrate what has been a true parent/player partnership!</p>
<p>He’ll start if he’s better then the next guy - it will totally depend upon his performance.</p>
<p>Which school does he like more (assuming that the financial burden you will bear is manageable at both)? Also, does either offer include room and board, or tuition only?</p>
<p>Does either school offer four year guarantee? If not, some conferences by rule do not permit the school to reduce scholarships the following year based upon performance (thereby hedging a normal freshman year of struggles). In both, if he’s successful, the scholarship will likely be increased over the years.</p>
<p>What is the attrition rate of baseball players? </p>
<p>Are there players who are majoring in your sons desired major? If not, why not?</p>
<p>How stable is the coaching staff? Nothing worse then being recruited by coach A and matriculating to a new regime.</p>
<p>The “value” of the offer is much more then dollars and cents - so many variables. If you haven’t used this site, it’s a wealth of purely baseball info: <a href=“http://community.hsbaseballweb.com”>http://community.hsbaseballweb.com</a></p>
<p>You need to know what other sources of money he is allowed to accept. My understanding is that he can take federal need based aid (Pell grant, Perkins or Stafford loans), state grants, but no institutional NEED based aid. Merit is fine from any source including the school if any other student is eligible for the aid under the same terms (GPA, scores, talent).</p>
<p>My daughter got an offer of 25% sports scholarship from a private school, but also got a 50% merit (tuition only) from the school, plus two state grants (only can be used instate), and a private grant (could be used anywhere). Add it all up and it’s a much better deal than a state school with lower COA.</p>
<p>Until you know all the awards your student is eligible for, it’s hard to compare the final price.</p>
<p>How do FA and scholarships work? I heard that any scholarship would cut into your FA.</p>
<p>So if my son got a $15,000 scholarship at a school that was offering $30,000 in grants, he would get a $15,000 scholarship and $15,000 in grants?</p>
<p>What would be the point if that is true? Wouldn’t the only sensible offers be where the scholarship goes beyond what FA would have been given?</p>
<p>I can see if the school had loans only as the FA, a scholarship would be great. Grants only it seems only to secure a spot.</p>
<p>The school cannot give need based FA and an athletic award. In the NLI, you sign that you are award you cannot have school need based FA if you accept the athletic award. Some athletes do better taking the FA, others the athletic offer. The athlete can take federal or state aid, need based or not, plus the athletic scholarship but not need based from the school. The Ivy league only gives need based aid, so there is no issue. At Stanford, athletes often do better taking the need based aid rather than athletic aid.</p>
<p>In your example, if the $30k in grants was a need based grant from the school, your son could take the $15k in athletic money OR the $30k in grants, but no, the need based grant money FROM THE SCHOOL would not be reduced to $15k, it would be eliminated. If the grant money was from PELL or SEOG, he could keep that plus the athletic money.</p>
<p>My daughter got an athletic scholarship, a school merit scholarship, school grants (not need based), a state scholarship (Florida bright futures), a state grant to all Florida residents going to a private Florida school, and an outside scholarship. She was also offered Stafford loans and I was offered PLUS loans. The school didn’t offer any need based FA, so there is nothing to ‘cut into’ to reduce aid. We did not qualify for state need based aid, but if we did she could have accept that, a federal Pell grant or SEOG plus the athletic scholarship. Because her scholarships and grants reduced her COA to less than our EFC, her Stafford loans became unsubsidized.</p>
<p>At her school, the merit aid is awarded based on a formula which takes gpa, scores, and class rank into consideration. While the coach may know how much the athlete is going to get for merit aid (there are 3 levels, and it’s kind of easy to know what you will get just by using the NPC) and adjust the athletic award accordingly, it doesn’t go the other way and admissions cannot reduce the merit award because of an athletic award or other outside awards. In our case, the coach did take into consideration the state awards and the merit money as they were part of the ‘package’ she presented to us. OOS kids may have received more athletic money because they weren’t getting the state money.</p>
<p>So - if my son gets merit aid offer of 0.5, and he gets an athletic scholarship offer of 0.25, he should take the merit aid?</p>
<p>One important issue I have a question on is that I have heard that if your child does not have any athletic scholarship at all on a D1 or D2 team, they have no guarantee of a spot. If they do have any athletic scholarship at all, even a dollar, they have a spot reserved on the team and cannot be kicked off during that season (barring breaking rules).</p>
<p>How does that come into play if your child takes the merit aid instead?</p>
<p>And if your child is targeting D3, do you just assume that they don’t cut?</p>
<p>(PS - regarding starting - we watched a soccer game at one of my son’s possible colleges. They had 19 people on the bench and 11 on the field. Perhaps 18 total got to play, so that would be 12 players with zero minutes of playing time. I told my son that he really has to think about where he is going to school in terms of academics, because he could get hurt and not play, or he could be on the bench and not play.</p>
<p>Look at the roster size for your child’s sport. Look at how the coach substitutes players in, or rotates them in games.)</p>
<p>No, he can take both the merit aid and the athletic aid. He can even take federal or state financial aid or anything offered to ALL students at that school, not just athletes. The only choice he’d have to make is between school need based aid and athletic aid.</p>
<p>My daughter (at a D2 school) receives merit aid, athletic aid and two grants from the school. The grants are for knowing an alum and visiting the school before attending (basically EVERYONE at the school gets this money). She can accept any academic awards that are available to anyone at the school.</p>
<p>Athletic aid is not guaranteed from year to year, but most coaches will promise not to lower aid. (a few schools are now granting multi-year awards, but not many) Just a promise, not a guarantee. Merit aid can be retained or lost based on GPA or other conditions set by the school. My daughter must maintain a certain GPA to keep hers. Honestly, if she loses the merit or the athletic awards, she cannot continue at this school. I just couldn’t afford it. It is one big balancing act</p>
<p>Size of the team does matter. I’ve watched college lacrosse games with 35 players on the field, with only 15-18 ever stepping on the field. Since the number of scholarships is capped at 12, it it likely many have 1/10th of a scholarship or nothing at all (and that causes hard feelings too if one person is getting a 1/2 or full scholarship). Size of the team played a big part in our choice.</p>
<p>I really appreciate all your input. Both schools offer 4 year guarantee. I agree the value is much more than just monetary. The large state school offering 25% is a lower out-of-pocket cost for us, is a more competitive baseball program, and close to home. The private school is 2 hrs away, smaller, in a desirable location, and better academically. I’m glad to know that we could still look into merit scholarship. He’ll make his verbal commitment this weekend. I’ll keep you posted. </p>
<p>Son made a verbal commitment with the private college and we’re happy with his decision. I do have a question about the NLI. The coach told us the scholarship is for 4 years of college, and it’s illegal for him to withdraw the money due to poor athletic performance or injury. He also mentions that the scholarship will be increased in his 2nd-4th years ($4000/yr) if he does well academically. If this is true, will the details be in the NLI. If not, are we allowed to change the language of the letter to reflect what the coach said? do we need a lawyer to look at the letter?</p>
<p>In general the NLI consists of 2 contracts. One is the NLI itself which is an is an agreement for the athlete to attend a college for 1 year in exchange for athletic aid. The second contract is an agreement for the athletic aid which can be guaranteed for 4 years and can contain other provisions such as you have described. You may want to ask for a sample agreement at this point and if the language is unclear you may want to have a lawyer look at it.</p>
<p>You cannot change the NLI. The only things that can be changed are the dollar amounts (or percentages). Some schools now give multi-year awards for some sports, but most only give one year awards. Our coach told us she would not reduce the reward IF daughter ‘put in the effort’ but might increase it for good athletic performance, not academic performance. My daughter also has an academic merit award and needs to have a certain gpa for that. The fact of the matter is that if she loses the academic award, she can’t go to this school. If she loses the athletic award, she probably can’t go to this school. It’s all a big balancing act.</p>
<p>Be sure to ask what the exact academic requirement is. A 3.0 may be easy to meet for some majors, however for physics, engineering and other challenging STEM majors, a 3.0 with the demands of labs, practices and travels may be much harder to maintain.</p>
<p>Question was asked whether you assume D3 teams do not cut. Never, ever assume. Ask. Some D3 teams do indeed cut, including recruits in their first year. Others have a policy that they do not cut recruits in the first year – but can and do after that. I do sense that between an equivalent walk-on and recruit, the walk-on is more likely to be cut. Hard questions and honest answers are likely to lead to the happy student athlete.</p>