Our D may be a candidate for UChicago’s track and XC team and may be supported for her admission that way…
The 75K annual cost of attendance is the hurdle for us and we are seeking some decent relief on it…
Are there instances, where UChicago offers some financial help to athlete-applicants they want? How do we go about asking for help? Request the coach?
To increase her chances, we need to apply ED to UChicago, but that means closing all other options for potential offers etc. Would love to hear experiences from other parents. Thanks in advance.
Chicago only meets need based aid, no athletic or merit scholarships. If she applies ED, requests financial aid and it isn’t affordable then ED isn’t binding.
Is ED1 app due Nov 1 or Nov 15? You may not have time for one but ask for a financial preread and do the NPC. If you are not self employed, divorced, etc, the NPC should give you a good idea the FA you can expect.
D3 schools CANNOT give any aid based on athletics.
Exactly, no D3 can give any athletic based aid, and I would say that U of C is one of the last D3 schools I can imagine entertaining that thought. They do like to have competitive sports teams, but academics are by far the greater focus of Chicago.
The ED situation at Chicago is the same as at most other D3 schools. U of C allows you to apply EA which allows you to apply to other schools, but most athletes, are asked to switch to ED after they have looked at your admission application and it is determined that you are a fit both academically and athletically.
If your student is looking at applying other places also, then you might just stay EA. I’m not sure how much that will affect your chance of admission.
@bapats, some lesser D3 may blow smoke by claiming they are giving an athlete special scholarship treatment, but it’s just smoke as tons are giving merit aid given few would pay full boat at a lesser school if they could avoid it - and of course Chicago as a top-5 school doesn’t need to even think of playing that game.
ED is Nov 1, and they don’t do financial pre-reads. Hopefully the NPC is somewhat accurate. I don’t think they are significantly different in terms of expense that most other D3 high academic schools unless you are full pay, in which case it is spendier.
One of the most common things I hear through the athlete's grapevine is how much money little Johnny/Jan got off because of their exceptional athletic prowess, when in fact they would have got the same EFC w/o athletics.
@57special, yes that’s the blowing smoke I was referring to…
We also faced this decision at a D3 school that only gives need based aid. We decided not to apply ED. S will apply RD without support and see what happens. He is applying to several D3 schools this way. He is in touch with the coaches so they know he is applying RD. His academics are good so we are confident he will get in and participate somewhere. One of the coaches has said he probably doesn’t need the coach’s support to get in anyway. We were very uncomfortable committing to a school without knowing how much it would cost us.
Well, there is a financial hardship out on an ED acceptance. I highly doubt that it makes a difference at the top D3 schools whether or not you are ED or RD when it comes to cost, especially if you are an athlete. Things might get a bit muddier the further down the list that you get, but the bottom line is that D3 schools are not allowed to mix athletics and cost of admission.
Where waiting for the RD comes into play is if you are applying to schools that have merit aid. A NPC doesn’t give you merit aid info, to my knowledge, and I’m not sure that a pre-read will either.
Many of the NPCs do give merit aid information, especially if it is awarded every student with certain stats.
My mistake then.
thank you for all the responses. They are very helpful. I understand, also so some conversation beyond this post:
-no financial aid and
- support from Coach only if student applies ED.
Thanks
" support from Coach only if student applies ED."
That’s up to the coach or the school. It is not against the NCAA rules for the coach to give admissions support in RD, but the school and coach can set their own rules for that.
At least 2 coaches my S spoke with encouraged ED but said they would support RD as well. But understand just because you have a coach’s support does not guarantee you will sail through admissions.
My daughter got a financial pre-read at UC and then applied ED based on it. They gave us aid (need based) exactly as they said they would in the financial pre-read.
@bapats Daughter is a first year student and athlete at UChicago. We opted to apply EA to Chicago as we could not possibly make a binding commitment to $72,000. It was risky given admissions preference for ED, but it obviously worked out for her in the end. It did allow us to consider financial options, and Chicago did wind up being a bit less expensive, between grants and a small merit scholarship, than other options with a lower sticker price. We have also done a pre-read with financial aid for the years we have two students in college, and I don’t have any reason to believe that the grant (i.e. no loan) won’t go up proportionately.
@bapats I should also add that admissions called and asked our daughter to convert her application to ED II and we declined on her behalf for financial reasons. She’s an excellent student and is well qualified without athletics to be there, but my point is she did not need to go ED to make it work. Also, this is just anecdotal, but my sense is that at Chicago, athletics isn’t that big of a help in the admissions process. All of my daughters teammates seem to be extraordinary and broadly involved students who just happened to play a sport. If I could appropriately imagine their applications I doubt athletics would have been the headline.
We are in the same situation. Our daughter was asked by chicago coach to apply ED in order to get his full support and he felt based on last year’s stats was the way to go. Our D has very good stats and could get in without his help although we know getting in is tough. As of right now she will apply EA until we know exactly what the total aid is as we can’t afford to be wrong on this
How do we go about getting a financial pre-read at Chicago? thanks