Hello,
My daughter is taking officials to her top three D1s at the end of the summer. We’ve filled out the financial aid forms and not surprisingly, we aren’t getting any aid (we knew this going in). Does this fact either positively or negatively affect her likelihood of getting an offer?
I can see it too ways: they are more likely to offer her a spot, because they know we can pay for it, even if they give her very little athletic support. The other option is that she would be too expensive to recruit, since she won’t get any financial aid to add to any athletic money they’d give her. Perhaps it doesn’t affect her at all?
She has built relationships with the coaches from all 3 schools and passed the pre-reads, however, compared to the girls they’ve recruited in 2022 and 2023 she probably would not be considered a “top” recruit. Thank you!
While she doesn’t meet criteria for financial aid, is she up for any merit scholarships? That is a discussion point. From what I have seen, if the school wants the student athlete enough to little financial aid does not impact that.
It sounds like these are all schools that give athletic money? Do they also give merit aid?
If so, I don’t think being full pay will play into the decision…especially if the coach didn’t ask you if you have financial need or would be applying for FA.
At the Ivies and highly rejective D3s, none of which give athletic money, it’s common IME that coaches ask if the student will be applying for FA. And if the answer is no, that is often advantage.
@momto2024runner I had a kid that was recruited T&F D1, ended up at an Ivy. For this kid and the Ivy’s, I don’t think the FA question mattered all that much from the coach’s and recruiting perspective, at least not that we could sense, though they were a top athletic recruit, very strong academically, so very strong recruiting interest.
However, I had another kid different sport, that was not nearly as strong academically (big reach academically for top NESCACs or Ivy’s academically) and the NESCACs were all interested and reached out. In hindsight for this case, I would agree with what @Mwfan1921 states that if the answer is “no to needing FA”, that is often an advantage. At lease one of the NESCAC coaches was very clear in asking and wanting to know if families would be requesting FA, which we/I would answer yes. Knowing more now then I did then, I believe the coach may have been trying to ferret out if FA or the cost was a factor in the school decision, which it was in our case, and I believe now was a little bit of a disadvantage.
Agree with comments above. Financial aid status won’t be a factor at Ivies or other D1s, might be at some D3s.
That’s not to say D1 coaches won’t try to leverage need based and merit aid to stretch their athletic dollars where they can. But they aren’t going to sour on a recruit they want just because they’re full pay.
Whether they’ll offer less because they know you can pay is more difficult to predict. Generally the market takes care of this.
I think it matters in the sense that coaches want to make sure a family understand that there is no scholarship money in either sense. Plenty of families who don’t qualify for aid feel like they need help to afford the school, and if that is the case it is just a big waste of everyone’s time.
Yes, agree that it matters in that sense. Good point. In my experience coaches are good at doing this filtering and educating pretty early.
At Ivies, coaches make sure recruits understand there’s no athletic money and to look at the NPCs. Generally Ivy Track coaches view FA as a competitive advantage though, so requiring need-based aid isn’t detrimental to recruiting chances. In Track and Field at least.
At other D1s, FA status won’t prevent them from recruiting someone, given that they have athletic money to use, and that they don’t typically face the same numbers/slots restrictions Ivies do. I just can’t think of a scenario where a coach was recruiting someone who they thought they could get for 25%, for example, and that person not being eligible for need-based aid would cause the coach to pull back.
Thank you all for your responses! It’s good to know that our financial status will not negatively affect her chances, and may even help. She most likely will not get merit aid as these schools are also academically very competitive and although she has good grades, they aren’t good enough to compete with the non-athletes there.
Agree, and that was our exprience, even vs NESCAC which may meet 100% of demonstrated financial need.
For what it is worth, I believe all or most of the Ivy’s are need blind admissions, where as at least some of the NESCAC are stated as not a need blind institiution.
It’s tough to call any of them truly need blind when they tend to know the financial aid status of all of the recruited athletes because the coaches ask (and many, maybe most, highly rejectives will do financial aid pre-reads for recruits), and use income proxies in admissions for the rest of the applicants.
I don’t think it will matter. At D1 schools that do give scholarships, the T&F money is usually sliced pretty thin, so the coaches are making big promises.
Agree, and that was my initial thought.
I was chiming in more about if FA had any impact on recruiting. It is just my experience, but it seemed for D1/Ivy I sensed no impact on the coaches consideration other than referring you to their FA office, whereas for the smaller D3 NESCAC (different sport), it seemed to be something that a least some of coaches really wanted to know.
My opinion is that coaches, particularly those at schools that don’t give athletic money, will make sure the student athlete gets every dollar they can get from all the other sources because athletic money is limited. My daughter’s coach made sure all team members got two small grants available to all students, ‘knowing’ an alum (the coach could introduce you!) and visiting the campus before applying. If there was a band, art, dance scholarship you could qualify for, she was on it and getting you to fill out the app. Helped her stretch her money but also helped students who couldn’t otherwise afford an expensive school and who she wanted on the team.
Daughter interviewed at a D1 school and the coach was the same way, helping D figure out how much she’d get in merit and other little awards that could stack. At a D3 school, the coach wouldn’t even talk to me about money but said to contact admissions The coach wouldn’t have known if we could afford it or not because she didn’t want to discuss it. Umm, we didn’t really pursue it because it seemed like the coach would be no help (and daughter didn’t like the school).
I know D3 coaches in New England are particularly helpful in recruiting Canadians and making sure their income and assets are evaluated in Canadian dollars so they can qualify for more financial aid from the school. They know the tricks.
