This is not meant to be snarky at all, but I think it is actually pretty simple - if someone making $500,000 a year (or $200,000 or $100,000 etc) is concerned about paying for private day schools and BS, they cannot afford private day school and BS.
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Thank you - for very detailed and constructive response and for luck as well. Public school is definitely a viable option; we are only applying to 2 private schools - the ones that weād chose over our public one. If he does not get in - he stays in public and we save some $ for further attempts
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Thanks for not judging and for answering the question (instead of many more questions that I did not ask yet learnt othersā opinions on;-))
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Except that financial aid IS available to those making 100k, making it affordable to that income level.
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Yes, as @skieurope hinted, significant athletic scholarships are not the norm. I coached (HS)/officiated (USA/HS) an equivalency sport and respectfully asked because over the years I had to watch so many families face the harsh reality of athletic scholarships. Since your child attends a sports academy, hopefully they spend quite a bit of time educating parents about the # of scholarships available for each sport and the amount of each scholarship based on sport, ability, recruiting rank, availability and the all important investment vs. ROI, etc. Unfortunately, Iāve met too many families whose club coaches didnāt explain the process; I hated being the one to explain to them why their $7k/year of training, travel, private coaching was only yielding a $5k/year scholarship. Iāve known kids over the years who received better than average, but they were in top 5 on their D1 team and national team level athletes. There are ways to parlay the sport into better $, but it may mean lowering expectations on school rank. Since D1 is year to year, injuries can lead to loss of scholarships; sadly Iāve seen that over the years as well. Athletic and merit may not stack, depending on the school and GPA/class rank, etc. This is just meant as food for thought; since I was in an equivalency sport, I always suggested parents look at athletic scholarships as a bonus for planning purposes, not as a significant source of college funding. Iād often see juniors realize the schools they really wanted to attend didnāt line up with the schools who were recruiting them, especially for high stat students. College athletics and scholarships can be a great experience if both parents and athletes are realistic in their expectations.
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This is helpful for the OP since itās so variable by sport and gender.
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Yes, and many schools donāt fully fund each and every sport up to the NCAA/NAIA/NJCAA maximums.
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The Hotchkiss financial aid estimator indicates that even at $500k you could qualify for some aid under certain circumstances. Maybe Hotchkiss is unusually generous?
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This is super helpful, thank you! Just looked up that ours is equivalency.
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Thatās what I found there too hence the question - was hoping to learn more of the first hand experiences.
Scholarships are also available at Div 2 and NAIA schools. Sports other than the headcount sports CAN have full scholarships, although they are more rare (up to the coach how to split them).
My daughter went to a D2 school and had basically a full scholarship when her athletic scholarship was combined with merit scholarships. I know a guy who had a half scholarship for lacrosse for years 1 and 2 but was promised a full scholarship for years 3 and 4 (and because of Covid, turned into year 5 too) and the coach was thrilled to āpay that priceā for him, because he is that good.
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Yes, D2 offers athletic as well. Iāve had kids do well at Lees-McRae, Barton, Wingate and Lenoir-Rhyne. They probably arenāt on the radar for most families. Itās all about finding the balance between best academic match and athletic match. I think I started this with the D1 example question; the point I was trying to make was more about the risk of relying on athletic scholarships for college financing as the parent of a middle school athlete. Donāt count your chickens before theyāre hatched so to speak.
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The rules have changed so much in the last year that it is hard to tell what scholarships non-headcount sports will be splitting. My daughterās coach had 9.9 scholarships to split (although she claimed she wasnāt fully funded). At the time, some students (really most because of the academic requirements to get into the school) could pair it with merit but not school issued need based aid. Now, athletes can receive need based aid too, so a coach can take those 9.9 scholarships and figure out which student athletes are eligible for need based aid and reassign the athletic aid to others on the team.
And a few kids could even get NIL money! That money could come from a local booster club, from a sporting goods store, from the local golf course or car dealership. I read that a football offensive line got a contract with a local pizza place, so an individual athlete doesnāt have to even be that good but the group could get a deal (and free pizza).
If the athletic money is important, the student may have to attend one of the schools you listed (my daughter played against several of them) and not hold out for Syracuse or Notre Dame. The D2 schools may not be the popular schools on CC but that doesnāt make them lesser schools, and some may be niche schools for engineering, theater, nursing, art. Recently, Colorado School of Mines (ranked #3 in the nation at the time) was playing South Dakota School of Mines in football, and our TV sportscaster commented āThatās a lot of brain power on the field at one time.ā
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Wanted to close the loop where we landed with FA - one school gave us small amount of FA, other waitlisted. The waitlisted one was the first choice yet both are equally rankedā¦ Not sure whether FA played into the WL decisionā¦ If we were to repeat the process, Iād not apply for FA yet not regretting we did as now we know first hand that we did not leave anything on the table and still landed in a decent spot with admissions.
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