<p>My child has gone through athletic recruiting, has been offered full ride (academic + athletic combo package) to a private university that is not as academically elite as the other schools being considered, but that is a very good regional school--and has gone through financial pre-read with major Ivy. We know what Ivy will cost due to this, and that cost is substantial but doable. Situation is this: A D1 school that is academically elite but not an Ivy (and can therefore award athletic money) is recruiting, too, and the coach mentioned on phone to my husband that he knows what the Ivy is requiring us to pay, so he said he knows he has to match that. This elite-but-non-Ivy school happens to be our child's #1 choice now (just returned from OV and loved it!). Our dilemma is that we don't feel a degree from this school is worth as much as a degree from the well-known Ivy. We don't want to be rude and say this. The coach does not know that full ride to another school is also on the table, but we view this school as needing to come in somewhere between what the cost of the major Ivy will be and the full ride. Should we email the coach and let him know that there is also a full ride being offered, so that he is aware? He told us that our child is his #1 ranked recruit (this was several months ago), but he may tell that to all his recruits. Should we just wait and see what he offers? (It may be awhile, and the other schools are pressuring for answers; he moves very slowly.) Should we let him know that the full ride is on the table and/or that we'd expect to pay less for our child to attend his school than the Ivy? We have heard that coaches do not want to hear from parents, but the financial piece involves us, and coach indicated from the outset that he needed to have a "long discussion" with us about the finances---but he never initiated anything further, just hosted our child for an OV recently. We don't want to make a wrong move here, not sure what is polite and/or how to be assertive without seeming obnoxious. We realize things could change on a dime.....</p>
<p>The wisest thing a coach ever said to my son was at the beginning of an overnight visit. </p>
<p>“As you spend time on the campus, I want you to imagine that you can never play your sport again. Would you want to go to this college even if you couldn’t play?” Every athletic career turns on a dime, and can end in an instant. </p>
<p>Which college offers the best chance for completing a degree? Which college offers the major your child wants? Which college offers the best chance for your child to actually attend classes regularly while playing his sport?</p>
<p>We have a friend who’s highly recruited daughter just signed her letter of intent, and in the end one of her deciding factors (more than the finances) was which D1 university offered her major and would make it possible for her to complete the requirements for that major while playing her sport. You’d think that would be a no brainer, but it wasn’t. Life goes on after college, and her sport is one that does not offer many ways to make a living wage playing it after college. </p>
<p>My own son took that coach’s advice to heart. He went to his first choice university for the academics and played his sport at a club level. My second son did the same thing.</p>
<p>Edited to add: I know my answer doesn’t really answer your question, but I think it is important to consider your whole child. Coaches over recruit, injuries happen, kids quit their sport, and in the end you want him to graduate with a degree he can use to make a living.</p>
<p>Congrats on your son’s accomplishments. Maybe repost this on the athletic forum? Lots of wisdom gathered there. Good luck</p>
<p>[Athletic</a> Recruits - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/]Athletic”>Athletic Recruits - College Confidential Forums)</p>
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This makes it clear that this is a negotiation–so why shouldn’t you negotiate?</p>
<p>I’ll be watching this thread with interest. S2 is looking at a small LAC that offers both his sports, either or both of which he would be happy to play as a walk-on. The possibility of some athletic scholarship money exists down the road, but it’s shaping up to be doable financially without it. H and I really like this school for our son more then the regional state U he’s also interested in. The classes are smaller and he’ll get more individual attention, and playing a sport will help him stay focused. Regional state U is a fine school (S1 goes there) but half of S2’s HS will also be there, and since he’s no great shakes academically to begin with, he doesn’t need any more distractions.</p>
<p>Thanks for replies. I agree w/ Hunt that is is a negotiation – feel like we do not know what the rules are and b/c the school is important to our child, we need to be sure we follow them. Re: eastcoascrazy, the athletic piece is a smaller part of the picture–the schools under consideration were all chosen due to what they offer academically and in major (which, of course, could change). Child is not making decision based on coach or team, but the Official Visits have given child a rare glimpse of what it is really like to live in the dorms at the school, attend classes, etc. Thanks for the suggestion to repost this in the athletic forum. I am new to this site and not good with message boards.</p>
<p>I have absolutely no idea about any of this, but:</p>
<p>If the coach knows about the Ivy, then he is open to knowing about your other options and knows his offer needs to be a reasonable choice compared to others.</p>
<p>Say your kid is truly his #1 recruit…wouldn’t he want to know what other offers he needs to beat?</p>
<p>Say your kid is not his #1 recruit…then you are no worse off than you are now.</p>
<p>I think you are correct about the range of money you can push for. A top school like Duke or Georgetown is not going to match a full-ride deal from a much lower-ranked school, since they know their academic quality has a price. But you should make them aware what is on the table so that maybe their offer will come in a little higher.</p>
<p>If your student is a runner, it’s a lot easier to assess your relative position. It doesn’t only matter if he is that coach’s top recruit, but it matters for which other schools your son would also be the top recruit. If he has Ivy-level stats and his times fall in the top 15-20 in his class nationally, then you have a lot bargaining power and should use it.</p>
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<p>This may indicate how this coach ranks your son.</p>
<p>Cbreeze, we have wondered the SAME thing about the coach, if he’s just talking and not particularly interested–but why pay for our child to fly and spend 48 hours at the school and take child to football game, dinner, etc., if he is not interested? Others have told us this is just how he is–very slow. If the OV hadn’t just happened and made the school our child’s #1 choice, we would have written the whole thing off.</p>
<p>You can start a dialogue by writing him an email and thank him for hosting your son and mention that other offers are on the table and you have to make a decision soon and then WAIT for him to make the first move. I think you have more leverage if the coach initiates an offer first.</p>
<p>My H was the captain of the track team at his LAC and I know he would be envious of your situation because none of our kids were interested in track.
Good luck.</p>
<p>Athletic recruiting is akin to buying a car…expect to negotiate. The first offer is rarely the best. We were so surprised at the calls after we politely declined offers that just were not enough to offset the huge sticker prices. And once coaches in the same conference caught wind of said offers, the one-up-man ship started in earnest. Crazy times. The worst was having to “break up” with coaches once the final decision was made. Good luck!</p>
<p>Yes, it is stressful for the student (and parents b/c we are supposed to not exist in all of this, other than to write the checks)–maintaining these ongoing “relationships” w/ the coaches via weekly calls they make, and she is picturing having to turn down coaches which will be so hard. Ours ruled out a lot of schools early on b/c was so overwhelmed, so we doubt bidding wars will be happening, but the whole thing really is strange, at least for me (I did not go through any of this as a senior; my H did, so is more familiar). I thought it was so wonderful at first, but it has its drawbacks.</p>
<p>There’s a real flaw in the OP’s thinking that has been bothering me since I read this yesterday.</p>
<p>I completely get – and agree with – the parents’ desire to see their daughter get the greatest value possible from her athletic talent. But I think their analysis of value is way too simplistic. There are three characters in their story: “Major Ivy”, “Academically Elite But Not An Ivy”, and “Good Regional Private”. The parents feel that a degree from MI is worth more than one from AEBNAI (and implicitly a lot more than a degree from GRP), and therefore that their daughter should not pick AEBNAI – otherwise her first choice – unless it is less expensive than MI.</p>
<p>Now, “academically elite but not an Ivy” can cover a pretty wide spectrum of colleges, from Stanford and Duke to, say, Tulane, USC, Notre Dame. At one end of the spectrum, the one with Stanford and Duke, not to mention MIT, the parents are just being silly if they think that there is a meaningful value difference versus whatever “major Ivy” is recruiting their daughter. If that’s what the OP is talking about, someone should just tell her that she is wrong. If, however, as I assume to be the case, AEBNAI is not Stanford or Duke but maybe something like Vanderbilt or Northwestern or Michigan, the OP may in fact be correct that, on average, or at the median, a degree from MI would have more value than one from AEBNAI. But the problem is that hardly any kids are AT the average or on the median, and their kid isn’t likely to be, either. And if you drew a Venn diagram with the “values” of the degrees from the two colleges, there would be just an enormous common area, with MI maybe having a little extra at the top of the spectrum and AEBNAI a little extra at the bottom, a difference that probably reflects nothing more than their modest difference in selectivity, not anything that the colleges actually do. For the vast, vast majority of students, how valuable their degree is will depend much less on which college they choose than on what they do when they get there.</p>
<p>A kid who loves where she is going, and who fits well with her team and coach, is likely to have a better experience, and to do better, and therefore to get more value from her education, than one who, albeit at an arguably better college, is less enthusiastic, less engaged, and less comfortable. The last thing any parent wants is to drop a ton of money on a bad college experience with a marginal GPA, even if the degree is fancy. The OP should pay close attention to why AEBNAI is her daughter’s first choice, and should think twice and thrice before counseling her daughter to reject it because it costs as much or almost as much as a college the daughter likes less.</p>
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<p>Why not have your son call the coach and tell him that the school is his #1 choice and he is ready to commit if the coach can make the tuition work? I don’t see any reason for the parents to become directly involved at this point, or necessarily at all.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies and great advice. JHS, I do agree completely that there is far more to the equation (how child feels and fits in is worth a lot), but for the purposes of the post, it was about how to negotiate w/ the coach b/c the 3 schools are different by objective measures. The gray area complicates things. If child did not like the school so much, it would not matter so much that we do not know cost to us for child to attend this one school. We are paying close attention precisely b/c she liked it alot – but it is tough b/c the online calculator for this one school came in much higher than at other schools. To complicate things, child loved ALL three schools and says she’d be happy at any of them. She could take the pressure off by applying on her own – all 3 admissions depts gave thumbs up on admission before the Official Visit invitations were extended. But I think that no matter how strong an applicant’s scores/class rank/extracurriculars are, there are tons of great kids who do not get accepted at elites b/c there just are not enough spots–so we do NOT want to alienate a coach by doing/saying the wrong thing. Thanks again.</p>
<p>My D was also a recruited athlete - however due to indecisions about which school was best for her she did not apply EA/ED anywhere. Obviously, this hurt her chances for admission at some (but not all) schools where the coaches were chomping at the bit for early admits. In retrospect, I doubt she would have made any different decisions despite the outcome. Her top 2 schools did not even have her sport - only club. And she chose one of those due to best fit.</p>
<p>Since your D already knows her best fit - why not just let her go for it if money is not a huge issue. I agree that you should negotiate the package, of course. But don’t overthink it.</p>
<p>I would take the #1 recruit comment with a grain of salt. Some coaches tell everyone the same spiel. Then, as soon as the coach has his commits the other “#1” recruits will be dropped.</p>
<p>Not all coaches operate in the same manner but don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by the coach’s statement.</p>
<p>OP, you appear to be a humble person. I’m certain you can come up with a way to let the coach at the “not quite Ivy” understand your quandry. You want what’s best for your son. Depending on the school, you may have a good bargaining chip. If the “not quite Ivy” is Stanford or Duke or Notre Dame then your out of luck. If, on the other hand, it’s a school like Emory or Rice then you have leverage.</p>
<p>Please remember that coaches don’t always stay put. My S’s coach left at the end of freshman year. It’s great if your kid likes the coach, but important that he’d still choose the school even if the coach left and someone else came in. </p>
<p>Both of my sons played NCAA college sports. My advice: let your kid drive the train from this point onward. He has some wonderful options, all of them good. Let him make the decision now.</p>