I have a nephew completing sophomore year in HS. He is an excellent student and athlete and his parents are looking at summer (baseball) showcases to get him seen by more college coaches. One of his travel ball coaches is encouraging them to look at the Ivies “because they give great financial packages to athletes,” as my sister excitedly told me.
Of course the coach doesn’t know anything about their finances, but I do-- a little bit 
--so I suggested they run some NPCs. Turns out that they would be full pay even at schools like Princeton. $70,000+/yr is more more than they wish to spend, so I told sis to look at lower priced schools and schools that give academic and/or athletic merit money (which rules out the Ivies, MIT, most NESCAC schools but still leaves plenty of great choices).
Now I’m wondering if I gave her bad info. Last night at my son’s HS graduation, two students were announced as having received athletic scholarships, one to MIT and one to Princeton. I know that Princeton recruits (thought MIT didn’t really even do that), but I thought that neither school gives additional money to athletes–meaning that athletic excellence might help get someone accepted, but would have no effect on what his financial package would look like. Am I misunderstanding something? Did I steer her wrong?
His “athletic scholarship” at Princeton is likely need based aid but scholarship sound more prestigious.
Yeah, they do not. MIT is D3 so no athletic monies, Ivy’s give need based
@TomSrOfBoston: What…doesn’t “James will be attending Princeton, where he will be receiving $53k of need-based aid” sound impressive?
If I’d just overheard someone say this, I’d figure they were wrong (or, if I were feeling generous, that they misunderstood).
But to have a scholarship announced, students had to turn in a copy of the award letter (purportedly so the administration could verify that it was a merit award and not a need-based award). We don’t have a real crackerjack staff running the HS, though, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised…
@SevenDad No it announces to everyone that the family is very low income. in a low income high school that may not matter but in a more affluent community it might.
Princeton’s financial aid comes in the form of a “Princeton grant”. There is nothing that says it is need based or merit based. Just a letter listing the various components of cost of attendance, efc, work study, summer contribution and the Princeton grant. To someone not familiar with the Ivy model, and maybe more familiar with financial aid awards from less obscenely wealthy schools, it is not hard to see how this Princeton grant would look a lot like a merit based Dean’s Scholarship or whatever, particulary with the lack of things like pell grants, loans, etc. I would assume award letters from other very generous schools, including MIT, would look similar.
But the bottom line is that neither school provides merit based athletic aid. Period. Full stop. MIT is barred by NCAA and probably institutional rules from doing so. Princeton is barred by conference rule. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed.
MIT does not offer any athletic scholarships and they do not recruit in a typical manner. The coach can have your name flagged as a “athlete of interest” and the admissions folks consider that, but the kids need to get accepted under their own merit and achievements. I don’t think MIT even offers any typical merit awards, they only award money to kids based on their financial aid needs.
One way to show your sister reality is to show her the common data set for the Ivies and MIT, which Princeton just happens to have on hand for all schools! If you scroll down to H (Financial aid) and the look at H2A (non need financial aid) there is a specific line about athletic scholarships. You will see the total amount they award for a specific year. Spoiler alert - it is 0.
Take a look https://www.princeton.edu/provost/institutional-research/common-data-set/
Thanks, @Ohiodad51, I never thought of it from that perspective (as I’ve never seen an Ivy or MIT award letter and never will). Now that I think about it, the boys could well have submitted the letters because they think they earned the “grant” with their athletic talent. My 17-year-old wouldn’t be able to distinguish merit from need unless I spelled it out for him.
But surely a HS administrator should know the difference, especially since it sounds like the words “Athletic grant” would not have appeared anywhere. It’s as if someone in the guidance office thought, “The student award letter shows a grant, the student is a recruited athlete, therefore the grant is an athletic scholarship.” This is a fairly affluent district, though, where HYPMS acceptances are not common but not truly a rarity, especially for athletes.
OK, now I can safely go back to steering sister and her kid to one of the hundreds of schools that will fit both him and their budget (which is pretty generous, btw, just not $280,000+). @LKnomad she believed me all along since she knows that CC, even threads that weren’t relevant to my kids, is a hobby of mine-- but I was starting to doubt myself.
@TomSrOfBoston: I was joking. Hence smiley face at end of post.
I think some of it is just a lack of precision when talking. I would guess the kids will play a sport for MIT/Princeton and also received aid. A lot of people use aid and scholarship interchangeably. It all gets combined into athletic scholarship. Unless its a very small high school, I wouldn’t expect the administrators to spend much time on each student to get the nuances totally correct.
And to make it even more confusing, the athletic award (NCAA D1 and D2) is not called an athletic scholarship, it is called a Grant-in-Need. It doesn’t surprise me that a high school counselor doesn’t know that the Ivies or D3 don’t give athletic aid
At my daughter’s high school, about 30 kids participated in the ‘NLI signing day’ but only about half of those really signed an NLI and received money. Anyone who was going to play in college got to participate and ‘sign’ the NLI. The HS guidance counselors weren’t even there and it was hosted by the athletic department. The volleyball player from MIT ‘signed’ and I’m sure everyone in the room thought she got a scholarship. Navy tennis player, men’s crew, community college players all ‘signed’ at the ceremony but there was no money awarded.
Luckycharms, you were nice (and correct) to warn that there will be no money at the Ivies, but let your nephew investigate. Nothing wrong with going to the summer camps, but just make sure there are some coaches from the money schools at the camps too.
One thing about baseball - it’s cold and snowy in the northeast in the spring. The action is at southern schools. He should be looking at Duke and NC State and all those nice D1 and D2 schools south of the Mason/Dixon or west. Stanford does give scholarships. There are ton of D2 schools in the Carolinas and Florida.
I am pretty sure that Stanford does give some athletic scholarships. Given Stanford’s admission rate, this is obviously a very long shot for nearly everyone.
Other than this omission, I think that OP is entirely correct.
I was heavily involved in the NCAA D2 and 3 recruiting process. Ultimately giving up going to a D1 school for academics was not worth the price to be a student athlete. I would make sure your nephew knows that in college athlete comes before student. I am an electrical engineering major and the coaches all “encouraged” I pick a social science when talking with them.
It’s really as simple as taking the words literally. There is NO athletic scholarships(Ivy and D3) but recruited athletes are listed in local sports pages as having gotten a scholarship to (fill in Ivy) schools they choose to attend. For low income it really is like getting a full ride. Ivy recruits have signing days at their high school just like the other athletes. Most people don’t realize that lower level sports that give kids scholarships(also announced at the school) almost always is for a small amount. They aren’t full ride scholarships.
On another similar line many kids will have their football signing day and announce that athlete Joe Smith is signing with college AAA. There is a picture in the paper with the student signing the letter of intent with the coach and family members around the table. The fine print which people don’t hear about is athlete Joe Smith is actually signing to attend college AAA as a preferred walk on NOT a full ride scholarship. Meaning their will be on the roster but will not be on scholarship. A lot of kids will take a higher rated football program to take a preferred walk on vs full scholarship at a lower level football school. However people reading the sports article will not know the difference between a kid getting a full ride or a preferred walk on or simply a walk on. Same goes for the recruited football players that sign with Ivy schools. Most people not in the know assume(wrongly) the kid got a full ride to the Ivy school.
Our school has the same sort of ceremony @twoinanddone describes. It’s AD driven. Most parents of good athletes know the reality, and see it more as an announcement of where the athletes will continue playing. I wish they’d just change the wording to reflect that.
Stanford has 300 student athletes on scholarship (not all full scholarships, but many are) and 700 students involved in varsity athletics every year. It probably has more fully funded teams than most PAC 12 schools.
@politeperson, I thought the signing ceremony at our school was one of the best. No one cared that someone going to a D3 school didn’t get a scholarship or that another at a D2 school may only have received a $1000. It was just a fun celebration. I know that several didn’t get very much at all but that was okay, they were going to college and that’s what really mattered.
I actually liked it better that they didn’t announce the amount of the athletic awards. The amounts were announced at the academic/talent award night and it became a ‘judgment’ that a certain award was only $500 while a similar one was $2000.