I thought that Ivies and MIT did not offer athletic scholarships?

@LuckyCharms913 my S is a recruited athlete at an Ivy. He received a financial aid pkg which covers tuition and fees. We pay room and board. His package consists of a school grant, an endowed scholarship through the university and an outside scholarship which my S won on his own. Perhaps your sister could ask if the Ivy offers other types of aid that isn’t tied to financial need.

During our recruiting process we found the UAA schools and Tier 1 LAC’s offered substantial academic merit money, equaling or bettering many of the D1s (partials, preferred walk on, etc). If he is an outstanding student, there is plenty of money to entice him.

@fbsdreams, some of the competitive Midwest D3 schools offer merit scholarships as do some in the Centennial conference, but none in the NESCAC conference do so - of the top ranked LAC’s that offer merit it’s really just Grinnell, Kenyon and Oberlin, and then there’s a bunch in the #30-50 ranking.

There is a CC parent of an incoming Conn Coll male student who says their student got merit, not financial aid, and that Conn Coll (a NESCAC school) is now using merit to attract specific students. I don’t pretend to understand how that works, as I thought NESCACs had a policy of no merit aid but perhaps it was custom, not policy. If anyone has any additional information on evolving Conn Coll practices, that may be useful for the collective wisdom here at CC.

This thread has reminded me that a friend of one of my daughters got a full ride to Yale. He was a superb athlete and was a good guy, but was only an “okay” student (definitely an anomaly on the scatter plot). I would be very surprised if he qualified for full 100% ride on need alone.

I think that for very top athletes looking to attend very top universities, the students are going to need to take it on a case by case basis and see what comes up.

@DadofTwoGirls
The athlete you mention would not have received an athletic or merit based FA as Yale only offers “need based” FA. For some reason this is a common misconception that athletes somehow get special FA aid at the Ivies. They do not. And…any student who receives FA still is required to contribute summer contribution so it’s not 100% full ride.
Having said that the big 3 HYP do offer amazing FA and the ceiling is quite high for what consititutes middle income. I suspect the family may not have been entirely forthcoming about how they qualified for aid. Some folks may feel more inclined to say their kid got “full ride” and hint at merit or athletic as opposed to it being met by need. Who knows…

@midwestmomofboys, the answer on the Conn College issue is that there is no prohibition on merit scholarships in the NESCAC. From the League website:

“Some NESCAC colleges award financial aid strictly on the basis of financial need and pledge to meet each student’s demonstrated financial need. Others award a variety of merit-based scholarships based on their evaluation of a student’s academic accomplishment and potential. No NESCAC college, as a NCAA Division III member, offers athletic scholarships of any kind.”

Conn College is a great school, but it is somewhat less difficult to get into than some of the other NESCAC colleges. Offering merit scholarships may allow Conn College to bring in some super high achievers to help build its class. Not to name names, but how is Williams going to justify giving a merit scholarship to a kid with a 4.0 and 34 ACT, when a raft of other kids have a 3.95 and a 35 ACT. Accordingly, most NESCACs limit most FA to kids who have financial need.

There is $0 merit or athletic scholarships in the Ivy League. See this statement on the Yale athletic recruit page.

"No school in the Ivy League offers aid based on athletic ability. Like all Ivy League institutions, Yale University offers financial aid based on need. " @ http://www.yalebulldogs.com/information/recruiting/index There is similar disclosure on all the other schools’ pages.

If you go the FA pages of every Ivy League school, there is an affirmative declaration that all aid is need based. See the link to the Yale page https://admissions.yale.edu/financial-aid-prospective-students

“All of Yale’s undergraduate financial aid is awarded on the basis of financial need. Yale does not offer any merit-based scholarships.”

There are always claims of full rides. They almost always are one or a combination of:

  1. All or a substantial portion of tuition, room, board, fees, allowed expenses covered through FA based on need. HYP cover all FA through grants, so the parent or student may characterize the award as a "free ride", which in a sense it is, but it was based on need, not athletics or merit. This may then get embellished by third parties passing on the story. I also know at Yale, portions of the grant package may include XYZ scholarship. The Yale Development office solicits for one year and multi-year named scholarships. It would be understandable that someone interprets that (or another "named" scholarship) as a merit award, but it really is a "marketing" ploy by Development to encourage donations to support FA.
  2. Parent or student like to embellish their achievements, especially for athletes. It is a "white lie" then gets further embellished down the third party "telephone" tree.
  3. The student received merit aid from an outside source and it got lumped into the discussion on aid received.
  4. Third party gets limited info and makes uninformed assumptions which then get passed on and further embellished.
  5. Passed on story in that region in the nature of an urban legend (I heard a daughter of a friend of my S's friend's father ...
  6. Outright lie.

Now there are certainly cases where the Ivies will increase the aid package because a student shows a more generous package from a “peer” institution that is also need based. While we can characterize this as a form of recruiting enticement to some extent, it is a reworking of the calculations and certain assumptions to match another need based calculation.

As for the NESCAC, here is the link to the NESCAC statement on athletic scholarships http://nescac.com/admissions/admissions with the following quote,

“By NCAA and conference policy, there are no athletic scholarships awarded at NESCAC institutions. Financial aid awards are offered in writing only by the institution’s financial aid office and not before the student has been admitted. Institutions may not provide written or oral financial aid evaluations to prospective students prior to being admitted.”

By the way, by NCAA rules, DIII’s are not allowed to give athletic scholarships (I have seen occasional uniformed posts which suggest otherwise). Some DIII’s do provide merit and need based aid. I know of DIII coaches who push recruits to apply for merit based awards that the recruit qualifies for. See http://www.ncaa.org/division-iii-experience with the following quote:

“Division III is also the only division that does not award athletic scholarships; however, more than 75 percent of Division III student-athletes receive financial aid or have earned a merit scholarship for academic talent and accomplishment.”

Just for kicks, I checked out the Conn College FA page. https://www.conncoll.edu/financial-aid/financing-options/grants-scholarships/connecticut-college-grants/ All grants with the exception of 1 (a special scholarship for New London residents) are need based. They appear to be competitive, so in that sense they are merit based:

"Eligibility for these programs, with the exception of the Jane Bredeson Scholarship, is based on financial need and limited to 8 semesters, less for transfer students.

Connecticut College Grants

These scholarship grants are based on demonstrated need and are funded in part from donor gifts and endowed funds. Endowed Connecticut College grants are awarded based on criteria established by the donor."

Here’s a merit aid list from 2103-2014 - it looks like it still holds true

https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/mobile/local/college-grants-for-the-affluent/1526/

@BKSquared Interesting how Conn Coll frames it – it sounds to me that, other than the special local merit award, it is still need based awards, though the money for the award may come from named endowed etc. funds, so might be called, the Alumni Scholarship, or the Trustees Award, which makes it sounds “merity” but still isn’t. Alternatively, Conn is now giving pure merit to select full pay admits, and the website hasn’t been updated. Or maybe I’m just not understanding Conn Coll’s language, won’t be the last time I misconstrue something.

Realistically, it wouldn’t surprise me if Ivies or DIII schools find ways to direct extra financial aid to students that they really want, particularly athletes. However, “providing scholarships to athletes” is not the same thing as “providing athletic scholarships”.

Suppose a school gives a full ride to a star high school athlete – and he doesn’t work out. Maybe he gets into a fight with the coach on the first day of practice, quits the team, and never comes back. Maybe he decides that practices and games take away time that he would rather spend with his girlfriend. Maybe his skills don’t translate to the college level. Who knows, maybe he decides that education is the most important thing and he needs to spend more time studying.

In any event, let’s say he’s off the team. If he is at a traditional DI school and has an athletic scholarship, he loses it. An athletic scholarship is contingent on athletic performance. But at an Ivy or DIII, he gets to walk away from the team while keeping whatever merit or need-based financial aid he was awarded initially. In other words, even if an Ivy/DIII finds ways to get extra aid to star recruits, they still can’t make that aid contingent on athletic performance.

@Midwestmomofboys Our state’s flagship college has a huge list of scholarships. Some are general, some are ultra specific. The majority of them said they were need based and required you to be a financial aid applicant to apply. Others were clearly merit as there was not a FA prerequisite. Based on the listed criteria, the financial need ones were still competitive and some form of merit was considered, but they were not available to full pay students. I am guessing that is what is going on with the Conn College grants, unless they have changed policies and their website has not yet been updated.

The NCAA is always watching – a D3 program in our region was just sanctioned, with all its wins vacated, because a new coach suggested his athletes might have some advantage in financial aid awards. I really don’t think D3 programs want to run the risk of an investigation and possible sanctions. At the same time, athletes are eligible for merit the same as any other admitted student.

This is confusing. So will Princeton offer full financial aid to an athlete (national team) from family with higher income? What is the higher income bracket? I heard something above $75,000 per year per family is considered higher income? Is that truth?

The replies from knowledgeable people above are clear: The only monetary award that a Princeton athlete will get is the need-based financial aid that would be offered to any other Princeton student with the same finances. Nothing “extra” for being an athlete.

Full financial aid with higher income…no. I believe the current income bracket is $140,000 or less receives free TUITION only. R&B is around $14,700 and expenses run around $3,600 so total is $18,300 IF over $140,000 plus tuition. If you tell me approximately how much your family makes (with normal assets) I can give you the total approximate price without running the NPC.

Thank you both! I wasn’t sure that anybody would see this here.

Yep…it’s only need based aid. And even if they are offered full financial aid based on their EFC, the kids are still expected to contribute some amount each school year and summer from working (at least at Columbia) whether or not they are athletes or artists. A lot of the kids have part time jobs from my experience. Since its not merit (athletic or academic) the athlete can quit the team and stay at the school. I do think its more generous financial aid at the Ivys. Grants versus the famous “loans” that most other schools consider financial aid.

Princeton has a summer contribution and work study contribution. Any student can petition to have the summer contribution lifted or reduced because the student’s summer activities made it impossible for the student to save the required amount. This applies to whether the student is in an unpaid internship or living on or near campus so they can work out for their sport. I assume H&Y at least, if not all of the Ivys, offer similar programs.

All of the Ivys, but in particular H,Y,P are very, very generous. I would not assume a total out of pocket bill anywhere near 18k with family income in the 140k range and normal assets.