Hello,
I am a current junior and I am planning on going to school for Computer Science/Criminal Justice and then later, transferring and getting a masters which will be one program at FSU and other schools. The problem with this, is I am no so sure that I would be getting alot of scholarship money due to my GPA, 3.6 (due to two bad grades which can be explained) and my ACT of a 28. I plan on getting my ACT up higher to compensate for my GPA. I hope to go to school for soccer and track, but I have some difficulties with the recruiting process and NCAA vs. NAIA. I want to go to a good school for my academics but I also want to make sure I get the most out of scholarship money. I am not going to lie, I don’t know how to calculate how much I would be getting at NCAA D1 v D2 v D3 vs NAIA. Where could I calculate this? I feel so stressed when it comes to recruiting decisions, especially since I don’t have film (my mom’s in school, she doesn’t even bring me to games- I depended on other people) and have not been attending camp IDs.
I would like to go to school for my undergrad for these sports so I do not have a pay as much when it comes to the total cost, especially when I go to grad school. Does the type of school, big vs small matter when it comes to transferring to grad school? Is there a preference for transferring instate vs out of state? I am stressed out that due to my athletic ability, I would go to a smaller school and not be able to transfer to larger colleges. I hope someone can deliver some information about this. It would be greatly appreciated.
For track, you can check out tfrrs.org performance lists and compare them to times those athletes ran in HS to get a sense of athletic fit. Then fill out the recruiting form on the team web site and email the coach at each school you’re interested in. You don’t list any of your times so it’s hard to say, but be aware that scholarship money for Track is pretty scarce. D3 does not have athletic scholarships at all. One nice thing about track is that there is sometimes scholarship money available as late as the end of senior year at some schools.
Others can comment on soccer but my guess is that if you don’t have film, haven’t attended camps, and aren’t already talking to coaches, your chances of a scholarship in that sport are pretty slim.
Not wishing to be the bearer of bad news but a high ACT or SAT score doesn’t compensate for a lower GPA for most colleges. And GPA is used by many colleges as the best indicator of future preformance.
If you have legitment reason for the lower grades then be sure to get that info into any college application and any discussion with a college coach.
And IMHO stuff like “my granda died and we were really close” isn’t a real legitment reason. You might blow one test for that but it shouldn’t affect you for a whole semester.
Most track scholarships are shared among several members of the team, so pretty small. Many merit scholarship are stats driven, so if the charts says a 3.7 and a 28 ACT gets $15k, that’s what you get.
NAIA has its own rules and many schools have generous athletic scholarships.
I have a legitimate reason for this. There is also an upward trend in my GPA. My transcript is consistent but this event in my life freshman year caused it. Everything else is great
@jjasatrapp - It sounds like you are trying to find an affordable school that you can run track or play soccer at. Unfortunately mens track and soccer have smaller scholarships. If you are the best runner or player you can get more, but if you’re average it will be a small amount.
For affordability the scholarship is part of the puzzle but not the main piece. I would suggest you make a list of schools you are interested in and run the net price calculator for each. Some private schools give excellent financial aid. Also, check out instate public schools to compare.
After that see where your track times fit at the schools and then email coaches.
This ends up taking a lot of research time, but it’s how you get to the where you want to be.
It sounds like you are just at the beginning of figuring all this out. For D3 schools there are no athletic scholarships. For men’s soccer, then, to get a scholarship you’d be looking at D1 and D2 schools (I don’t know about NAIA schools). Most soccer players at those D1 and D2 schools do not get a scholarship. Those that do, tend to be international players, or real standouts.
Are you in recruiting conversations with coaches now?
If you need help figuring out the merit or financial aid piece College Confidential has a lot of knowledgeable posters, you might want to ask more questions about these topics.
And for D1 soccer, most of the schools have finalized recruiting for class of '21.
My son runs track for a Division 3 school, so we thought through a lot of the same issues when he was applying. Only D1 and D2 schools can award athletic scholarships, and as others have pointed out, track scholarships may be scarce. The other alternative is to run for a D3 school. At the D3 level, you cannot receive an athletic scholarship per se, but if the coach wants you on the team, you may get a boost in the admissions process. The other two types of aid you might qualify for are true financial aid, based on your family’s finances, and merit aid, which is based on other factors including your academic performance. You shouldn’t assume you won’t qualify for merit aid with your stats, as it really depends on the school. Each school will have a Net Price Calculator on its website. You can use the NPC to get an estimate of what sort of aid you might qualify for at different schools, including both financial aid and merit aid. In putting together our list, we also looked at NCAA D3 rankings, just to get an idea of which schools have strong teams, and then at the individual team rosters and stats - are there strong athletes in your events and what year are they in? Once you’ve done some basic research and have a starting list, fill out the online questionnaires for those schools and reach out to the coaches. Most will respond. We always met with the coaches when we visited schools, and that was very helpful - hopefully, things will settle down later this year and you’ll be able to do some visits.
You’re saying, some of the people rostered at d1 and d2 don’t get any scholarships??
I am a female, does it make a difference?
Yes, many people offered roster spots at D1 aren’t given any athletic money.
At the D1 level, women’s soccer has up to the equivalent 14 full scholarships spread out over the entire roster. Since rosters are typically 25-30+ players, that means not everyone is getting money, or if they are it’s probably not a lot. In fact, I remember seeing the avg athletic aid at Davidson was about $5,000.
For soccer, yes, being female makes a difference, there are more scholarships. (roughly 14 per team vs. 9 for the men) However, yes, some of the people on the roster do not get any scholarship money. (College rosters can have ~30 on them – and there are only 14 scholarships). I believe of those getting scholarships most get partial scholarships, not a “full ride” but I don’t know that much about women’s soccer.
I do know that at this point, probably most the recruiting decisions for the class of '21 that would involve scholarships have been made. Those kids have been in touch with coaches for some time now and the coaches have seen them play more than once.
You mentioned track, which I know nothing about. However the great thing about track is that unlike soccer it is not subjective – if you have the times, you have the times to compete at a collegiate level.
Being female helps only because in the sports you’re looking at there are more scholarships allowed and available for women than for men. Taking Track as an example, D1 programs are allowed 18 scholarships for women (12.6 for men). Those are the limits, but not all programs are fully funded. A coach might only have funding for, say, 5 full scholarships on the women’s side and none on the men’s side. Coaches divide those scholarships up to build the most competitive team they can (including using part of that allotment for XC, which is part of the track program).
So yes, quite a few good athletes are competing on little to no scholarship funding. Women do tend to get better packages than men with comparable HS accomplishments just because more funding is available to distribute to women outside of football (which is allowed 85 full scholarships, and so creates a large imbalance between funding for men and women that other sports are used to correct).
LOTS of the people rostered at D1 and D2 schools don’t have scholarships or have only academic scholarships (not athletic).
Thank you for the explanation
Here’s a table of the number of scholarships available at the various levels of collegiate play. It looks reasonably correct (pre-Covid) but things are changing all the time and some rules are not obvious (eg how to count VB vs Beach VB or indoor vs outdoor track vs XC.) There’s lots of arcane exposition at the bottom of the page. Happy hunting!
Adding to this that for T&F there is really just one program that includes indoor, outdoor, XC. So the Director of T&F has to satisfy needs for all those sports within the scholarship and coaching limits for T&F.
Do you know your EFC and family budget? Start there. Are there any schools in your state that are affordable without sports? Find those first. Then spread your search to look for schools that offer sports scholarships.
I don’t know how the current budget crisis will affect the aid schools offer. If need based and merit awards are reduced, it’s possible sports scholarships could be too.
Those are the number of allowed scholarships. Not all programs are fully funded, so while 12 scholarships may be allowed, only 8 may be funded.