Recruiting- Women's Diving

A dear friend’s D19 recently switched from gymnastics to diving. She is now researching schools and programs that would be a good fit for her new diver. I’m trying to help her and thought I’d come to a place where there may be expertise in this area. A few non-academic questions:

  1. Given there are many D1 and D2 programs, should I assume it is easy to be offered a spot on a team (whether scholarship or walk on)?
  2. I know diving is not a full head count sport but is it the norm to give money to a brand new unranked diver?

Any help/guidance is greatly appreciated!

Swim teams are big, and the number of scholarships small.

There is no way to know how good she is as a diver, or how good her stats are. Most likely, her stats are going to get her into schools, and then she can see if any schools that she fits academically also have a spot on the diving team.

Sorry for the basic questions but again, NO knowledge here between she and I. Are the scholarships allotted split between swimming AND diving or swimming has their number and diving has their number? From a website, it looked separated (but indeed a small number).

Perhaps I am jaded from my baseball knowledge but it doesn’t sound correct to me, given the number of scholarships is small, that a new to diving athlete, or frankly any diver, would get a full ride (no academic or need-based aid). Am I incorrect in my assumption?

You are very correct in your assumption. Even at schools that are fully funded there is very little money to go around and very few athletes get the “full ride” even fewer coming in as freshmen.

In terms of getting a roster spot it can be all over the board. I had a diver I coached last year (a boy so that is a bit different) that was a state finalist, all-American and he struggled a bit to find a spot. He had a spot locked up at a mid major, lower level division 1 school but wanted more. He struck out at most Big Ten and similar schools as they did not have roster room for him and then suddenly ended up at one of the top 5 programs in the country, so you never know. Diving is a subset of the swim team and as a result the head swim coach (in most cases) dictates how many of each discipline the team will carry, including divers. In my experience the head coach gives the diving coach a set number of roster spots and a set amount of scholarship money to work with and often times a coach can only take 1 or possibly none in a given year, depending on what the team composition is.

Girls is a bit different as walk ons can help to offset the head count of football with respect to title IX so there is a bit more flexibility. My old coach (going way way back) would take about any girl that showed up, regardless of skill as it really didn’t cost him anything but time, and helped in the title IX calculation. Granted very few of those ever saw the travel team and some very rarely saw competition but the opportunity was there and most of those would fall into the “relative beginner” grouping.

One thing I hate about my high school (and most others I have come into contact with) is the prevailing attitude that there is a roster spot for everyone in niche sports, at the college level, if that is desired. I had a girl a couple of years ago that was decent (2 time state qualifier) who was convinced diving was her ticket. She ended up at a small state directional school and was very much over matched and quit after a year. College diving is much different than high school, even at the lower levels. The need to step up to 3M (high board) is a big step for some at 18 years old that has only ever competed in high school, much less the step up to platform diving.

My advice is, much like a traditional college search, she should get a list of schools she would want to attend and then start researching diving possibilities. The opportunities will vary based on each school and could be something she could use to help narrow down the college search.

One last example. I am coaching a junior in high school right now and he has told everyone for the last year that he is going to dive at Indiana. Indiana is one of the top programs in the country and would be a “reach” even for a national champion level diver (which he is not). It has finally sunk in that if he wants to dive in college he will have to find another school, that most likely will not match the overall university environment he is looking for and as a result diving may not happen at the college level. I went through the same thing with my son in another sport, the schools he could play for were not a fit on the academic side and as a result he “retired” after state his senior year.

MODERATOR’S NOTE:

This is one of the reason that “Asking for a Friend” posts are not allowed - many questions will involve a game of telephone. Another reason is that this site is called College Confidential and there are privacy issues involve.

If the student (or her parent) wants to obtain an account an ask the question, she’ll find a wealth of info here. But as a start, my info matches @iaparent . Closing thread.