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<p>My children are involved in performing arts, not sports, but my niece is a 15 year old championship skiier (alpine and nordic) and I'm trying to advise my sister about how to find/educate herself about sports scholarships. My niece also plays a fall sport where she excels at the school level and she is also an excellent student (but I don't have any stats). Any help appreciated!</p>
<p>NCAA clearinghouse is a good start.</p>
<p>It's okay for hs students under a certain grade level to make contact w/ coaches but not vice versa. So your niece should send letters and sports resume to college coaches.</p>
<p>This is the perfect time to start. Coaches are not allowed to contact her before her senior year in DIV.1 and 2 but a friendly letter with clippings from the newspaper and bio is a good way to go so they become familiar with her. I know it's very difficult to have particular colleges in mind now, but maybe they have some general ideas of what colleges types would work for them (like is she an excellent student with high grades, are her test scores generally great, are they prepping her now for the psat's, etc.) I would send out maybe a dozen letters and start going to look at the campuses.
Just a warning about coaches; maybe I should post this elsewhere but they lie. We had a couple coaches lie out the side of their mouth about their interest in my son but then, when the acceptance was in say "well, I don't know how many on the team are coming back, I found this great local kid, I can't give you any money because you got the highest merit schoalrship we offer and I have other really super players here coming in who qualify for nothing. " In the end however, he made it onto the Div.1 team of his choice. (The uniform is ordered in his size! )</p>
<p>I would identify the colleges with appropriate teams. (My son was looking for D1 lacrosse, ranked top 20, although at the beginning of his search he was considering D3 top 10 also.)</p>
<p>Then crossmatch with school that have appropriate academic programs. Take geography and finances into consideration. It's important to be at a school that you want to be at anyway, just in case you break your leg the first day on campus. Or you are one of two recruited goalies in your class and the other one turns out to be the rookie of the year for the league.</p>
<p>Learn what the athletic scholarship opportunities are for your sport at the colleges you are interested in. For most athletes, this is not a full-ride deal.</p>
<p>Send out friendly letters, resumes, and tapes/clippings as appropriate.
Meet coaches at events. Go to camps where you will be seen. Call coaches at colleges you are interested in and tell them you will be on campus checking things out and can you stop in and say hellp? (That's called an <em>unofficial</em> visit.)</p>
<p>Wait for the phone to ring on July 1 (if you are in a hot sport and are a hot recruit!)</p>
<p>Balance it all out -- because it's YOUR college education at stake.</p>