<p>Since 2013, members of the Patriot League (i.e. Holy Cross, Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham etc.) have been able to offer full, athletic scholarships, which are not need based. In football, teams are permitted to offer 15 scholarships per year with a cap of 60 over-all. The change was reportedly made to enable the Patriot League to compete for top athletic recruits with strong academics, many of whom are not "high need" applicants. Since many of the Patriot league schools are also excellent academic institutions, it would seem that they now possess a huge recruiting advantage over the Ivy and NESCAC schools. In fact, most of the Ivy schools are now refusing to schedule games with Patriot League schools, after decades of inter-league competition. </p>
<p>In the past, the Ivy, NESCAC and Patriot League teams all essentially recruited from the same relatively small pool of top athletes with excellent academics. Now, it seems that the Patriot League schools possess a strong competitive advantage. I know that this is a small sample size, but one of my eldest son's friends starts in football at a Patriot League school and says that the quality of the recruits is increasing dramatically, including many that turned down Ivy and other top academic schools.</p>
<p>I wonder whether this phenomenon is impacting the historic recruiting patterns among the top academic schools in the north east and, if so, how? I ask because my son is a junior in HS, who plays football and looking to go to a top, academic school. </p>
<p>Two thoughts…of course it will effect recruiting in some way. All of these slight “market” alterations have an effect that gets factored into an athletes decision and a family financial decision. I think it is going to effect the Ivys much more since the D1 talent level is slightly higher and player size/speed is slightly greater than NESCAC/D3. I don’t think the effect will be huge (7 teams x 15 scholarships). If this was to happen in son’s sport (Ivy baseball), I think there would be a similiar effect with some scholarships being offered. Son’s Ivy is still playing Patriot football teams, so it remains to be seen how the overall Ivy football schedule has been effected.</p>
<p>I think the Ivies and Patriot schools will continue to pursue the same recruits. What might change is the decision made by particular recruits. But, I do not think that will change the profile of recruits the Ivies target.</p>
<p>The big impact will be on recruits whose families are relatively well-off, I think, since the Ivies offer generous need-based aid. True, need-based aid does not cover 100% of expenses. So there could be some slippage among recruits who receive significant need-based aid, but I think the impact is inversely proportional to the amount of need-based aid offered.</p>
<p>Therefore, the scenario is that a rich/well-to-do scholar-athlete may have to choose between a full ride to Fordham or pay all or a portion at Harvard…or full ride to Georgetown or pay all or a portion at Cornell. These are individual, case-by-case decisions. Again I do not think the situation will affect which recruits the schools would pursue.</p>
<p>For example, how would your family deal with the Fordham/Harvard or Georgetown/Cornell hypotheticals posed above? Or maybe your family would qualify for substantial need-based aid. (I know there are other factors such as “feel”, playing time, relationship with the coach, distance from home…but you get the point)</p>
<p>By the way, Ivy-Patriot football this year was 7-7. You are right, I think, that the number of Ivy-Patriot football games may decrease as historical scheduling commitments begin to expire.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with the Fenways above. On a case by case basis, you may have a D1 caliber kid with strong academics from a relatively affluent family who is.faced with paying full fare at an Ivy or getting a football scholarship at a Patriot school. Bucknell vs Princeton? Fordham or Yale? I don’t think the Patriot schools are going to scoop all those recruits, but it will be another factor in the decision.</p>
<p>Couple things. First, the 15 limit is removed as of this year, and every team can go to a max of 60 scholarships spread out over no more than 85 players. The kicker in the Patriot League though is that all aid given to a rostered player counts against the 60 limit. Dividing 60 scholarships equally among 80 kids (assuming you can find 5 full pay specialists) means everyone gets a 75% scholarship, leaving a tuition bill of @15k at Bucknell which likely makes Bucknell competitive with at least the non HYP Ivys for a family in the 100-125k range. However, it is likely that the Patriot classes will include a mix of full scholarship kids and partial scholarship kids. For the kids offered a full scholarship, the Patriot schools can absolutely compete with the Ivys. In fact, a kid on my son’s team committed to Colgate a week or so ago over a couple Ivys and the service academies. Each time a Patriot school pulls the trigger on a full scholarship though the pool of available money to fill out the roster shrinks, making them less competitive at the bottom end of the class. To illustrate, let’s say a Patriot school populates its roster with 5 full scholarship impact players a year. For those five, they can compete with everyone, from HYP to William and Mary toNavy. However, taking 20 full rides off the top leaves only 40 scholarships to be divided among 60 kids (again assuming full pay kickers, punters and long snappers). All of a sudden then the tuition bill for those 60 kids becomes 20k, not 15k, and I doubt that the Patriot schools would be competitive with any Ivy at the level of aid.</p>
<p>On a related topic, I read a newspaper article a while ago about Brown football that suggested that, due to its smaller endowment, Brown was having trouble providing need-based financial aid packages for athletes that were competitive in amount with those offered by Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Now, with the Patriot League teams being able to provide full athletic scholarships, it would seem that Brown will be among the Ivies most impacted. For example, a top athlete from a family making $150,000 might be able to get a full ride from Colgate, an 80% ride from Harvard, but only a 50% ride from Brown. </p>
<p>The school can only give 60 football scholarships, but it can also give merit or other non-need aid if that type of aid is also available to all other students at the school. My daughter goes to a division II school and her team has 9.9 scholarships available. My daughter receives more in merit aid than athletic aid, and I’m sure other kids do too.</p>
<p>@zenator, I agree that it will probably impact a school like Brown with a smaller per-student endowment more than it would HYP. Cornell and Dartmouth, also less affluent than HYP, are willing to consider matching (need based) FA offers from competing schools. So a hot recruit that can document an offer from HYP can often parlay that into an enhanced FA package at Cornell or Dartmouth (not sure about Brown). </p>
<p>The situation isn’t all that different from the fact that academic merit aid is available at some (all?) Patriot schools, but not in the Ivies, so it’s just another piece of a very complex mosaic that determines where an individual will attend.</p>
<p>An Ivy recruit who has a better offer at another school, Ivy or not, may request what is called a “competitive read”. I recall seeing stats from Brown somewhere saying that about 75% of recruits who request a competitive read from Brown end up attending Brown…either because Brown matched the aid or Brown didn’t match the aid but the recruit still preferred to go to Brown, I guess. </p>
<p>No offense to anyone, but current Patriot League rules mandate that all grant aid counts against the 60 limit. It was one of the ways the schools in favor of going scholarship convinced the hold outs that the aid given to football players would be capped, and it wouldn’t turn into a situation like the NEC, where the scholarship limits are effectively meaningless at some schools.</p>
<p>No offense here, Ohiodad - I just meant to point out the parallel between Ivies competing for the best scholar/athletes against athletic scholarship schools and competing for the top academic students against school that offer merit scholarships. </p>
<p>I can speak on this considering I was able to choose between a few patriot league schools and a couple ivies. In my case, I would be paying full at an Ivy but nothing at the patriots. Still with education as my top priority I choose an Ivy as the education was slightly better and it fit the career path I wanted to take. Now while a fair share of kids in my situation would opt for the full ride due to the great financial aid ivys offer I believe kids in a situation such as mine are the only ones ivys would be missing on. Across the Ivy League if you’re parents have a combined income <60000$ you go for free. Anything <$150000 you only pay 10%. Because of this I feel aside from kids who would get no aid ivys are at no real disadvantage </p>
<p>Studfest: Thanks for your insight. As you note, a “fair share of kids in my situation would opt for a full ride.” That is apparently the reason why the Patriot League went the athletic scholarship route. You are a real life example that other kids, perhaps many, opt to choose an Ivy. But, likely a good number, also choose a Patriot school. </p>
<p>Do you have any insight about whether recruiting at top D3 programs (ex. NESCAC) is impacted by Patriot League scholarships?</p>
<p>I can guarantee it has made an impact and will continue to do so, both on the Ivys and on other D1 football schools in the region, particularly NEC and a couple of Pioneer League teams. Son was recruited by Army but the military track wasn’t for him, also recruited by a couple of Ivies but didn’t fit their bands. A PL school heavily recruited him but the FAFSA requirements made it a huge stretch for a family of 6 with 2 in college, the amount of aid offered was just so small it was near impossible. Ended up getting a great scholarship to play at an NEC school, loved it and got a very good education. </p>
<p>If the Patriot League school had offered him a 75% ride or so that’s where he would have ended up, simple as that. The Patriot schools (except Georgetown who didn’t adopt scholarships) have for the last 2 years, and will continue to out recruit the Ivy and other conferences for talented student athletes. I also think there has been a slight shift in focus for some PL football programs from “Student” to “Athlete”. </p>
<p>Agreed. The Patriot League is trying to recruit against the Ivy on one side, and the CAA/NEC on the other. Scholarships will absolutely help on the CAA/NEC side.
I really don’t see it effecting NESCAC recruiting at all.</p>
<p>Zenator, generally the talent level in order from most to least in these conferences goes Patriot (because of scholarships), Ivy, and then NESCAC. Because of this, most kids seriously considering going to nescac schools aren’t being recruited by patriots. In most cases the top recruits at nescacs are Ivy kids who fell though the cracks for one reason or another (eg. Low tests scores (happened to a kid at my school a couple years back) lack of room in the recruiting class, etc.) </p>
<p>Great discussion. studfest77’s comments are exactly in sych with my thoughts. My son was going to college for engineering not baseball. His major was top priority with us.</p>
<p>However, IF the 3 Patriot schools that were interested in him (at that time) had athletic scholarship opportunities then I think it is financially prudent to listen to what they have to say. I would have been more than willing to listen to someone willing to pay 60-75% (whatever the number is) for a great school that had my son’s major. The reputation and success of the specific major would have been the deciding factor between an Ivy and Patriot League school. </p>
<p>" In most cases the top recruits at nescacs are Ivy kids who fell though the cracks for one reason or another (eg. Low tests scores (happened to a kid at my school a couple years back) lack of room in the recruiting class, etc.)"</p>
<p>I don’t know about that. In some sports, I think the real difference is in the pure athletic talent. The Ivys are Div 1, the athletics are of a higher caliber, and even though the Ivys don’t have scholarships, they are willing to bend admissions more than the top NESCAC schools — but ONLY if the athlete is talented enough to make it worth it. </p>
<p>I know of one athlete who has a likely letter from an Ivy despite having unspectacular grades and SAT scores over 400 points below the school average. He’s that good at his sport, so from the school’s point of view as long as he made it to the Ivy Academic Index minimum threshold, it really didn’t matter. Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Bowdoin and Tufts can’t stretch that far. They still have to get the student past admissions, and even if the student is a slotted recruit, he or she still needs to be close to the profile of other students at the school to get through. As one website put it, the NESCAC system “limits weaker academic applicants” vis-a-vis the Ivy League system. </p>
<p>My D went through the recruiting process with both Ivys and NESCAC, and essentially was told by the Ivy coaches that if she could improve her athletic performance by a very specific amount, they would want her and admissions would not be an issue. If not, they weren’t interested, period. Her academics are very good, but past a certain academic threshold, her academics were not the issue - only her athletics mattered. In contrast, the NESCAC coaches were all quite concerned with her academic qualifications and how they would weigh with admissions. </p>