My athlete is starting to receive invitations to OVs. She has built a phone relationship with a number of school’s coaches but the topic of scholarship money has not been brought up. We will not be receiving much in the way of need-based aid so athletic scholarship money is very important.
She does not want to waste an OV on a school where the finances will not work (only 5 OVs allowed). Is it okay to ask about scholarship money before agreeing to an OV? Do coaches generally semi-commit to a ballpark scholarship before OVs?
Are you active on discussion boards on your athlete’s sport and college recruiting? You should have a good idea which schools fund your child’s sport and how they tend to cut up the scholarships. Some sports, some schools give fulls whereas others tend to slice up the money so that it’s rare to get much.
Also, look at where your athlete will be on the team next year when the seniors are gone. How much do they need your child’s particular skill in the sport? And again those boards can give you some idea who else’s is looking at the schools.
This sort of info was all pretty much by word of mouth when my son went through this now there are so many sources for the information.
But absolutely, get it directly from the coach what scholarships are possible for your athlete. It makes no sense to visit s school that has very little chance of giving enough money to make it affordable.
You should be award of the types of aid you can mix and match.
There is no athletic money in Div 3, so the pre-read would be about need based aid at most schools and merit at those that award merit. Yes, the FA office will know about those.
At D1 and D2 schools, if you accept athletic aid, it is unlikely you’d be offered any need based financial aid from the school (it counts against the team maximums, so most schools do not award it). A pre-read may be able to tell you about the merit available, especially if it is automatic. It may also tell you about other money you could see like Pell grants, other federal money (loans, grants) and state grants. It is unlikely the FA office would know about athletic aid. That’s usually presented by the coach, and it may be that you submit your info to the FA/admissions office and the coach puts it all together for you. That’s what D’s coach did.
Coaches know you can only go to 5 OV, and they are used to answering these questions. You can ask, and let them know that finances are important to you and you need to know how it works at that school. You can do a little research too about the merit aid.
It depends on the sport too. In D1 some are headcount and the others are equivalency, meaning that for a few sports (FB, M/W Basketball, VB) you can have so many athletes receiving money (eg 12 athletes receiving money in a fully funded volleyball program) vs so many dollars available to the coach for an entire program (eg 12 scholarships to be divided across the entire varsity and junior varsity softball program). If you aren’t in a headcount sport you are likely looking at small dollars. For example:
And that assumes the school is fully funding the sport. Some programs only get 11 or 9 to spread across a 24 man varsity and a 20 member JV. Lean doesn’t begin to describe it.
If you require financial aid to afford then relying on athletics could be a hard path to some schools. Say you get a quarter scholly to a UC school and DD is dancing in the kitchen. You are not going to share her joy for long when you realize you’re still on the hook for 3/4 of OOS UC tuition plus R&B, which is very spendy. You still need to run the NPC for the schools under consideration and do some family math. In reading up on this you may find that a lot of coaches don’t like talking about who received how much money because it isn’t always fair. Kids with money and skill may get more than poor kids who can’t otherwise afford school.
TLDR: Sports don’t always make this process easier.
Thank you all for your advice. The sport is women’s rowing in case that helps.
We have been led to believe that generous money may be available at one school, but nothing concrete. I’m just inferring from things said by high school coach, other rowers etc.
Ivy’s are interested and at least one has offered an OV, but from NPC’s they look out of reach financially, so an OV to an ivy looks like a waste. Should she discontinue talking to them? I have heard that while Ivy’s only offer need-based aid, that sometimes there is some fuzziness around what they offer, so she has not cut the cord yet.
So if I am to summarize the collected wisdom the following seems to be the approach when discussing an OV with a college coach: “I am excited about your program but finances are important and an athletic scholarship will be important to me. Can you give me any guidance on what to expect in that regard?”
There is no fuzziness with athletic scholarships at Ivy schools - there are no athletic scholarships. At Ivies, the only money is financial need. the Ivies can be very generous even for family incomes above $150k. I think those coaches will be honest with you because they have a limited number of OVs too, so don’t want to waste them on someone who can’t afford the school.
Women’s rowing has a lot of scholarships to split among the team if the sport is fully funded, 20. At many schools, the athletic scholarship can be 1/2, and the merit scholarship can be the other 1/2. And the 20 funded scholarships can be up to the COA if it is a Power 5 conference school or another school that includes the stipend (Pac 12, B1G 10).
I think your question is fair, but I’d include a question about how financial aid interacts with merit at the school. There are a few schools/athletic conferences that do not allow the students to get both merit and athletic aid. The NCAA does if the student meets some academic requirements (if your child is looking at Ivies, she meets them) but the schools make you choose.
This might vary by sport but for Ivies an academic pre read is usually done well before an OV. Typically in the summer prior to senior year. You can request a FA pre read as part of that. So for Ivy coaches I’d just let them know that your daughter is definitely interested in an OV but that affordability is an issue, so she’d like a FA pre read prior to getting on the plane (also, it’s not uncommon at all for coaches to get a soft commitment for an OV, then circle back much later to confirm a date and eventually set travel details). Most Ivies will match others if there is recruiting interest. HYP are the most generous, so being recruited by one of those can help with FA at other Ivies. Most parents of recruited athletes that I know have been pleasantly surprised by the FA pre read. So if you think there’s any chance for need-based aid, it’s probably worth continuing the process. If not, why waste time…
Regarding athletic scholarships at non Ivies, raising it in the way that you suggest is totally appropriate. I wouldn’t necessarily expect a firm amount, but you can often learn a lot from the way the answer is phrased. Keep in mind though that coaches are also shopping…for top recruits they will often be very specific early, but for those a bit down the list they might still be in wait and see mode.
If you have the option of visiting campus unofficially and meeting with the coaches at a few places, that can often clarify a lot. Parents can often read between the lines of what a coach actually says better than teenagers can.
Scholarships are given in hard dollars, not percentages, so technically neither.
However, head count sports have full COA scholarships, IIRC, so if you want to compare then COA is the consistent figure.
ETA: People use percentages because it is a better indication of how “full” the scholarship is when comparing between offers, but the coach will actually be giving the athlete an amount for the year, e.g., $10,000. That is how the funded pool of equivalecy scholarships is divided up, not by percentage share.
I’ve seen grant- in- aid’s written in percentages, like 10% or 50%, and it is broken down to tuition: 10%, books 50%, etc. on the award. I’m sure they have to be converted to $$$ at some point for reporting to NCA and for the bursar’s office, but for these purposes, OP would like to know if it is 25% of tuition or 25% of COA. When the NCAA limits the scholarships to 12 per team, it is 12x tuition/ books/ fees/ r&b, plus the stipend if it is a stipend school.
Some public schools seem to give instate tuition to the athlete, and then award that tuition amount. Don’t know if it really matters to the parent’s pocketbook unless the athletic award doesn’t cover full tuition.
@twoinanddone, they may be presented in that way but I interpreted the question was as to how they are awarded. If the award is presented as 50% of books when the COA assumption is $600 for books, it does not mean that if the student spends $1,000 on books they then receive $500 in scholarship. The amount is $300 regardless of how much is spent on books. It also does not mean that if for some reason the tuition or COA changes then the award changes. It is fixed for the year, regardless of what happens with tuition, COA, or any other cost.
At least that is my experience; at D’s school, they give you one number per semester which comes off the bill and you pay the rest. Next year, she is living off campus so the amount billed by the school will be smaller but the scholarship will still come off the top of that number.
Ha, I can tell you when NOT to ask for money - when you first sit down to talk to the coach! My son’s first words to him were, “Now how do the scholarships work?” I wanted to sink through the floor.
To answer the OP’s top-line question, we talked about support amounts when we went to an invited UV. This was in the old days of wlax when you could verbal early. We only had one school of interest where there were scholarships in the mix, so I admit this is a SSS anecdote.
Coaches talk about this stuff with recruits and parents the time, so don’t be concerned about bringing it up if you are serious about the school. They may not be ready to give you a figure, but that will tell you what the situation is as much as they can. I would establish where you are on the recruit list before broaching the topic. If you are in the top 3, then feel free to ask away.
@MaineLonghorn I asked that question a few times toward the front of the conversation. “Can you tell me how the finances work? I’m new to this and it seems different at every school” One coach said she didn’t give money to freshmen. I think the coach should then be able to say something like “Well, I don’t give money to freshmen but there is a lot of merit money, there is need based aid, there is a state resident grant.” Nope, and we walked away from the process.
The coaches can make this conversation easier too by being prepared with what other aid is available, what % he usually is able to give (even if it’s 10% or $5000). At the school D ended up at, the coach had 5 players there for an OV and had a time set up to talk to each family. She had a sheet from admissions with what the merit aid was expected to be and anything else available ( robotics team award, girl scout gold award, resident grant, bright futures, etc.) She was recruiting us, so she wanted to offer as much as she could.
@MaineLonghorn@twoinanddone I was also the one asking the dumb questions about finances, to head off any other parties asking more mortifying ones. ?
Just do your homework on the general situation for the college before you ask anything. Asking an Ivy League coach about athletic scholarships may not put you in the best light for future discussions, for example.
My son’s school (Power 5) awards scholarships in terms of % of COA, and his NLI was explicitly written that way. It is not a fixed dollar amount, and will increase each year as the COA rises.
The NPC is an estimate based on an algorithm. The pre-read is an estimate done by an actual person with your tax forms and FA application in hand, and even though it’s an estimate you can be confident that the eventual FA award will be very close or identical to that number. There might end up being no difference, but for business owners or various other situations there could be a big difference. Even if the two numbers match, the pre read provides a level of certainty that the NPC doesn’t.