I’m trying to help a potential recruit. So many additional factors to consider for athletes.
Excellent grades, only average SAT in CA, wants to play, looking for scholarship where possible
She was told she is lower D1 or solid D2, I understand that recruiting for athletic 5’9" will go through the Sr year. So if recruiting goes as late as spring, how do you know where to apply by deadlines to?
Is it usual to give financials to D2/NAIA before offer, when they say they have some funds for you?
For D3 is it worth to pursue colleges where the test scores are on the low side? It seems test scores are not showing full potential, considering a retake.
Have been looking at West Coast mostly but willing to branch out. Any tips please?
D1 women’s volleyball is a headcount sport, so it is a much different consideration to play D1 than D2 as far as money goes. If she’s academically qualified for the D1 school it wouldn’t matter if her test scores are high or not as the money would be the same with a top score or an okay school (assuming not an Ivy). For D2, it might matter a lot as the merit money might be lower for a lower test score.
I think the D1 scholarships will be pretty set by November’s early signing date, and most coaches do ask the players to apply ED, but that is not absolutely required. If she doesn’t have offers or doesn’t know by the application deadlines, she should just apply to schools she wants to go to academically and those still on her list athletically. If she gets an offer out of the blue past the deadline, I’m sure they’d still take her application late. Coaches have amazing powers to move deadlines. I think she’ll find things move pretty quickly in the fall and she’ll have a pretty good idea of a group of schools interested in her.
As noted, D1 is a headcount sport for women (12 full scholarships allowed by NCAA rules). D2 schools can offer up to 8 and can split them up e.g. offer half scholarships to 16 players.
Height is a big differentiator between D1 and other divisions. If she’s an outside hitter, opposite or middle blocker, 5’9" is on the short side for D1, if she’s a back row player it may be fine.
Assuming she plays club volleyball, her club coach should be able to help her navigate - clubs are very much interested in seeing their players signed.
I agree that a lot of players are signed in November (especially the stars) but there seem to be a good number that find spots later also. Pretty much every college that has women’s varsity sports has volleyball so there are a lot of teams.
Appreciate the comments. Yes I understand the D1 headcount. I know they lock up the tall girls first. But I did read that recruiting is ‘fluid’ especially for athletic 5’9" and can happen in the Spring. CA VB athletes are supposed to be strong and I assume she is. I am going to encouraging her to continue to see if there is any interest. I’m not sure how to tell what is ‘lower’ D1 but we aren’t looking at Pac 12. So far just looking Western. I’m trying to help the mom since I know the college search drill but not the athletics part. She was in Club for 2 years and was going to switch up to basketball as she is also good at that. But decided to rededicate to VB and missed tryouts for old club so in new club now. Well thought of and will get supporting letters from them. If the mom needs to ask for more support I will tell her that. Mom says this summer meets are key and the girl will continue to contact coaches after July 4.
She is looking more at D2 and NAIA since she wants to focus on academics too. But how to tell how many scholarships they actually give out–do they use all 8 or 16 halves etc or do some only use a small amount of allowance? Does the girl have any way to tell what she might get? One college said they need financials, so do they offer a package that might be a mix of need, merit, athletic? I can run NPC to see how they look for need based. Does it pay off for CA girls to look farther afield?
For D3, she like the smaller schools and the academics. Her gpa very high at a competitive school, but SAT only average percentiles, so below some of the D3 25 percentile. I want to encourage a retake because I think she can do better based on good academics (not a strong test taker) but I don’t want to cause undue stress in a busy schedule. These are not top D3 but very nice West Coast.
I believe that a majority of D1 programs are fully funded (use all 12 allowable full scholarships) but certainly not all. From what I understand a good number of D2 programs are not fully funded. Of course there’s regular need-based financial aid even at places (such as D3 and Ivies) that don’t offer athletic scholarships, and being an athletic recruit can help with admissions even if not with athletic-based money.
There are volleyball forums that it may be worth checking out, and hopefully the club has a recruiting coordinator that can help.
There are a lot of CA players at colleges across the country, e.g. over half the players at some of the Ivies are from CA.
I am running numbers to see if D3 would be feasible. There are just a couple ‘meets need’ that she might have any shot I think. The rest are up in the air cost wise. I found one D1 that would give a nice merit and need to match a ‘meets need’ and that is without VB money. But she wants to play so if she is not recruited is it unlikely she would play at small D1? She is not thinking anything like Ivy or top LAC level. As I hinted the scores are just 50% level.
Is there a Volleyball association website? My daughter plays lacrosse and laxpower.com lists all the colleges in the order they finished for the year and it’s pretty easy to figure out what the ‘lower’ D1 schools are. Lacrosse is not a headcount sport so it is very difficult to figure out how much any school is going to give as they slice and dice those 12 scholarships among 28-40 players. Same with D2, NAIA, very difficult to tell if the coach is giving some kids a full scholarship and others just a few thousand.
Most D1s in the top 50 or even 75% are fully funded. D2 is probably about the same, fully funded in the top 50%, but maybe less if the sport isn’t as strong at the school or if there aren’t as many men at the school/male teams/no football as they aren’t trying to balance the Title IX budgets.
The best way to figure it out is just ask. At the first schools we were looking at (lower D1) the coach was a little vague saying there was merit money she tried to balance with athletic money, state students got some money, etc. I didn’t push because my daughter wasn’t really interested, but I think my daughter would have received half the COA in merit, half in athletic. Next school, a div 2, coach outright said she didn’t give money to freshmen. Okay then, we moved on as we couldn’t afford it without money.
It sounds like your friend might be very happy in D2 with academic merit money and athletic money mix. My daughter went with a new program, so we didn’t know where they’d finish in the rankings, and were pleasantly surprised to finish in the top half. One consideration of being in the lower half of Div 1 is that her team will lose a lot, and that’s not so much fun for some kids. My daughter was prepared but it still hurt to lose.