Recruiting Tips for Parents Just Starting the Process

When you say "reducing roster sizes not necessarily the size of the scholarship" do mean they will offer fewer scholarships than the 14 they currently have available, but won't reduce the size of the scholarships they do offer? Thanks!
Sounds like fewer roster spots to me. Perhaps that save money with travel. Can someone clarify if the 14 scholarships are for the team or a particular class??
 
Sounds like fewer roster spots to me. Perhaps that save money with travel. Can someone clarify if the 14 scholarships are for the team or a particular class??
14 scholarships are the maximum number of scholarships allowed by the NCAA for an entire D1 women's soccer team. However, not every D1 team is fully funded and don't have the full 14 scholarships to give out, and that was even before the COVID situation.
 
Is this true?
Say a roster is 28 players and the school fully funds 14 scholarships. That means on average, each player gets 1/2 scholarship. There are some players getting full or more than half, so that means there are players getting less.

As someone said, UCLA just announced 14 recruits. Those 14 plus everyone returning are splitting 14 total scholarships. Math says several likely got little or no athletic money in that group of new recruits. I suspect each coach has a different approach, but if I were coaching I would have a number of high impact players I really want (say roughly 4 per year, or 16 on a roster) that would be at 50% or more. Let’s say they average 65% for 16 players, I am at 10.4 scholarships for those 16 players. So only 3.6 scholarships left for 12 other players (30% on average for them). If the 16 average 75%, now I only have 2 scholarships left for 12 players, or 17%. I would want a really strong 16 and fill in where I can from there. And schools like UCLA get players due to academics, team success, and mom and dad getting to brag that there kid is playing soccer at UCLA (even though they may never get on the field).
 
Sounds like fewer roster spots to me. Perhaps that save money with travel. Can someone clarify if the 14 scholarships are for the team or a particular class??
What is an athletic scholarship worth and what does and athletic scholarship provide? If i were coach for a day, i would take my time and not sign kids in 8th grade but what do I know. You have to be flexible and move quick. You might have a great kid with 4.5 GPA, plus 1500 SAT and all conference human being. That kid will get 80% academic and some grants and other academic money and maybe 10% athletic. Then you find a YNT super goat with a 3.6 and zero possible way of academic dough. So you give that super star 90% athletic and find the other 10% in financial air. Full ride for both? 10% plus 90% = one of the 14 scholarships is now gone? So you play that game again and maybe next time with 3 players? Not easy at all and I would have done way better coaching hoops in college :)
 
What is an athletic scholarship worth and what does and athletic scholarship provide? If i were coach for a day, i would take my time and not sign kids in 8th grade but what do I know. You have to be flexible and move quick. You might have a great kid with 4.5 GPA, plus 1500 SAT and all conference human being. That kid will get 80% academic and some grants and other academic money and maybe 10% athletic. Then you find a YNT super goat with a 3.6 and zero possible way of academic dough. So you give that super star 90% athletic and find the other 10% in financial air. Full ride for both? 10% plus 90% = one of the 14 scholarships is now gone? So you play that game again and maybe next time with 3 players? Not easy at all and I would have done way better coaching hoops in college :)

What I have seen is that the academic and athletic money is completely separate. Done by different groups with no interaction between the two of them. This might be different at private colleges. Plus the athletic scholarship is given well in advance of when you apply for a school. Academic and financial need money is done during or just after the application process.
 
14 total scholarships. To be split amongst the entire roster.
Schools will address budget by asking teams to travel fewer players and maybe consider a smaller roster (but at some schools the admin wants a large roster: it helps balance out football numbers and for private like usd, st Mary’s, Pepperdine, more walk ons mean more kids paying $70k to attend which makes everyone happy (except mom and dad).
reducing scholarship totals will come much later if things hit dire straights. Which may indeed happen but isn’t on the table yet.
 
Thanks for the responses!

Is it common for public/state universities to offer in-state tuition instead of or in addition to an athletic scholarship?

Also, how common is it to have dorm paid for?
 
Thanks for the responses!

Is it common for public/state universities to offer in-state tuition instead of or in addition to an athletic scholarship?

Also, how common is it to have dorm paid for?

Yes, in state tuition offer is common, especially for players that aren’t receiving much other scholarship money.
 
Thanks for the responses!

Is it common for public/state universities to offer in-state tuition instead of or in addition to an athletic scholarship?

Also, how common is it to have dorm paid for?

there are different levels and if your kid is getting a verbal, you want to note exactly what the offer is. Whether it is “cost of attendance”, whether it is limited to in state tuition and you’re out of state, etc. I believe the highest level is full ride, cost of attendance (and I think that phrase - cost of attendance - must appear on the NLI when the time comes). This is a good resource:https://www.athleticscholarships.net/cost-of-attendance-spending-money.htm.

in our experience, in the early stages, they speak of percentages or “full ride”. They don’t say “we are offering you a partial”, it is more, “first year is W%, second year is X%, third year is Y% and last year is Z%”. We’d ask some questions to drill down on what all of it meant, what was covered. Those are appropriate questions for the parents to ask even as the kids should drive more of this. I think coaches get that but you have to be know that you can F it up if you “negotiate” too much (though that will also be a function of where your kid falls as a target for the program.)

Not sure if this is now broader than Power 5, but Power 5 guarantees 4-year awards. That is significant because it used to be one year, renewable and programs could choose not to renew (that may still be the case outside of P5). That’s no longer the case so if your kid was due 100-100-100 for her last 3 years and she really is not a college level player, the school still needs to cover the award. (My kids had a babysitter some years ago who played college volleyball (D2 I think but I can’t remember). They tracked every stat in practices in addition to games. Why? It’s how they earned their next year’s awards). If not guaranteed by default, the NLI can be specific in that regard and that’s the binding agreement.
 
there are different levels and if your kid is getting a verbal, you want to note exactly what the offer is. Whether it is “cost of attendance”, whether it is limited to in state tuition and you’re out of state, etc. I believe the highest level is full ride, cost of attendance (and I think that phrase - cost of attendance - must appear on the NLI when the time comes). This is a good resource:https://www.athleticscholarships.net/cost-of-attendance-spending-money.htm.

in our experience, in the early stages, they speak of percentages or “full ride”. They don’t say “we are offering you a partial”, it is more, “first year is W%, second year is X%, third year is Y% and last year is Z%”. We’d ask some questions to drill down on what all of it meant, what was covered. Those are appropriate questions for the parents to ask even as the kids should drive more of this. I think coaches get that but you have to be know that you can F it up if you “negotiate” too much (though that will also be a function of where your kid falls as a target for the program.)

Not sure if this is now broader than Power 5, but Power 5 guarantees 4-year awards. That is significant because it used to be one year, renewable and programs could choose not to renew (that may still be the case outside of P5). That’s no longer the case so if your kid was due 100-100-100 for her last 3 years and she really is not a college level player, the school still needs to cover the award. (My kids had a babysitter some years ago who played college volleyball (D2 I think but I can’t remember). They tracked every stat in practices in addition to games. Why? It’s how they earned their next year’s awards). If not guaranteed by default, the NLI can be specific in that regard and that’s the binding agreement.

We saw responses like "You have to buy in to the XXXX experience (from the lowest offer), "everything but housing" from YYYY, "better than YYYY in a net cost sense" from ZZZZ, and two offers that were just $$$$ values. We picked the bigger $$$$, which was then increased over the summer when the school raised its tuition cost.
 
Great information. With new rules in place I'm sure scholarships will decrease as well. Some things are still confusing to me though.
Some women college programs have 14 scholarships and some say 7/10. Question I have is how do they calculate the value of each scholarship. For example- UCLA is 20k, UCS is 50k, Michigan say is 50k (out of state) and say Yale is 70k. How do they determine the amount of each scholarship since the price is not the same across the board? Does it all depends on budget? Allowing 14 scholarships - Instate/out of state both = 1 of 14? Sounds to me In state they get leverage by giving partial and net costs to family are less. Hope I'm making sense! Just want a little clarity if possible.
 
Great information. With new rules in place I'm sure scholarships will decrease as well. Some things are still confusing to me though.
Some women college programs have 14 scholarships and some say 7/10. Question I have is how do they calculate the value of each scholarship. For example- UCLA is 20k, UCS is 50k, Michigan say is 50k (out of state) and say Yale is 70k. How do they determine the amount of each scholarship since the price is not the same across the board? Does it all depends on budget? Allowing 14 scholarships - Instate/out of state both = 1 of 14? Sounds to me In state they get leverage by giving partial and net costs to family are less. Hope I'm making sense! Just want a little clarity if possible.

Schools are different. I know one UC that awards 14 scholarships but ONLY at the in-state amount (most are CA players - is that chicken or egg?). There's at least one other UC that does not fully-fund (12 scholarships, I think) but not sure whether in-state or simply dependent on where the kid is from (but most of that roster is from CA (maybe all) so not really much of an issue). How the schools divide up the scholarships is program dependent. I know one player who had full ride offers from multiple schools but did not with the school she committed to (the fit and opportunity felt right) and the reason (the coaches said) was to keep money available for other recruits (over time, the verbal increased and by the time the player signed the NLI, the award was full/cost of attendance). But that means, in a given year, there are only 13 other scholarships available for her teammates and, presumably, at least one or a couple of other players have full rides so that means even fewer awards to split among more people. I'm close enough to the parent to know that the parent has zero clue about the level of the other players' awards (as it should be, in my opinion). Not sure if any of this breeds resentment or competition or what if the players learn what each of them is on.

When my own kid was going through this, the out of state public schools made it clear to us that their offers were based on out of state tuition but they made it clear b/c we did ask for clarification (it was probably already clear for them).

I once prepared a spreadsheet that was a guess after many conversations - how many fulls, how many 75%, how many halves, etc. - and I wanted to share with a coach friend to see how close or far I was. Of course, I lost the spreadsheet, lost my notes and have not found the energy to do it again. Maybe if/when my younger kids start this process . . .
 
Yes. For example (an extreme one), each DI school has 14 soccer scholarships and UCLA's incoming class of 2020 has 14 recruits.


Very few kids actually get full ride "Athletic" scholarships. many get 50-70% (higher level recruits) and financial aid (cal/pel grant) to offset the cost. AND some schools like UCLA have kids that are goin there but not all are on athletic scholarship.
 
Very few kids actually get full ride "Athletic" scholarships. many get 50-70% (higher level recruits) and financial aid (cal/pel grant) to offset the cost. AND some schools like UCLA have kids that are goin there but not all are on athletic scholarship.

I agree but even the math at 50% and 70% means that those awards are limited. 50% is a great offer.
 
Thanks for the responses!

Is it common for public/state universities to offer in-state tuition instead of or in addition to an athletic scholarship?

Also, how common is it to have dorm paid for?

The athletic scholarship can be done in whatever manner the coach wants to do it. If fully funded they have 14 scholarships to offer. This includes tuition, room, board, books, and fees. A coach can offer what every percent they want to across the board. Say 25%, 50%, 65%.... Or they can just offer full tuition. Or just the price of instate tuition if your out of state and not pay the full cost of tuition. Or just offer to pay books. The most common is the percent offer across the board. If all of the players are in-state they only can spend up to the cost of in-state tuition for tuition.
 
Great information. With new rules in place I'm sure scholarships will decrease as well. Some things are still confusing to me though.
Some women college programs have 14 scholarships and some say 7/10. Question I have is how do they calculate the value of each scholarship. For example- UCLA is 20k, UCS is 50k, Michigan say is 50k (out of state) and say Yale is 70k. How do they determine the amount of each scholarship since the price is not the same across the board? Does it all depends on budget? Allowing 14 scholarships - Instate/out of state both = 1 of 14? Sounds to me In state they get leverage by giving partial and net costs to family are less. Hope I'm making sense! Just want a little clarity if possible.

You can download and read the NCAA rule book. It goes into tremendous detail about scholarships and recruiting. Basically each person on scholarship is a counter. If you offer an instate person 50% and and an out of state person 50% this equals 1 scholarship. Even though the out of state person will be getting more money since their tuition is higher.

My dd is at a non-power 5 conference school and her school does pay total cost. She gets the same percentage of the total cost as the percentage she gets on her scholarship.
 
Revenue is down. What I have learned since June 15th is that college coaches may be reducing roster sizes not necessarily the size of the scholarships. Less numbers on teams seems to be what I’m hearing. Smaller recruiting classes. Instead of 8 recruits it now maybe 4.
Are you talking about reducing already committed recruiting classes or recruitment going forward?
 
I agree but even the math at 50% and 70% means that those awards are limited. 50% is a great offer.

totally agree! What a lot of coaches have done (in our experience) was see what we qualified for with financial aid, and then proceeded to make an offer. So if you qualify for 50% maybe they'll offer a certain percentage.
 
You can download and read the NCAA rule book. It goes into tremendous detail about scholarships and recruiting. Basically each person on scholarship is a counter. If you offer an instate person 50% and and an out of state person 50% this equals 1 scholarship. Even though the out of state person will be getting more money since their tuition is higher.

My dd is at a non-power 5 conference school and her school does pay total cost. She gets the same percentage of the total cost as the percentage she gets on her scholarship.

In sports like volleyball, basketball, football, and women's tennis these are counted by scholarships. In equivalency sports (everything else) you can technically have 10 kids per 1 scholarship (or however any coach wants to divide one scholarship for a total of 14 (for most D1 schools). Not sure how it works at D2. Some schools (like Grand Canyon) pay for EVERYTHING and also can provide certain living costs associated with going to school. Not everyone plays under the same rules. lol
 
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