Athletic scholarship or need based financial aid, or both?

fogfog
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:52:59 +0000

HI OP

I was talking with another parent of a scholar-athlete and thought I’d jump in here.
The other parent has a D1 athlete with significant athletic scholarship plus other private scholarship and can speak to that…
in our case, I have a D1 scholar-athlete about to attend an ivy…and we are slef employed so have some experience with that bit…

It sounds like your DD- with Olympic aspirations and times to draw such attention can probably find full athletic support from an excellent program at a D1 school.

FWIW a parent acquaintance of mine has a dd who is a swimmer and she choose a large D1 school for the coaches and chemistry because of her Olympic aspirations. Also the school gave her a full ride and the support will continue through 5 years since being in the pool so much means she cannot carry a heavy load…
Could she have gone ivy–probably–yet the ivies only give need based aid.
And this swimmer felt the large D1 program was the better vehicle to get her to the Olympic pool.

Our student is going to attend an ivy.
The school fin-aid office did a fin pre-read and I can tell you that it is helpful to get that pre-read from FinAid if the coach will request it for you. Generally coaches will be requesting that for you around the time of the OV. Fin Aid offices have limited time for pre-reads and in our case, the pre-read request had to be sent in through the coach.

As far as the calculators go etc–the ivies vary ALOT in aid. ALOT.

Also, you will find that what the IRS says is your income is NOT what the finaid office says is your income. As a self-employed person, they will add back certain allowances and deductions. They will want your business tax returns, your personal returns and a lot of info. For example, anything you put away for retirement - the finaid office adds back as income…in that those dollars can be put towards tuition instead of a SEP, IRA etc. Sadly, being self employed works against you a bit–things that wouldn’t show (such as employer contributions to your IRA) do show when you as a self-employed business owner put $ into your SEP… Also all charitable contributions get added back in…Deductions for things like health expenses etc etc…

So bottom line–take every financial pre-read you can get from a fin-aid office.