ED application is typically the quid-pro-quo for a guaranteed spot on the team. So a student who applies RD to be able to compare merit awards may find themselves without a roster spot, depending on the sport. Cross country, swimming & diving, tennis, squash, may take additional students on the team but those students may not be competing in matches/competitions. Sports like lacrosse, soccer typically have a rough, maximum roster size. There’s lots of discussion on these boards about how many students really may be RD “walk-ons” at highly selective colleges, no one really knows for sure and the best approach is to ask specific questions of the coach. My student’s coach was pretty clear that he was looking for x number of players at a specific position and once he had those spots covered through ED, he wasn’t taking anyone else, no matter where they came from.
Only the family and the student can decide how to balance the priorities of finances and athletics. We told our D3 athlete that we could only afford schools with merit, so the NESCACs generally came off the list, as well as Haverford etc., and only schools with reliable merit awards stayed on. By the end of junior year, he had a list of sport-reaches and matches that were target/likely for admission with merit. Then it came down to finding the right balance of school and sport. Some schools have an online merit calculator, other schools will be upfront in conversations about merit award. The coach and admissions interviewer at my student’s school where he did ED, predicted a merit award range. The time between hitting “submit” on the ED app and getting the admission decision with merit award was stressful, but it all worked out.
We really did have to balance the academics, her sport (and ability to get a lot of playing time as that was important to her) and finances. It was a three legged stool and each leg was important. And we found tat balance. It wasn’t at a top 20 or 30 school, but that wasn’t important to us. She wanted engineering, she wanted playing time, and I wanted it to be affordable.
Quite a few of her friends went to D1 schools but got no playing time (some left their teams, some transferred schools). I think daughter got lucky with her school and playing situation, and I got really lucky with the finances (although I did work hard to get 9 sources of FA/grants/scholarships!)
I would not bank on getting merit from the schools you listed if you apply in RD - in fact, your child will be fortunate to be accepted at all because the competition is so fierce among unhooked students. A recruited athlete with stats like your daughters is almost assured of admission if she applies to a highly competitive school ED with coach support - otherwise, the chance of getting in is much, much lower even with superlative stats (my S24 has identical stats and I’m far from confident in his chances . . . )
With the amount of contact you’ve had with this coach and school, I hope your student feels comfortable to have the discussion about what merit money options exist for them specifically. This is a perfectly reasonable question to ask and expect a straight answer, even if that answer is “As a coach, I don’t have any ability to offer you merit - that’s a conversation to have with Admissions”. Admissions should also be willing to give a pretty straight answer - schools don’t want athletic recruits to go through the pre-read, ED and then not commit because the money doesn’t work for the family. Just be prepared that the answer may very well not be the one you are looking to hear.
You have pinpointed the issues fairly clearly - your child has some big decisions going forward. The first one being - Do they want to continue playing their sport at the varsity level in college? The next one being - Do they want to attend a school at a certain level of prestige? Then you as a family have a decision to make - are you willing to forego comparing possible merit offers at this level for essentially guaranteed admission?
These are difficult questions for every athletically recruited student. But I disagree that this is unfair.
There are other schools to look at for recruitment if merit money is really important. There are plenty of Div III schools that do offer generous merit money to many/most applicants - including their athletes.
Your child can choose to apply RD, not plan to play sport and see if they are awarded any merit aid at the Top 30 schools they’re interested in. Your daughter sounds super smart, there are lots of super smart students not getting merit at the schools she is currently targeting.
Your get to decide whether the school your child is interested in most is worth $350k to attend and whether you’re willing to pay that.
You and your child are in the driver’s seat as to how you value and prioritize these options and issues. No one will force you and your family to pay $350k for your child to play sports in college*. That will be a conscious choice on your part based on the decisions you and your child make as to her whole recruitment strategy.
Good luck with the process, my best suggestion is to both keep an open mind when looking at schools and empower your daughter to ask the questions she has with the coaches she meets.
*I would highly suggest clarifying in your own mind what you are paying 350k for - it is for the education at those schools - not the chance for your daughter to play sports. The schools you/your daughter have targeted for recruitment are selective enough to appeal to athletes who are looking for an edge in admission, they aren’t trying to appeal to athletes looking for merit money. Instead of looking at this as unfair - another perspective is that her athletics are getting her to the front of the line in ways someone else with the same stats but un-hooked wouldn’t be.
When my ds was recruited for his sport the school he was extremely interested in had him meet with admissions while on his visit. He did receive an email that let him know which merit scholarship he qualified for but it was made known that they couldn’t tell him he definitely would receive it until he applied and was accepted (even though he did the preread). He did apply ED and his acceptance came with the merit scholarship amount.
If a merit award is very important, you need to look in the 30-50 range. Many of these schools offer merit aid to nearly everyone, including those who apply ED. For example, my son (who was, I would say, lightly recruited for XC/TF) just got a $30K/year award at Connecticut College in ED1, and we have a friend whose swimming kid got a similar award at Dickinson. We hadn’t talked to the coach or admissions office about merit aid, and I was kind of concerned that he wouldn’t get any because we were applying ED, but they were true to their word that all candidates, ED or RD, are considered equally for merit awards.
I’m thrilled to be saving $120,000 over what we’d be paying if he went to another school he probably could’ve gotten into, like Bates or Colby. But then again, he was not quite in 1580/straight As territory, so merit aid at JH/WUSTL was not even in our thoughts.
Thanks all and yes right now we only focus on those like Chicago, WUSTL, JHU, NYU, Emory (plus MIT and couple Ivy schools but they have no merit scholarships anyway hence out of this topics: ED vs Merit).
I know there are so many good schools out there but we have to limit our focus to above. We are from Texas, so her school ranking guarantee her auto admission to UT Austin (In-state tuition only $11K), and her NMF also guarantee her full tuition coverage to Texas A&M. So we do have some SAFE schools already, but we are not good enough to play sports there .
Coaches are generally going to push for this, but it’s possible to negotiate an RD application with coach support, depending on what other potential recruits are doing, what roster spots need to be filled, how strong the team is, etc. It’s a moving puzzle.
You want to limit your focus to super selective schools (not have to), right?
So then the question is, if she passes the preread and gets an offer, do you ED, with a low liklihood of merit?
There is a chance a coach would be ok with an RD application, but it’s probably a small one. Higher likelihood if the team is weak or if your daughter is their #1 recruit ( i.e. your daughter would be an immediate impact player – in that case the coach is more likely to be happy to get what s/he can).
Yes, our likely letter for S24 from Denison stated both were likely and gave a sense of what merit would be, and it all came through in the end as offered.
Our experience is entirely consistent with the great advice on this thread from @cinnamon1212, which is spot on.
In case you haven’t seen this it might help frame the conversation for your family. As you can see, the schools you mentioned award merit to 5% or fewer students and the average award is far from full tuition (mostly in the mid-high $20s) which would leave the COA in the mid/high $60s at most of the schools. Only your family can decide what schools are “worth it” to you at any given cost - especially given your excellent and affordable in-state options. Merit Aid by Institution – College Transitions
Totally agree. I think T50 LACs offer the same level of quality/rigor and those in the second 25 are the ones who tend to offer merit aid. Of the nonLAC D3 schools, CWR and Emory offer merit, maybe also Carnegie Mellon but we did not look at latter. CWR and CM are obviously VERY different academically and culturally from Emory and most of the LACs in D3.
You need to check each school, but the nonLAC ones with merit oftentimes require separate applications and timelines that don’t always line up with recruited athlete early commitment process (see eg Emory). Emory probably also has the highest level of merit aid of any of the D3 T30 schools, and tremendous resources and good weather.
My D has been recruited by a number of the small most selective D3 schools (“little Ivies”) and they don’t offer any merit scholarships at all. They are purely needs based like the Ivies.
If you have focused and invested on those two schools, I think it would make most sense for you to ask the coaches at those schools. Also, if you research their available merit aid on their website, they will likely explain whether it needs to be separately applied to and the process and timing for it, or you can call the Admissions office (although AOs in our experience are a lot more responsive and helpful at the LACs, perhaps because they have smaller workloads).
Carnegie Mellon does NOT offer merit aid of any kind for any student. This was repeated multiple times during our visit and presentation.
Based on personal experience - High academic D3’s give coaches a limited number of ‘likely letters’. The academic pre-read determines which of those athletes passes the academic bar. Athletic talent is always second to making sure you meet their academic standards first. My son has D1 level xc and track times…that only helped him get noticed by the Coach. But his academics is what got him his likely letter.
It was clear, without ED, coach cannot get you in. In these schools even a spectacularly accomplished student has to take their chances in RD at being picked because the review is holistic.
The academic pre-read gave us no mention of any merit scholarship although we were told he would be in consideration just like any other student.
Mentally and financially you have got to be prepared that you will pay full price.
Run the NPC and keep in mind that the actual price may be a bit higher or lower.
What is your daughter planning to study? Although a school may not be top 30 in overall ranking, a particular school might be tops in engineering, music, theater, etc., have her sport, have merit scholarships, etc. My daughter had a lot of LACs recruiting her but she wanted engineering so those were out, even if they were higher ranked than the school she chose (Smith, Kenyon, Rhodes, Center). She had D1 schools recruiting her but they were small or had teams that weren’t competitive.
You can read the very long (very long) thread from this application cycle of a parent/student who wanted to be recruited but it was more important to that family to have a top ranked academic school that wasn’t an athletic match to the student athlete. They made the decision of where to apply based on what was important to their family (school ranking) and that’s okay to do; you just have to realize it is unlikely to have it all of a top ranked school that gives merit and that will recruit your student (and in your case, not require an ED app). You can try for it, but it is a rare unicorn.
My daughter could have gone to UF, but she couldn’t have played her sport there (they were ranked 4th in the country at the time). She could have gone to Smith, studied general engineering (not what she wanted) and probably gotten good FA, and been a superstar on a pretty bad team, but she really didn’t like Smith (neither did I). We kept an open mind at when looking at other schools and it worked out. My father and brother thought she was a fool for passing on Smith, but she didn’t like it! It worked out for her. Her team went to the NCAA tournament twice, she played a lot, she graduated with little debt and got a job. She’s now making as much as an engineer 6 years out that I made at my top salary.
Decide what is important to you and your family. If you want a top ranked school, I think you’ll have to pay for it or take the NMF/instate option where she may not get to play her varsity sport (club may be available).
She may study business or information system or do combined degrees. So one more question, IF we ED one of above mentioned schools and got admitted but no merit based scholarships; and in the other hands UT Austin gives us a honor program with full ride scholarship (40 Acres or similar) , are we allowed to break the ED binding? It is not because we are not able to afford, it is just we can’t convince ourselves $350K of difference that worths it.
While not legally binding, the ED agreement doesn’t allow for this. And it would be a really bad look to get coach support for an ED admission, and then back out of it.