I’m new to college recruiting/applications and cannot figure this process out. My oldest daughter is being recruited by several DI and DIII schools for x-country and track, though unlikely to receive significant athletic scholarships from the DIs. She has high academics from challenging curriculum (perfect ACT score and almost perfect GPA). She would be in consideration for merit scholarships from a number of the schools (the ones that give merit). She would not receive need based aid. From what I understand, x-country/track recruits are generally asked to commit and apply ED. How does this work? If she does that, it seems like she will have no opportunity to evaluate any merit scholarship offers, which could very well be the deciding factor for her (at least one of the schools recruiting her gives a substantial number of full scholarships based on merit). Is there a way to be a recruit and also have a chance to make a decision after seeing merit scholarship offers? Or would she have to apply regular decision and then hope to walk on? Sorry if this is a dumb question.
Short answer: no.
Longer answer: take a look at the athletic recruiting forum, where this question has been discussed. Some schools do financial prereads, so you might get some clarity that way.
She needs to bring up budget with each and every coach, and tell them how much merit she needs. Some schools will do FA pre-reads, others won’t…at the schools that do them, the coach is typically the intermediary.
If she does commit and apply ED, she gives up the ability to compare merit offers. Whether or not to do that is up to your family.
She can also ask coaches if they would allow her to apply RD (some coaches may allow her to commit and apply RD.)
IME, a recruited athlete getting a full merit scholarship (at the schools where that’s a thing) is uncommon, simply because schools can’t give athletes more merit aid (on average) than non-athletes.
I’d have her ask each coach about the recruiting process and timeline, including the issue of merit scholarships and timing.
I wouldn’t assume that ED is a necessary part of TFXC recruiting at all schools. CC tends to focus on a tiny subset of schools with very low admit rates (Ivies, nescacs, etc). At those schools, coaches have the ability to support a limited number of recruits through admissions. An ED/EA application is often (not always) part of this.
But outside that small subset of schools ED applications for recruits aren’t nearly as common. Quite a few, probably the majority, of recruits are applying RD and making decisions in the winter and spring.
So, a lot of this depends on the schools you’re looking at.
My S25 is going through recruiting for track and so far, none of the D3 coaches he’s talked to have insisted on ED. One coach has said it will help his chances but no one has pressured him to sign a binding agreement. (He wants to keep his options open for a competitive D1 program until the very end.)
[quote=“Midatlanticparent, post:1, topic:3673072”]
…though unlikely to receive significant athletic scholarships from the DIs.*
This is often the case in general with T&F. Not a lot of scholarship money, some D1 T&F programs are not fully funded, and T&F tend to be large teams to divide up the scholarship money. That said, I have been told that XC typically have a little better shot at scholarship money as the XC runners have 3 season.
And for what it is worth, a T&F coach at a top higher end D1 that gave scholarships told our family that T&F scholarships are reserved for the All Americans on the team, and to be considered you would have to be able to score points in meets right away.
*She would be in consideration for merit scholarships from a number of the schools (the ones that give merit). *
…She would not receive need based aid. From what I understand, x-country/track recruits are generally asked to commit and apply ED. How does this work? If she does that, it seems like she will have no opportunity to evaluate any merit scholarship offers, which could very well be the deciding factor for her (at least one of the schools recruiting her gives a substantial number of full scholarships based on merit).
In my experience, the schools that offer merit scholarships, typically not the Ivy’s or NESCAC type schools, the standards for what a student would be eligible for merit is known as it is not based on athletics. I would ask the coach and/or reach out to the financial aid office to get a read on this.
Cost of college was a factor for us, so we tried to know as best we could what the cost of the school would be before committing, to evaluate if it was worth the cost say vs. a higher ranked good public university that are typically quite a bit more economical and sometimes higher ranked academically.
Good luck!
At D1 and D2 schools, there was a way for getting merit scholarships and not having it count against the coach’s maximum for athletic scholarships. Remembering from years ago (and I’m old so my memory isn’t good), the standards weren’t that hard to meet, like top 20% of hs class, a certain SAT/ACT score (1200?/24?), or a certain gpa (3.5?). They could then get merit aid that was available to the student body. My daughter went to a school that used a matrix for merit awards (GPA/test score/class rank) so we could figure out what her merit award would be and what level athletic scholarship she’d need to make it work. She stacked merit and athletic from the the school and others from outside the school (Pell grant, SEOG, state need based and merit). Stacking was what we were looking for.
For D3 schools that give merit, the school has to make sure the merit is awarded to non-athletes at the same rate as athletes (same with need based aid). If it is based on gpa and scores, that’s an easier test than if it is based on essays or presentations.
Now D1 and D2 athletic scholarships are going to be practically uncapped (by the NCAA, not by the school), so merit + athletic + need may not be an issue as to IF they CAN all be awarded, but if they WILL all be awarded.
To the OP, some schools have the merit aid on a graph and you can figure it out (Alabama, AZ),some states have programs like Florida (Bright Futures), Georgia (Zell Miller) where you can figure out how much you’ll get.
If your athlete is going for a competitive merit award like a Stamps, it’s unlikely the coach or even admissions will be able to tell you anything before those are awarded, often not till spring.
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