The NCAA gives an APR score to each sports at each college. https://web1.ncaa.org/maps/aprRelease.jsp
When comparing schools, should parents look at APR? I looked at the APR of some public universities that had a low overall graduation rate, and it seemed like the athletes were doing better as the APR scores were OK. I guess you have to look at the majors too; some schools will list players’ majors. If players transfer-even if they are academically eligible, the transfer lowers APR. A high APR could mean athletes are both doing well academically and are happy at the school because they are not transferring.
How much of a premium should parents pay for excellent facilities,location, academics, etc vs average of the above if a student is just the typical college student, not an academic star? In our situation, we have a couple offers with some more expected to come. Son has a national ranking in his sport. One school is very affordable with academic and merit though more merit, good location,has double major, team ranked well in the sport, but the coach is young, talented and could be recruited to another school in the near future. At that university, there had been academic issues before the new coach,so we wonder what would happen if he left. Also we are not sure of playing time at that school and have not even met asst coach. One school is a power school with top 100 academics, great coach, team chemistry and near perfect APR which means athletes are succeeding even with the rigor of the school, Son would get in school with coach’s assistance but would have to do 2nd choice major as 1st choice is extremely competitive-also school is far from home. However, that school is above what we originally set as our budget; son would get a small amount of athletic aid as team has many underclassmen.However, the school cost is probably average and at the lower end for out of state tuition so maybe we were unrealistic about costs to begin with. That said it costs twice as much as the other school. There are several other schools whose costs are only slightly lower than the most expensive school but they are mid majors with lesser academics (average) and athletics, but they should offer big packages (>50%) between athletic and merit. Those schools are in weaker conferences but still have good athletic facilities,good long term coaches, his major, and one has a good location, the other so so.Those are the 4 he is looking at now, with another 3 on the back burner, two that wanted to give an offer earlier but were willing to wait when he said he was not ready.
Any advice? I may try to book 1-2 sessions with a college counselor just to sort through options. Did any of you use one? We keep going back and forth on these schools as each has 4/6 of his important criteria and he is having trouble deciding what is more important- academics, team level, playing time, location, cost,facilities, team chemistry, coach, 1st choice major, etc. Most of you may say to choose the top 100 school and pay the extra $10K a year, but I dont know if he will be happy just to attend class, study, and play his sport even if he really likes his teammates. I hear the social time at that school is meals period during the week. If son was a stellar student like his sister, we would definitely choose the top 100 school and pay extra. Son will be happy with 3.0 and some free time in college; in high school he was A_/B+ college prep student.
Time will run out soon for him to decide-one school will require a decision in 2 weeks, the others probably within a month. On the one hand, we are lucky to have several decent possibilities-none a perfect fit, but OK. However, his sport has a high transfer rate so we hope to figure out the best fit this fall and avoid that.