My son is a junior in the mid-atlantic area and hoping to run cross country and track in college. We know that he will not qualify for much financial aid at most schools but I am wondering what D3 schools there are that offer lots of academic\leadership merit aid and if it might be a little easier for an athlete. I know he won’t get any from the very top ones but not sure about under that. I believe Washington and Lee gives about 10% of their students full rides.
@Midwestmomofboys is very knowledgeable about the D3s that offer merit aid.
D3 merit aid is supposed to be tied to academic stats, not track times. When the school considers academic/merit aid, your son’s track should be considered as just an another extracurricular activity by the admissions committee. So, for instance, being captain of the team could help with leadership/merit aid. You might look up the other D3 schools in the conference that Washington and Lee competes with. Among those schools, look deeper into the ones where your son’s test scores/GPA place him in the top 25% of applicants. Then see if those schools offer merit aid. If so, the last question should be whether your son’s track times are enough to get him on the team. Good luck!
We recently went through D3 merit search for my kid, and I’m happy to share what we learned. First, most schools do not “stack” merit on top of financial aid. That means if, the school determines that a family can pay $45,000 and is therefore eligible for roughly $20,000 in financial aid, any merit aid is applied to the “aid” side of the equation and not the family contribution. A $10,000 merit award does not reduce the family’s expected contribution – that remains $45,000. It usually reduces the loan or work study portion of the financial aid award. This is one of the rare times that, in the search for merit awards, it is actually almost advantageous to be a full pay family, because then, merit award reduces the amount the family is billed for, since there is no financial aid side of the equation.
Students cannot get merit award because of their athletics – all students must be eligible for the merit. Athletics is just another EC when it comes to awarding merit. Generally, to get generous merit awards (in my mind, 1/2 tuition award and up), a student must be in the top 25% of the pool of admitted students and bring something of value to the school – leadership through ECs, particular diversity of experience etc. Many top LACs do not award merit at all: the NESCAC schools (though Colby and Trinity seem to have some very specific awards they make), so Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Tufts, Hamilton, Bates, Conn Coll etc. Also, Haverford, Swarthmore, Vassar do not give merit awards. Franklin & Marshall switched a few years ago from a merit model to only financial aid.
The sweet spot for merit awards will be in the 20-70 US News list. Grinnell, Oberlin and Kenyon offer merit awards, though anecdotally, it seems Kenyon rarely offers more than about $15-20k a year. There are families who say they have gotten more generous automatic merit awards from Grinnell and Oberlin. Skidmore gives music/arts merit awards, but does not appear to routinely give merit otherwise. I understand but did not research for my kid, that W&L’s largest merit awards require interviews etc.
St Lawrence and Dickinson offer merit aid up to about $20,000 a year, automatically, based on an applicant’s record. Denison in Ohio offers merit aid in the amounts of $16, 20, 24 and full tuition ($48), with the full tuition awards going to students who are also admitted to Ivies etc. Centre and Rhodes in the south offer good merit aid, and bringing geographic diversity to the community is a plus. Gettysburg offers merit. Bard is a puzzle, the Common Data Set shows it gives merit awards, but the website suggests only students eligible for financial aid can get merit aid, and the coach my kid was talking to did not contradict that. As you move down the US News list, schools like Earlham, Wooster, Kalamazoo, Knox, Lawrence, Beloit all give generous merit and are real hidden gems of schools.
The wrinkle is, for a recruited athlete, most coaches expect the student to apply ED, which means you cannot shop financial aid or merit. We had rough estimates from admissions and coach in my son’s case, about what merit was likely, but there were no guarantees. The recruiting plus merit search was a long, exhausting but exciting experience. My son matured tremendously as he handled coach meetings, communication, etc. Enjoy the ride!
Thanks very much everyone! Seems like a very exciting process which can be very confusing at times.
My S is a senior and was recruited to run cross country and track at W&L. He will be running for the Generals starting next year! If you have any questions about the XC/track program, feel free to PM me.
The 10% getting a full ride you mention is through the Johnson Scholars Program. It has nothing to do with athletics and requires a separate essay from the admission application supplement. You should note that the Johnson essay is due before the RD application deadline. Johnson finalist are brought to campus in March for interviews. Approximately 40 students ultimately get the full ride scholarships. I think the focus is on leadership.
Hi - Just wanted to chime in really quickly with a small point regarding W&L since HSM1417 mentioned that his/her son will be running there next year. We met with the W&L xc coach recently regarding my Junior D. We haven’t had many meetings yet and are just starting to wade into the recruiting process, but he told us that - at least at W&L - he doesn’t push for ED for his recruits. I’ve heard that many schools do push their athletes to do ED and I’ve worried about that since we’ll be chasing merit $ as well. He said that, unless he thinks the recruit might need the extra boost with admissions that ED might give, he doesn’t mind a recruit waiting to RD and seeing how merit shakes out before deciding. I really, really appreciated that and it moved W&L even higher on our list.
I guess there’s a chance that it might hurt her chances of both admission and being recruited if she waits to RD, but he said many of his recruits are weighing options and he doesn’t necessarily expect ED.
That is good to know, @Emmycat. Has anyone else had a XC or track coach say something similar?
My D now runs at a NESCAC and was told what other have said above - to apply ED. That is where they have some say in the admissions process but not guaranteed.
@Midwestmomofboys thanks for that very informative post - that’s the way I have always understood D3 FA to work. I recently had a conversation with the parents of a hockey player at a D3 liberal arts college. The young man was considering ending his college hockey career, but the parents were concerned that they couldn’t afford the school if he stops playing.
I was confused. I said, ‘any FA he gets isn’t tied to athletic participation, this is a D3 program.’
They looked at me like I was naive and mumbled something about certain awards, etc. I feel like even if he managed to get some sort of ‘leadership’ award - that’s not going to dry up because he is no longer playing, right? Or am I being naive?
@Varska, those awards cannot be tied to D3 athletic participation. I suspect there is more going on here than the family is comfortable sharing. For instance, those awards could be tied to academic performance, and the student may be having trouble keeping a solid GPA. The family is unlikely to want to share such information. Likewise, if the family is having trouble financially or if the kid has not adjusted socially to the college environment, they won’t be comfortable sharing. Kid could realize he won’t be getting the kind of playing time he had hoped for and may lose affinity for the school as a result. I’d let it go and listen but not probe.
@varska – You are absolutely correct, merit awards at D3 school cannot be tied to athletic participation, so for that hockey family, there must be other factors at play, either minimum gpa to keep the award, or financial aid concerns etc.
@Midwestmomofboys , @Sam-I-Am . This is a big hockey family and I was thinking possible factors may be that they really, really don’t want him to stop playing and have led him to believe that there is some kind of financial benefir for him to continue playing (which would be a really lousy thing to do). Or that some hockey fan ‘benefactor’ may be helping the family with tuition. Either way, not my business.
A couple of D3 schools play D1 hockey (Union, St. Lawrence, RIT, RPI, Colorado College, Clarkson) A few of those schools are allowed to give hockey scholarships. There are a lot of D2 schools that play D1 hockey. I do think that a kid can bring an outside scholarship to a D3 school. To a D1 or D2, that scholarship would have to be reported and if based entirely on athletic ability, would ‘count against’ the team totals allowed, but at a D3 why would it matter if the scholarship was from a hockey sponsor or the American Legion for civic achievement?
There are also a lot of D3 parents who think their kids are on athletic scholarships. Nothing you can do to convince them otherwise.
Good point about D3 programs with D1 hockey – I’d forgotten that St Lawrence has a D1 hockey program and, as best I recall, does give D1 athletic scholarships for that program.
I know there are several hybrid D3/D1 schools when it comes to hockey - this one is straight up D3. I know in a D1 program it would be a big violation for a sponsor/alum to pay tuition for an athlete, not sure if that’s also the case in D3
Then it’s probably a situation where the parent is convinced the financial aid money is an athletic scholarship.
@varska I have had several similar conversations with parents who are convinced that their kids are getting athletic $ at D3 schools. I always diplomatically bite my tongue, just like you did. Thing is, I was a D3 athlete many years ago and I had teammates who thought their aid package had an athletic component. Some even said the coach threatened to ‘cut their scholarship’ if performance didn’t improve. I was never sure if it was miscommunication, if the coach was cleverly leaving the impression that best served his needs, or if it just made the kids feel better to think they were ‘on scholarship’.
We have all heard stories where a given recruit reports an athletic scholarship at a D3 school. I believe the student is an athletic recruit, and that the recruit is given financial aid, I just don’t think it is an athletic scholarship. In my experience, those folks have been from single earner families, which makes needs based aid a far more likely explanation.
Be that as it may, the more questionable part of your story is not the notion that the athlete was on some sort of a scholarship, but that the school would take it away if the kid left the sport. While no one is likely to notice a few extra bucks sent to an athlete who was otherwise financial aid eligible, the notion of taking a way a so-called “athletic scholarship” because the athlete quit the team at the D3 level could be devastating to a program. People don’t usually like it when financial support is taken away from them – and they are most likely to complain either formally or informally. Can you imagine the league and NCAA sanctions if a person made a formal complaint that a D3 scholarship was taken away because a kid stopped playing? I just don’t see a school taking that sort of risk.