@bgbg4us, with this info, what “offfers” likely mean:
For Ivies: the coach is willing to use one of his allocated slots for the kid. At this stage, he likely has passed a preread from admissions that he will likely be admitted. The quid pro quo from the coach is that the kid will have to apply ED/SCEA as applicable. The kid and his parents probably can work or are already working with the coaches and the FA offices to get a “pre-read” of the likely FA packages. Once the kid applies early and assuming he hasn’t done anything incredibly stupid, he will get a “likely letter” prior to the ED/SCEA announcement date.
For the scholarship schools, it probably means that the coach has offered one of his scholarship for the kid’s class year to him, however, this is meaningless until a binding National Letter of Intent is signed. There have been a number of articles on how some less than scrupulous coaches “offer” more scholarships than they have and pull offers just prior to NLI signing dates, leaving some athletes high and dry, scrambling to find another school.
@twoinanddone, my understanding is this (and is applicable to @politeperson 's question on Stanford), using even numbers, college cost is 100, student family need is 75. If the kid gets a quarter athletic, 25, he can still get 50 in FA. The decision is not digital, it is the total aid between FA and athletic, cannot exceed the greater of FA or athletic. The digital situation would occur if the FA need is 20, then if the kid took the quarter athletic scholarship, no FA would be available. Because Stanford FA is generously calculated and is 100% grant, it could have an advantage over another school which may calculate FA need at 75 (with loans in the package) with Stanford calculating need at 90 with it 100% being grant.