I finally had some breathing room from work and decided it was high time I get caught up on your lives! So glad so many of the kids are thriving and parents are staying sane. It’s hard to believe that it was two years ago we were all planning graduation parties and wondering how OUR lives would change with our kids gone. Go2Girl won’t be home until mid-July. She got a part time job in admissions at Vandy and is working with the League of Women Voters on developing a program and website to get out the youth vote. She’s in an apartment for the summer with some of her besties and learning to cook for herself. She just sent me a photo of the gazpacho she made! Well done! I just dropped go2boy, class of 2018, off at his state HOBY seminar. It’s daunting to know that we will be going through the process next year with SAT and ACT prep. Not looking forward to that. He’s a great kid and will certainly be on a different journey than his sister. I know I will be a lot more relaxed having gotten through it with you all the first time!
Glad Go2Girl got a part-time job in admissions. Maybe it can continue into the school year? A little extra coin is a good thing!
Son '14 spent the past week in training for his internship. Got home in time for dinner Friday. Really likes what he is doing. Enjoys the other interns – 8 of the 11 guys are in fraternities, so he feels right at home. Helped him do the laundry because he needs to leave later today to go back to training for two more days before he starts his 40-hour a week job. Made plane reservations for him to fly down to college in late June. He has a mandatory student government association workshop he needs to attend. His dad and I agreed to pay half of the flight’s cost. Meanwhile, he and his older brother, who is doing a law school internship this summer in DC, got tickets to an upcoming Orioles game. So they can spend a weekend together.
Meanwhile, my school year officially ends this week. So looking forward to the break.
D left sat, spent Sunday with her sister (a little over the half way point), and will continue on to The Chicago area today. Intersihip starts tomorrow. She is the only female on her team–intern or scientist. Seems to be fairly typical of her field (cs). Pity the fool who asks her to get coffee, although in all honesty, I am concerned she will encounter a “let the men handle it, sweetie” attitude, especially because she’s really petite and her latest haircut sort of has her looking like an anime character. She’s tough, but college has been the first experience with having her intelligence questioned because of the way she looks. The work world is going to be rougher, I fear.
@momreads, my D is working in the Vandy admissions office as well. She is working til mid August and will be home for two weeks before leaving to Florence for study abroad.
yellowgranite56: That’s wonderful for your daughter. A great summer job. She gets to tell the prospective students what a wonderful school Vandy is. Nashville is a favorite city of Son '14. I mentioned Vandy’s masters in finance program. I think he will look into it, as he is interested in post grad studies. A year in Nashville would make him happy.
@yellowgranite56 - my daughter just texted me and our daughters are friends! Gotta love the CC connections!
That’s fabulous, @go2mom!
Does anyone know anything about Bryant? DS got an email from their T&F coach today, who would like to talk to DS at the state quals tomorrow. They’re D1 and DS’s stats are right on the 50% mark, but the NPC looks awfully expensive unless Bryant has more T&F money than most. Can’t find a common data set for them either.
@mdcmom – you made me curious, so I tried looking for the CDS. Appears they stopped reporting it sometime in the last decade. I am always very suspicious when a school hides the CDS.
I don’t have any insight on $$ for sports recruiting, especially T&F. Have only heard of Lax players attending from our area, but have no idea if money was involved.
I know very little about athletic recruiting (other than what I hear secondhand as it is widespread at our HS). Can your NCAA clearinghouse contact provide any financial info? I am not sure of that person’s role.
Bryant hired the Duke lacrosse coach during the fiasco, and he’s rewarded them by staying and taking a much lower ranked program to the top. He couldn’t have done that without the support of a smart and honorable AD, so I’d vote that it is a good and well run athletic department. My daughter did send in a recruiting form but didn’t follow up. The school has an actuarial science program that was of interest.
If the program is fully funded, it will have exactly the same T&F money as every other school, 12.6 for men, although it may have fewer athletes hoping for a slice of the pie.
Thank you for your insight! I meant to post this to the Class of 2017 forum and didn’t realize until this morning that I’d gotten it mixed up. Between the Class of 2014, Class of 2015, and Class of 2017 forums, I do get confused sometimes.
So twoinanddone, if a school is fully funded, they all have the 12.6 scholarships? I hadn’t realized that; I thought it was more “up to 12.6”. Good to know.
mdcmom: As a parent of a former high school runner who placed four times at states as a senior, I can say that T & F offers little to no money for athletes unless you have big time talent (My son has a friend who has a full ride to Oregon, for example).
Most schools cut up their scholarships, so you get books or a partial. My son had some D-1 schools wanting him, but they loved that he had top scores and grades so they did not have to give him any money. They could save that for the kid who had the times they sought but lacked a little on the academics. That said, the good thing about the academic money is that you are not married to the program. My son decided during his first year of college that he really did not enjoy competing anymore. Because he had an academic scholarship, he could leave the program. His friends from the team, in most cases, were not that luck. No competition. No money. So they had to stay even though they were not happy.
Schools definitely LOVE to have students get merit money to combine with athletic money because there just isn’t that much athletic money. Bryant has 28 on the T&F team, 12 on the cross country (I didn’t cross check to see if any appeared on both rosters), so ~36-40 splitting the scholarships. If they split them equally that’s 1/4 to 1/3 for each teammate. If the athlete can also get a 1/2 tuition scholarship, that goes a long way toward paying the bills.
Very rough numbers, but that might be the starting point for talking to the coaches. Some coaches split the scholarships pretty evenly, others give little to freshmen and much more as the years go on, some give it all to the superstars and little to those who can’t contribute points to the team.
It is ‘up to 12.6 scholarships’ and the AD decides how close to that 12.6 number the coach gets to award. It’s really hard to figure out if a program IS fully funded. My daughter’s is not, and the only reason I know is because the coach told me, but I don’t know how close it is to the 9.9 scholarships allowed by the NCAA. Most of the top players seem to have about 1/4 of a full scholarship, but a few have less, so just guessing, I’d say Coach has about 6 scholarships to play with (she doesn’t give a %, but a $$ amount). For the men’s team at the same school, they get much less. The team is bigger and I don’t know how the coach divides the money, but daughter’s boyfriend just gets a few thousand per year
Some of the schools DS’17 is looking at have auto merit for his academic stats, and those look promising. But Bryant doesn’t list any particular scholarships so it’s a bit unclear how good they are in that department. (On their top page they say that Pell Grants are available for those who qualify. You think?) I’ll look for the coach today and try to feel him out, but I’m not particularly hopeful.
A question: what constitutes a scholarship? Is the coach dividing 12.6 full-tuition scholarships 40 ways, or 12.6 full rides? Your post above sounds like 12.6 tuitions but I want to be clear.
Thanks again!
mdcmom: The 12.6 can be broken up as a coach sees fit. If you get full tuition on an academic ride and you have some dynamite stats, he could offer books or some cash that could be used toward, say, housing. Some kids could receive a meal plan. It depends on the coach. Remember, that scholarship runs year to year. So, if an athlete fails to perform to the coach’s expectations, he could lose the money.
mdcmom, a lot of information on athletic scholarships on the College Admissions/athletic page.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/
There are six sports that require full (headcount) scholarships in D1, but all the rest are awarded as the coach wants. In T&F, most are sliced and diced. Most coaches try to get the student to use other merit, Pell, state grants, etc to fill out the financial aid plan. My daughter has 9 different line items on her award, plus loans if she wants to accept those. Some of her awards are only $500 per semester, but they all combine to cover her costs. Her coach would be thrilled to have everyone have 100% covered with merit, outside scholarships, other school grants (not need based), military benefits, etc. The coach does try to stretch the funds as much as she can.
My friend’s daughter started at Fordham with a small swimming scholarship, and by senior year it was full tuition. Swimming is another sport with big teams that have to share just a few scholarships.
@mdcmom, one point about contacting coaches – Coaches really really prefer that the athlete do
the communicating, rather than the parents. It shows initiative and interest form the student, not a parent. This is not to say that you shouldn’t be uninvolved. When my DS was going through the process (D3 so no athletic money, just merit) all emails came from his account (although crafted with my input). During recruiting visits, I only asked questions after DS had asked his own, and I often hung back and let him have private conversations with the coach. In fact, I just read this article that touches on this. https://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/pulse/open-letter-athlete-we-must-stop-recruiting-becky-carlson
Of course, the athlete in that article has other issues that raised flags for the coach, but the point about student initiative is important.
Good luck!
Just picked up DS’14 from school. Hard to believe he is a junior. Was wonderful to meet several of his college friends. Now he is hoe and already started his summer job.
Well, after a qualifying time and a DQ and a DQ reversal, DS’s 4x800 team is going to states! But DS didn’t make it in the open 800 
. He was on pace for a 1.55-1.56 800m but collapsed 10m from the finish line. He’s OK…he just pushed himself too hard.
Met with the Bryant coach who seemed nice, and gave us information on Bryant’s academic merit scholarships which are poorly described on their website. He thought DS could get significant money there, but we’ll see.
Thanks again for the info and advice. DS’17 is so very different than his brother and sister! So even though this is my third in four years, it feels like my first time at the rodeo.
Here is Common Data Set info on Bryant University from a gov. website called College Navigator. No info about SAT scores, but a very high acceptance rate (75%) and very low yield (18%). http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=bryant+university&s=all&id=217165#general