She’s conditioned to it. In the summers, she trains from 5-8am.
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ugh, that’s rough! At least show week doesn’t last forever!
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Well, on a whim I ran the NPC at my D26’s first choice (also my alma mater). Get this: it spat out the cost of attendance at $85K, and our expected contribution (or whatever they call it) as either $112 or $117K, I can’t remember which 
Made no sense; who knows why we’re being asked to pay tens of thousands over sticker price…
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Yup - another 2 performances next week but no more nightly rehearsals then at least. Then, eek, next weekend is prom already!
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I think it’s saying that according to their formula you could pay up to $112/$117k per year, not that they’d charge you that. So if their aid formula stays the same and tuition eventually goes up, it’s what your family contribution would be capable of supporting.
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This insight is now 30+ and 25+ years old… so keep that in mind.
I was a ‘walk on’ at Illinois, swam for two years with one of those years basically recovering from Mono, and then trashed my shoulders during summer long course so spent a couple months doing rehab before the start of my third year – when I determined I needed to spend more of my time on my books and more or less ‘sat’ thru what would have been my third year. I was never better than the 4th or 5th fastest in my primary events - and faster guys came in behind me. I was rostered on the team through my third year which kept my GPA attributed to the team 
- I left undergrad after my third year and started Professional School at Illinois…and the fall of what would have been my fourth year of undergraduate, Illinois Title IX’d Men’s Swimming, Men’s Fencing and Men’s Gymnastics.
My younger brother was a better swimmer than me but not quite ‘elite’. He had excellent grads and high scores - and more or less used swimming as a ‘hook’ for admissions into Duke as a ‘preferred walk on’ (over Northwestern). He swam two years and hung it up for other interests.
Here are some insights -
I know that at Illinois and I was told by my brother at Duke, there were female athletes who were admitted to the schools using swimming as their push them over the edge for admissions… but after being admitted and arriving on campus they never showed up for a single practice.
Second, while swimming in a non-revenue sport and scholarships are few are often parsed our in splits between 2 or three athletes, one would think that because they were not BasketBall or Football or other high profile sport that it’s a lot of time investment but not alot of upside. That’s not inherently the case (or at least 25-30 years ago).
First, both my brother and I swam/trained far fewer hours in college than we did in our High School and Club programs. There’s a limitation on organized / overseen athletic training hours - that’s not to say that the Captains don’t organize added training sessions - swimming or dryland - they do - but there’s a very high likelihood your daughter may actually train less hours per week in college than she does for a high level competitive HS or Club team.
Even though both my Brother and I were not Star Athletes and both participated in sports which were not prominent (I think Illinois men’s finish 10 or 11th in the Big10 several years in a row before it was cut) - there were a lot of advantages to simply being on the roster.
It is also an immediate “in” to being part of an established ‘group’ the moment you step on campus. You are part of a club that has other freshman - Seniors and occasionally grad student assistants - who are all intimately aware of exactly what you are going through and what’s coming up for you in the next 2-3 years. This includes some minor shepherding on lifestyle/schedules - where to eat and when, places to study, best tutors to use for your classes, which classes are harder to handle with your schedule etc.
Class registration is often done earlier or preferentially trying to set up your schedule conducive to practice times.
Tutoring is readily available - so much so that some afternoons - evenings you can go into a hall and there may be twice as many Jun/Senior or Grad TAs as their are students getting help so 1:1 or even 1:3 tutoring can be a great resource.
Athletes respect Atheletes - sure, Big time QBs probably could care less - but I both my brother and I knew guys who were second or third string on Football and Basketball - and when out and about, they would acknowledge us, say “hey man what’s up” and introduce us to others… including preferential treatment standing in line for the bars or at fraternity parties… all because we “knew a guy”. This including being invited to other social events, parties, tailgates etc.
Now, I can not say this is still true or even true everywhere… but for me, this made a mountain of difference in our college experiences - and as I said, neither myself or my brother were ever going to be a ‘star’ athlete in our sport.
I recommend she keep her options open on that front… if she likes it, then do it until she doesn’t like it.
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This is a total side note --but regarding the 4 years of everything – there are a lot of students -some potentially very competitive that won’t have 4 years of everything. Maybe they did a special program of sorts -maybe they decided to focus on a specific area. I could be 100% wrong -but I’m guessing there is some flexibility in this. I guess what I’m saying is I wouldn’t force a kid to do 4 years of every subject if they had a rationale reason for not doing it. For example --say they wanted to dive deep into Art and didn’t want 4 years of Latin -and they end up with a really strong art portfolio for college. Also -and I think we forget this -but a little fun during High School is a good thing. The constant push is a recipe for burnout…either now or college or in a career or life in general. But that’s just my two cents from a parent not aiming to get their kid into an Ivy league --so I suppose take it with a grain of salt! 
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D26 is looking at exclusively D3 schools, and using her sport as her primary “hook”. As such, no athletic scholarships to consider, and schools she’s looking at don’t offer merit aid at all.
So this recruitment exercise is just to keep her options open, and possibly give her a better shot at “reach” schools where she may be lost in the shuffle of the tens of thousands of average excellent kids in the unhooked applicant pool. I’d rather her decide in November that she doesn’t want to swim in college, than not pursue the recruitment process now and realize in November that she does indeed want to continue swimming collegiately (as a scholar athlete, not club) and it be too late in the process for the schools she’s targeting.
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One of my roommates in Prof School played D3 basketball and had similar beneficial experiences. Thus you don’t have to be D1 in order to get something out of it, even more than you put into it.
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For everyone who has questions and wants to hear from @Jeff_Selingo, we have an upcoming webinar next week Tuesday at 7pm ET. REGISTER NOW!
You can also submit questions ahead of time by posting them here: How to Balance Fit, Cost, and Prestige when Choosing Your School as a HS Senior or HS Junior - Exclusive Webinar w/ Jeff Selingo on April 22 @ 7pm ET. Jeff will answer those live during the webinar.
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Fantastic 
I wish I hadn’t run the damn thing!! But thank you for your reply. I would not have guessed this explanation.
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ACT scores from 4/5 are starting to release. I’m on pins and needles waiting on D26 to come home to check.
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100%. It may be a bit more competitive now, but D19 got into NYU with 3 years of LOTE and 3 years of science (and 4 years of drama, but not as a drama or related major). Her “thing” was social sciences/history. It’s definitely more than tick the box for all the core subjects.
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We submitted FAFSA for our first child and the estimated family contribution came back at a ridiculously high amount – like more than our take home pay. I remember being shocked!
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They were factoring in the sale of a kidney maybe?
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They get one glimpse of one’s (southern CA coastal) home price, and the salaries necessary to pay its mortgage, and there you have it. It’s just funny that I suspected we wouldn’t get any aid, but I wasn’t expecting to see a way higher figure
I hate that they take home value/equity into consideration. Taking out a second mortgage or liquidating your family home to pay for an exorbitant tuition should not be on the table.
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A million times this. Being “house rich” is great, but it does not make someone readily able to front $90k in tuition. Having a lot of equity usually means you’ve had the house for a while, you bought it for the amount you could afford way back when, and its value has far outpaced any increase in income most people could expect. And selling it would mean you’d be stuck and unable to buy a comparable or even smaller house in your own neighborhood, especially because your new property taxes would be through the roof. This happens in CA all the time. Having a house over your head vs. shelling $360k in tuition… it’s wild to me that colleges even take home equity into account.
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The whole “College X is going to take your home equity into account when figuring out your kid’s financial aid package” is why D26 isn’t going to be applying to any CSS profile schools. That’s a deal breaker for us. Not willing to add an extra mortgage to our house to pay for college.
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Exactly. People in HCOL are disproportionately impacted. How is that fair or equitable?!?!
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