<p>Very interesting discussion. My son has completed official visits and now is trying to make a difficult decision (track & field). Final 4 schools all either top 50-100ish in usnews rank overall (range from 20 to 100 in his major). Highest ranked for academics would like him to walkon or possibly small books athletic schol. + small merit scholarship. He was in 75% range for sat/gpa but i’m sure having the athletic hook didn’t hurt - probably would be considered near reach for him. Other schools have a mix of academic merit and athletic scholarships ranging from books to approx 1/2 of full. 2 are private, 2 are state schools - all out of state. Couple small conference, couple big BCS conferences. The most scholarship money is from lowest ranked school (~ 100ish ranked school). He has a list of attributes for each school and is ranking each one- academics, team, location, facilities, coach, cost, gut feel… The coaches have varying degrees of interest ranging from phone call every week to taking forever to reply to email/phone - but all were interested enough for official visit. </p>
<p>We’ve told him to figure out what school he would like to be at if he never did his sport again as some others have posted. And also telling him to be careful about overrating the athletic scholarship piece - for example, if he rates the school high in every other category but they only want him to walk on. Especially in the case where the athletic scholarship is only books (~1k). The initial “prestige” of signing athletic scholarship will wear off fairly soon.</p>
<p>Good news is that he thinks he could be happy at all of them and they aren’t miles apart academically. The hard part is picking the best one since all have pros and cons. Fun times:)</p>