<p>Hello, My son was offered a scholarship to play soccer at the Univ. of Michigan. It is for books only with the opportunity to increase as he develops and they see how he does. My son is a very good player and we feel that he could do better scholarship-wise. Is this a common proposal? They will not budge. He has a full ride offered at another college, University of Memphis, but my son really wants to go to Michigan. He made an unofficial visit and fell in love with it. Of course, we feel that Michigan is a much better school than Memphis. My husband and I are new to this recruiting stuff. My son did verbally commit. He was a junior at the time but will now graduate this month. Can anyone give me some advice?</p>
<p>yes, standard offer.</p>
<p>and consider thinking about it this way, there are thousands of kids who get rejected from Michigan each year, kids who would love to attend. Yet Michigan not only wants your child they are giving him a little money as an incentive to come! wow!</p>
<p>congratulations!</p>
<p>Schools just don’t have that many FULL scholarship to offer, so they split them up to get as many good athletes as they can. pacheight is right - it’s an honor that your son was offered books!</p>
<p>Men’s soccer can only offer 9.9 scholarships and this is generally split over a team of 25 players or so. It is not a sport that full scholarships are generally offered in and many of the DI schools don’t even have funding to offer all 9.9.</p>
<p>Not for soccer, but my D was also offered a small scholarship like that at the university she signed with. The only difference in our situation might be that the coach knew she’d get a much better financial aid package from the school and that eventually we would decline the athletic money in favor of the regular FA. It was more for show.</p>
<p>Just as in your son’s case, our D got offered full rides at lesser caliber schools. The better the school, the more competition for both athletic and regular admission spots and so the less they have to offer to get kids to come. It’s a trade-off and a tough choice to make for an athlete: more affordable vs. better quality.</p>
<p>Agree that Michigan is a great school and if your son can leverage soccer into admission, that’s fantastic. However, don’t hold out hope that the money will increase in subsequent years. After all, once your son is on board, why spend money on him when they can use it to lure new recruits?</p>
<p>True also what GFG said. Don’t take the lesser scholarship money if you fa package is better, because I don’t believe you can take both. FA money (unless it is merit-based) will count toward the team cap.</p>
<p>If he verbally committed, he should honor his commitment–particularly at this late date. It is the right thing to do.</p>
<p>If he signed a letter of intent I don’t think he can back out. Isn’t that binding?</p>
<p>I think they said it was a verbal.</p>