by Stephanie Barth, Student Athlete Coach at OnCampus, former college athlete and college coach, and parent of three Division 1 athletes
Did you know that there are only a few sports and divisions where athletes are offered full ride scholarships?
In fact, less than 1% of incoming freshmen earn a full ride. Full rides aren’t common unless you are signing with a Division I “Head Count” sport. A Head Count Sport is a sport that generates money for the athletic department. There is a set number of athletic scholarships available for each team in a Head Count sport.
NCAA Division I Head Count Sports include Men’s and Women’s Basketball, Football, Women’s Tennis, Women’s Volleyball and Women’s Gymnastics.
Then there are “Equivalency Sports” where you can earn a partial scholarship. All of the other NCAA I and II sports, NAIA and NJCAA are included with the exception of NCAA Division III. These sports can give out partial or full scholarships. Coaches often divide up the scholarships across their roster. Division III, on the other hand, may only offer academic scholarships to its prospective student athletes.
How can I leverage my grades and ACT to help pay for college?
With the equivalency sports, athletes can combine multiple scholarships at an institution along with financial aid which could equal a full-ride. Coaches can divide the money equally among their athletes, give more to veteran players, or reward more to their top performers.
A partial ride can be turned into a full ride by combining scholarships and financial aid to cover the cost of attendance. For example, if you meet standards of a 3.7 GPA and an ACT of a 25 or higher, you may qualify for certain academic scholarships at that institution. In some ways, this can be beneficial for the athlete because if they get injured or decide not to play they can still keep these scholarships. Your offer from an institution may be a combination of athletic and academic aid in order to offset the cost of attending. An important question for student athletes to ask in these sports is can my scholarship go up if I am performing well. Some college coaches may choose to offer more and some may not. This is something to know up front when you are weighing your decisions.
The biggest thing you can do is to go in with a sound game plan!
Research all of the financial aid options at your prospective institutions. Ask questions about how you can earn more scholarship money both upfront and while you are a student athlete.
Student Athletes: Contact our resident Student Athlete Coach at stephanie@oncampuscollegeplanning.com if you have more questions about how to leverage your ACT and your high school grades to earn more financial aid and learn how to maximize your chances in the recruiting process with our student athlete coaching services.
Most athletes think the athletic recruiting process is just like the movies: I show up at a tournament or national ID camp, a college coach discovers me out of the hundreds of kids that are there, the coach offers me a full ride scholarship, I go to the Division 1 college of my dreams, etc.
The reality is that most college athletes learn how to actively promote themselves along the way. Most college athletes do not attend Div. 1 universities, and instead attend Div. 2, 3, NAIA, or Junior Colleges. Successful college athletes often start the process early and take responsibility for their own athletic recruiting. They gather as much information as they can and put in the work to promote themselves. They set both athletic and academic goals and reach out to those colleges and coaches that are the best fit.
How do Prospective Student Athletes get recruited for their sport?
Your recruiting journey will likely be your own, even as compared to someone on your own team. Prospective student athletes get recruited in a multitude of ways, but there are two primary avenues that high school athletes can utilize to take charge of their recruiting process and present themselves in the best possible light:
Make contact with college coaches
This includes email, phone calls, filling out online questionnaires and other written communication. Many college coaches don’t even begin recruiting you until you fill out their questionnaire, send an email, or make a phone call, and we happen to have a College Coach Outreach Guide filled with useful tips on how to carry yourself in these exchanges! Make sure you’re thinking about the level you would like to participate at athletically, and be realistic, for good or for bad. Remember that at the end of the day, it’s up to college coaches to decide what level you are at.
There are many options that student athletes and parents may not even be considering, which includes NCAA Div. 1, Div. 2, Div. 3, NAIA and Junior College. Once you’ve accurately determined what level you’re at, you can start exploring your options, which aren’t quite as limited as you may think.
You’re probably very familiar with the NCAA, but you might not know that the NAIA is made up of smaller colleges and universities that function much like Div. 2, often with fewer restrictions, and these schools offer athletic scholarships. Similarly, Junior Colleges (NJCAA) are 2 year institutions that have lower tuition rates and can provide students an opportunity to improve their grades and then transfer to a NCAA or NAIA school. Explore all of your options and don’t count anything out. Current media drama aside, Aaron Rodgers started at Butte Community College after only being offered a walk-on spot by Illinois, then transferred to Cal, and now he’s doing pretty well for himself.
Make campus visits
Visit colleges when you are traveling, contact those college coaches and let them know you will be on campus. College coaches want to hear from you and they want to know you are interested in their program. Take responsibility for your athletic recruiting process early and go explore college campuses!
Once you meet the coaches, they will take a deep dive and look at the athletic, academic and character of the student athletes they are recruiting. They will talk to club and high school coaches. Then they will extend offers and get commitments from prospective student athletes based upon the needs of their programs, and these offers can vary from a full ride to a partial scholarship to a walk-on offer. They also can be combined with academic merit aid in some sports at some of the levels.
To make this process easier, we’ve developed a handy list of 10 steps that you can take to ensure that you make the most of your campus visits!
Remember that you’re a student athlete – you’ll need to perform both athletically and academically to succeed, and the goal here is not only to play sports in college but to set yourself up for success later on with a strong education. Does your school of choice have the major and academic programs you’re looking for/does it have the academic rigor that fits your abilities? Don’t just check the box here. Fully explore the major and compare it to the same major at different colleges. What are the requirements to get into the nursing school or business school? What is the job placement rate from this college or university? Are their graduates getting into the graduate schools that I would someday like to attend? While your experience as a student athlete will inevitably differ from regular students, you’ll still be a college student capable of reaping all the benefits of post-secondary education. You should treat college the same way that everybody else treats it: as a stepping stone toward a satisfying career.
Important note: Know the high school courses and GPA you will need to participate by checking the NCAA Eligibility Center. The NCAA is not requiring standardized test scores this year, but know that many of the NCAA universities will require you to have them. Understand what you need to accomplish in high school academically to be able to participate in the NCAA.
Everyone’s recruiting journey will look different, but with perseverance and hustle you can make your goal of becoming a student athlete a reality. Let college coaches know you are interested in their university, because otherwise the ball will remain forever in your court. Stay motivated and persistent!
As always, you can reach out to Stephanie Barth, our resident Student Athlete Coach, at stephanie@oncampuscollegeplanning.com for further student athlete guidance!
The college search process can be fun and exciting. It can teach you a lot about yourself and what’s important to you. But for many high-school students, the college search process feels scary and intimidating.
I love helping high-school students discover great college options. I love helping a student to discover a school they never knew existed that turns out to be a potentially great fit for them.
In more than ten years as a college planner, I’ve helped thousands of high-school students and families find their best-fit college options and earn merit aid that makes college more affordable.
Here are 4 keys to making your college search process more productive, less stressful and more fun.
Use your college search process to expand college options and delay making college decisions.
The biggest college search process mistake I see students and families make is waiting too long to start their college search and then rushing to make college decisions. That’s a bad combination, but it happens all the time.
Delay decisions for as long as you can. Most students don’t need to finalize their college choice until late in the spring of their senior year. However, start exploring college options now. When you start your college search process as a freshman, sophomore or early junior year, you build your college knowledge base over time. Students often freeze up and have trouble gaining momentum on their college search process. They think, “I have no idea which college is right for me, and I don’t even know what I want to major in.”
Well, of course not! You haven’t done your homework yet. Take the pressure off. This isn’t about making decisions. It’s about expanding options. Focus less on finding the perfect college and more on finding colleges to which you want to apply. This makes it easier to get started on your college search process and build momentum.
Start your college search process online in just five minutes.
You can start your college search now from wherever you are. Visiting one college website for five minutes is a powerful way to build momentum. Clicking on that first college website takes a dose of courage. Remember, you’re not going to break anything or commit to anything or make a final decision.
Visiting one college website, any college website, is the best place to start because it’s easy and you can do it right now from wherever you are. Type in the name of a college — any college — and spend five minutes looking around. Five minutes is an eternity on the Internet. If you don’t know which college to choose, type in “B-e-m-i-d-j-i-S-t-a-t-e” and check out my alma mater. I’ll give five bucks to the first person who emails or texts me and tells me something about BSU.
By the way, this was the first step to finding college options pre-Covid, and it’s still the first step.
Make sure your college search process includes schools that weren’t already on your short list.
Another common misstep I see in the college search process is that students think they need to come up with a list of schools first and then go research them. This is backwards. It often leads to overlooking college options that could be a great fit for you, simply because you aren’t already familiar with them.
Here’s something I love to hear from the students we work with: “I had no idea that College XYZ even existed, but I’m so glad I found it, because it would be a great college fit for me.”
There are literally thousands of college options in the US alone, which I realize may be daunting. Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to look into ALL of them or even MOST of them. The point is, with so many options and since college is an investment of six figures and ffour years of your life, why wouldn’t you expand your college search process beyond what’s already familiar to you? Imagine the fun you can have imagining different possibilities while making your final college decision more complete and well-informed!
There are many ways to find great college options you’ve never heard of. Here are a few:
Talk to people you know, like older friends, cousins, your parents, aunts, uncles, or their friends. Ask them where they went to school and why, what they liked about it and what they studied. You might find a gold nugget or two that are worth exploring.
Use Google to search things like, “best colleges for nursing” or “colleges near mountains” or “best colleges for business majors”
Visit free college resource websites, like College Data and start poking around
Visit colleges early and often during your college search process.
The campus visit is the most powerful tool in your college search, even as the availability of onsite campus visits has decreased. This is where we need to push harder to not let Covid derail our plans.
One of the biggest hurdles families face right now is the relative lack of in-person campus visits. “I really need to see the campus to know if it’s right.” No, you don’t, at least not initially. You can get 83% of what you think you need from the myriad virtual visit options campuses now offer:
Virtual tours in real-time where you can ask questions.
Info sessions hosted by current students in your potential major.
Live chat features staffed by salaried admissions officers, not bots.
Phone calls and email exchanges with admissions reps, faculty and students.
Engage the help of a professional college planner.
I hope these four keys to your college search process help you get started and gain momentum, but you don’t have to go it alone. Every year, we help hundreds of high-school students and families navigate an easy, low-stress path to the college options that are best for them. To learn more, schedule a free consult online today.
Paying for college and who pays for what and when is among the most challenging topics between teens and parents. In your family, does everyone understand who pays for what and when for college costs? For most families, the answer is no.
Most families aren’t talking early enough or often enough about who pays for college. Not enough families are openly asking enough questions of each other when it comes to who’s paying for what college costs and when. In its most recent survey of college costs, the College Board reports that the average cost of attendance for in-state students at a four-year public institution for the 2020-2021 academic year averaged $26,820. This means that even an in-state, public college education is a six-figure decision. It warrants clear conversation about who’s paying for college costs or how college costs will be shared among parents and the student.
Do yourself a favor when it comes to determining who’s paying for college.
On or before your child’s 12th birthday, please have this conversation: “We think it’s important for you to go to college, or at least consider your college options. Here’s what we’re going to do to help…” If your student is older than 12, then have the conversation as soon as possible once you and your spouse or significant other come to agreement about who pays for college and your family’s college cost arrangement.
Families that fail to address the college cost question suffer from consequences of poor communication and poor planning. Even if it’s uncomfortable, speak openly and in quantifiable terms about all three components of this college planning question: who, what and when. Who pays for college? What college costs are covered by parents, and what college costs are covered by the student? When (and under what conditions) will college costs be covered? None of these variables is optional when it comes to paying for college.
Why it’s tough to talk about paying for college.
When you shop for a car, new or used, you can assume that the price you see on the window sticker or scribbled across the windshield is not the final price you will pay. Factoring in a trade, the actual price may be 5, 10 or even 20% lower than that of the sticker. We all have a ballpark price in mind when we visit an auto dealer, or we can access one in a blue book. Houses are largely the same, but without the possible trade-in value. The people who determine college costs, however, seem to go to great lengths to prevent you from feeling any sort of comfort level or command of what you’ll pay for college. College tuition may be $25,000/year, but you really have no idea what you will pay with everything thrown in. In fairness, great strides have been made by institutions of higher learning (with considerable arm twisting from the federal government) to get you a ballpark figure early on in the college planning process using tools such as net price calculators.
Outline who’s paying for college and which college costs are covered by whom in writing.
How do you talk about who will pay for what for college (and when) if you don’t know how much college will cost? Starting college research early helps you develop solid cost estimates to work with. College websites are now much more helpful in helping you to get a sense of what you’ll pay for college.
Once you’ve done your college research, write it down, and do the math. Make it clear to both parents and to the student who’s paying for which colleges costs and what the totals are per year. Create a college cost template based on what you as a parent can and are willing to contribute. This template spells out the college financing categories (or portions thereof) for which each party will be responsible. Here are four examples:
“Mom and I will pay for all tuition, fees and books at an in-state public university. Everything beyond that is yours.”
“We will contribute $30,000 per year for four years. If you go somewhere more expensive or take more than four years, you’re responsible for the balance. And no, we will not ‘refund the difference’ if you graduate in three and a half years or choose a very inexpensive option.”
“It’s 50-50 all the way.”
“We’ll pay for everything, but we want you to work at least ten hours per week so you learn how to manage your time, just like in the real world. You can keep what you earn, but you have to work.”
As one college planning example, my parents paid for tuition and fees plus a book allowance and required each of their three sons to pick up the tab for room and board, plus spending money. Each of us chose public universities, but the idea was that we would have the option to attend a more expensive private institution without incurring significantly greater debt. For the most part, room and board is the same at Harvard as it is at Des Moines Area Community College.
You’re essentially creating a college financing contract, and it’s perfectly acceptable to include performance clauses. Setting basic benchmarks such as “satisfactory progress in all courses” or “maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA” works well. Whether or not you put this onto paper is up to you, but the basic premise of “If I do this, I expect you to do that” helps eliminate surprises.
Bring to the college planning conversation your own experiences and arrangements with your parents, but keep in mind that working your way through college has become significantly more difficult as college costs have escalated. In fact, this approach can actually be counterproductive if a student devotes so much time and energy to earning money that she is left with little time to study. She ends up working extremely hard to pay for something that has less than optimum value.
Many families simply tell children not to worry about college costs, or not to worry about it while searching, but this can cause confusion. Instead, have the college cost conversation wrapped up prior to senior year. If the message is, “Don’t worry about it for now,” the impression you leave may be that money is no object or that a student really shouldn’t worry and therefore not plan and save for her college financing portion.
College planning questions to consider when it comes to paying for college.
How does an intended major impact this question, i.e. am I as a parent more willing to support a future anesthesiologist vs. an anthropologist?
If a student delays admission by taking a “gap year”, how does that change things?
Who gets credit for merit scholarships?
How about study abroad programs? Who pays for that?
What stipulations are there for semesters beyond the traditional four years?
How does a possible journey into grad school factor into all of this?
Making the effort to have open, honest conversations about money and college financing is far better than the consequences of NOT having these conversations. Be bold. Be open. You’ll be glad that you were.
We’ve helped thousands of students and families over more than 10 years, and can lend insight to your college cost and college planning conversations. Email me anytime or schedule a free consult to get your college questions answered.
When it comes to researching colleges online, a word of caution. Much of what you find when you start typing words into Google is going to be junk, which isn’t exactly news to you. Instead of Googling “best colleges for future doctors” or “occupational therapy majors,” start with the best resources for information on colleges. These are the tools I use as a professional college planner for my first-step, basic research. Some are better than others for specific search functions, so plug in some criteria and test them out. Use the tools that you like best.
Whenever I turn to a website such as these, I always take the results with a grain of salt and use them only as a starting point. If you find that College X has biochemical engineering, go directly to their website and do more digging to confirm the initial results, and then make contact with someone at the school who can tell you more and answer some questions.
Get Better College Information By Going Beyond Online Research
After you’ve done your research online, including spending significant amounts of time on the college websites for the schools that interest you most, you need to make contact with the schools that interest you. Yes, this means picking up that 50-pound phone and calling someone you don’t know who is probably older than 30 and asking good questions. This is the first step in an ongoing dialogue between you, the prospective student and family, and the college.
Before you pick up the phone or fire off an email, consider these guidelines for effective college search dialogue.
Find the right person to ask.
If you have questions about the college in general, ask admissions. If your questions are specifically about majors or programs, find a professor or administrative professional within the department, such as program coordinators. When applying to grad programs in the early 1990′s (read: largely pre-internet) I found myself communicating much more frequently and with greater success with administrative assistants than professors. They were easy to reach because they sit next to a phone, and they knew all the details about how to apply, deadlines, requirements, etc.
Don’t ask for answers that are readily available on the website.
If what you’re looking for doesn’t jump out at you, ask another family member to search for it, or use the search box that is usually in the upper right-hand corner of each page. It’s a sign of laziness to ask, “How many students do you have at your college?” It also sends the message that you can’t find answers on your own. If you legitimately can’t find basic data, then by all means ask.
Keep your queries brief and professional.
Whether you’re 17 or 47, a well-written email with a succinct introductory sentence and closing statement works best. A variation on the email template here always works well.
Hello [salutation if available]
My name is _____ and I’m a sophomore/junior at [high school] in [town and state]. I’m very interested in [name of college] and specifically in your [major or department]. I have three questions I’d like to ask:
How many of the students in your [academic program] enter the workforce immediately vs. going on to graduate school?
What sets [college]’s [major] apart?
What new classes or facilities could I expect to see if I enroll?
Thank you for your time and attention to these questions. Sincerely,
You may not get an immediate response, but you will get a response. If you don’t try someone else, or call to see if that person is traveling or on leave from the university.
4. Treat this as the first step in a larger conversation.
My rule of thumb is to never ask more than three questions in a single email. Don’t deluge the person with so many questions that she can’t respond in a timely manner. When you receive a response, it’s likely to include a “please let me know if you have more questions”, and while you don’t want to take advantage of that person’s time, you should take her at her word. Thank her for her time and send a follow-up question if you have one.
Between diligent online and offline research, you’ll be well on your way to identifying some colleges that could be great fits for you. For help defining the University of You and exploring great college options based on your unique needs, goals and passions, email me about our College Search services or schedule a free consult here. This is my life and my passion to help students find their best college fit!
In 
Start your college search process online in just five minutes.
Make sure your college search process includes schools that weren’t already on your short list.
Visit colleges early and often during your college search process.
On or before your child’s 12th birthday, please have this conversation: “We think it’s important for you to go to college, or at least consider your college options. Here’s what we’re going to do to help…” If your student is older than 12, then have the conversation as soon as possible once you and your spouse or significant other come to agreement about who pays for college and your family’s college cost arrangement.
How do you talk about who will pay for what for college (and when) if you don’t know how much college will cost? Starting college research early helps you develop solid cost estimates to work with. College websites are now much more helpful in helping you to get a sense of what you’ll pay for college.
How does an intended major impact this question, i.e. am I as a parent more willing to support a future anesthesiologist vs. an anthropologist?
6 Great College Information Websites
Before you pick up the phone or fire off an email, consider these guidelines for effective college search dialogue.
Between diligent online and offline research, you’ll be well on your way to identifying some colleges that could be great fits for you. For help defining the University of You and exploring great college options based on your unique needs, goals and passions,
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