At clinics, camps and tournaments, I often meet high school athletes who have a passion for their sport and have dreams to play in college but are not necessarily the blue chip player on their team. Often times they are discouraged believing that there aren’t opportunities for them to play at the next level or earn a college scholarship. Does this sound like you? If so, you may be surprised to learn that being a part of a collegiate team and receiving a scholarship is more attainable than you think. You do have to work at it though, and the first step is to develop a strategy and a comprehensive plan of action. Most college recruiting services you’ll find simply mass e-mail your information to college coaches…and not much else! In my opinion, that step is just the beginning. If you understand your level of talent, position yourself correctly, and build the right relationships, then your dream of playing in college can come true.

If you’ve made a commitment to be a student-athlete it can exponentially increase your chances of getting admitted to the school of your choice. Most all of the Division I schools -- with a few Ivy League exceptions -- have the ability to help a student-athlete get into school. Many of these colleges have “slots” that are given to anyone the coach chooses. Other colleges will lower either the SAT or GPA requirements or both for the student-athlete than the regular student. The bottom line is this: if the coach wants you to be a part of their team, he or she will help you through the admissions process. Even Division III schools that are without athletic scholarships have the ability influence their admissions process.

Understanding each school, their process, and their bottom line athletic requirements can make a substantial difference in your chances of being admitted to your dream school. 




 

 

The First Step in the Scholarship Process is to Learn the Rules

Any athlete understands that to be successful in their sport they need to know the rules of the game. The same thing is true in the pursuit of a college scholarship or financial aid: it’s what you don’t know that can hurt you.

NCAA rules can seem complicated, ever changing, and are different from sport to sport. Parents and student-athletes alike need to have a good basic knowledge of the NCAA rules while navigating what sometimes can be the rough waters of the recruiting process.

Over the years while I was a coach at the University of Michigan, I saw parents of recruited athletes who unfortunately came into the process with enormous amounts of misinformation regarding NCAA rules. This not only can affect their school choices but also can put their child’s eligibility at stake. One parent was so happy that her daughter had signed a National Letter of Intent (NLI) that he hand-delivered the document to my office. He was unaware of the NCAA “Dead Period” that surrounds a NLI signing date. Even though it was an innocent mistake, it was a violation that we needed to report. His daughter was temporarily ineligible to come to Michigan pending reinstatement by the NCAA - a very scary moment for all of us just because a parent did not know the basic rules.

Or how about this common misconception: Just imagine that you thought that your child was going to have all $30,000 of their tuition, room and board paid for when all of a sudden you find out that you must pay half! That misunderstanding is a result of poor assumptions made by parents who do not know the rules. On more than one occasion, parents have planned for a partial athletic scholarship and think that they can make up the difference with financial aid. Not the case. You cannot couple those two together without it counting against the total scholarship limit of the athletic program at the college or university. In most cases, the program is at its limit and you would not be able to keep that financial aid. There are also a multitude of other grants and scholarships that would not be accepted.

The NCAA rules are designed to protect the student-athlete but have gotten more and more complicated over the years. As issues arise and become problematic, then there are changes made to existing rules –sometimes sport by sport. You can learn the basics and keep up to date by reviewing the NCAA manual on their website, www.ncaa.org. The best advice to keep in mind, though, is probably one that almost every athlete has heard from a coach since they began competing – if you’re going to play the game, you’ve got to know the rules!