Womens Sports Scholarships - Soccer

[ishtat]

It has been suggested with increasing frequency recently that our youngest should and would get a scholarship to a US College because of Soccer ability.

I don't remember scholarships for women when I worked in the US but that was more than 20 years ago.

The problem is that everyone is keen to sell the upside but there is very little news on the pitfalls. Does anyone have such knowledge or experience.

Said offspring is sufficiently competent to qualify academically for any Uni in Australia (Probably Science/Maths major or something like that)

At the moment we are minded to ask the recruiters to back off because offspring will be taking year 12 exams in October/November and it is a distraction.

Our academic year begins in February and ends in December, so even if offspring was interested, couldn't start until 2012 season. The other off putting point it seems to me is that a lot of these colleges seem to have relatively modest academic reputations (though I'm open to correction on that because my knowledge is very thin)

Any thoughts welcome.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I coached girl's and women's soccer for nearly 20 years, and many of my players won scholarships. The ones who accepted were still able to study at a high level. It does depend on the Uni, though; a few who were offered at National Level schools didn't accept the scholarships because of the time committment to the team. Look into what the school expects for the scholarship.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

It has been suggested with increasing frequency recently that our youngest should and would get a scholarship to a US College because of Soccer ability.

I don't remember scholarships for women when I worked in the US but that was more than 20 years ago.

The problem is that everyone is keen to sell the upside but there is very little news on the pitfalls. Does anyone have such knowledge or experience.

Said offspring is sufficiently competent to qualify academically for any Uni in Australia (Probably Science/Maths major or something like that)

At the moment we are minded to ask the recruiters to back off because offspring will be taking year 12 exams in October/November and it is a distraction.

Our academic year begins in February and ends in December, so even if offspring was interested, couldn't start until 2012 season. The other off putting point it seems to me is that a lot of these colleges seem to have relatively modest academic reputations (though I'm open to correction on that because my knowledge is very thin)

Any thoughts welcome.

Only non-Ivy DI schools give athletic scholarships (actually, I have no clue what DII schools do... but there aren't that many DII schools out there). But non-Ivy DI athletic scholarships can be tricky; they require huge time commitments, and thorny issues could arise if she decides she no longer wants to play or gets injured. This is especially true if the school decides to be tricky about what "counts" as an injury suffered from athletics, as has been known to happen.

Ivies are DI schools, but technically can't give athletic scholarships. But that's just semantics. If your daughter is smart and does well on the SATs, and she is a good player, she could get a full ride. I knew people with SATs in the 1100s who got full rides to the Ivies on "academic" scholarships, lol. I knew one girl who went to Harvard (her SATs were in the 1300s, I think) and decided not to play soccer after her freshman year, and her aid was not revoked.

I agree that many DI schools don't have the best academic reputations. Some state schools do, IF you apply yourself (Michigan and Berkeley come to mind, as do UVA and UNC); however, it is really easy to slack off at these schools, and the range in student quality is shocking, so she has to be really motivated. I have a number of friends who were athletes at the Ivies, and two who were at Stanford, which is also a great school. And as much as it pains me to say it, Duke is a good school, too. Notre Dame has a really good team, but you have to abide by the school's rules, which are old-school, to say the least. I'm sure there are others, but I don't know much about them.

DIII schools work the same way as the Ivies, in that they can't give athletic scholarships but they often give academic scholarships to gifted athletes. As with the Ivies, the benefit to these scholarships is that they aren't usually revoked, even if your daughter decides she no longer wants to play. Weekly time commitments are lower at DIII schools, especially in the off-season.

I'm assuming from your post that she is ambitious in terms of her career. It's difficult to be in the hard sciences and be an athlete, especially at schools that travel a lot and that have big time commitments. Hell, I was an athlete at a DIII school, and I was miserable trying to balance the labs and my athletic requirements. I actually knew a number of people at my DIII school who turned down DI scholarships to come to the DIII school, and more who transferred after their freshman year. If you are a high academic achiever, it just makes more sense to pick a school for academics and then try to get a scholarship than the other way around.

If I were you, I'd start by contacting some schools and seeing what the process is. DI and DIII schools have different recruiting rules; I don't think DIII schools can contact a player, for example, and there are different times of year when they can contact players. The NCAA website might have information about which schools have good programs, and you could cross-reference that list with college and university rankings.

Hope this helps, best of luck, and let me know if you have more specific questions.


ETA: Oh, and UNC's women's soccer coach? Sketchy as all hell. Stay away.

 

[R. Richard]

Some schools that offer sports scholarships restrict the academic majors that they will allow for scholarship players. If your daughter isn't interesting in underwater basketweaving, you might want to check this out.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Some schools that offer sports scholarships restrict the academic majors that they will allow for scholarship players. If your daughter isn't interesting in underwater basketweaving, you might want to check this out.

Are you sure about this? I have a hard time believing that this could be an official school policy, given that the NCAA tries to emphasize the student part of student-athlete. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some coaches "strongly discourage" certain majors, and attach severe penalties to going against their wishes.

I did a quick google search for this and couldn't turn anything up. Do you have a specific example?

 

[sr71plt]

Is this a school she wants to go to? Can you afford the school she wants to go to if she doesn't really want to go to this one? Can you afford everything else it's going to cost to go to this school compared to one she favors as well or better? (My father, in Colorado, got a basketball scholarship to Georgetown in Washington, D.C. He didn't have the cost of a bus ticket, though.)

What are her inclinations? Where does soccer fit into her life now--and where does she want it to fit in college? Can she handle a sports committment and academics at the same time?

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Is this a school she wants to go to? Can you afford the school she wants to go to if she doesn't really want to go to this one? Can you afford everything else it's going to cost to go to this school compared to one she favors as well or better? (My father, in Colorado, got a basketball scholarship to Georgetown in Washington, D.C. He didn't have the cost of a bus ticket, though.)

What are her inclinations? Where does soccer fit into her life now--and where does she want it to fit in college? Can she handle a sports committment and academics at the same time?

If you are getting a scholarship, make sure you know what it covers; I'm not sure how it works in Australia, but tuition, room and board, and fees can be but aren't always three different things in the US. Some scholarships require work-study jobs on top of the scholarship, which impose an extra time commitment but provide guaranteed cash during the semester.

The last bit is what sets the Ivies and DIII schools apart. If she changes her mind on the second day of school and decides she never wants to play again, she won't have to at these institutions.

 

[R. Richard]

Are you sure about this? I have a hard time believing that this could be an official school policy, given that the NCAA tries to emphasize the student part of student-athlete. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some coaches "strongly discourage" certain majors, and attach severe penalties to going against their wishes.

I did a quick google search for this and couldn't turn anything up. Do you have a specific example?

Yes, I'm sure about it. No, it's not an official school policy. Yes, the NCAA tries to emphasise the student part. However, the Coach has to win, to keep a job. Yes, Coaches do exact, 'severe penalties' if an athlete goes against his/her wishes. No, you won't find anything in writing.

In the areas where I lived, the only way out for many was an athletic scholarship. The star athlete would get all sorts of freebies, including cash, cars, that sort of thing. (Read about Ohio State.) In exchange for the freebies, the star athlete danced to the Coach's tune.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Yes, I'm sure about it. No, it's not an official school policy. Yes, the NCAA tries to emphasise the student part. However, the Coach has to win, to keep a job. Yes, Coaches do exact, 'severe penalties' if an athlete goes against his/her wishes. No, you won't find anything in writing.

In the areas where I lived, the only way out for many was an athletic scholarship. The star athlete would get all sorts of freebies, including cash, cars, that sort of thing. (Read about Ohio State.) In exchange for the freebies, the star athlete danced to the Coach's tune.

OK. That's what I thought, and it doesn't surprise me one bit. I have a feeling that many of these majors are in the sciences, particularly those that require labs.

The problem, of course, is that in the recruitment stage ishtat wouldn't know any of this, even if it does exist; that's what makes it unofficial.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

OK. That's what I thought, and it doesn't surprise me one bit. I have a feeling that many of these majors are in the sciences, particularly those that require labs.

The problem, of course, is that in the recruitment stage ishtat wouldn't know any of this, even if it does exist; that's what makes it unofficial.

It's at the recruitment stage that you have to look into such things, and it often isn't easy. The soccer clubs I coached for had a goodly number of the women go on scholarships to the States or to "Div I" Canadian Schools (no sports scholarships here), and the new players and their parents generally spoke to the ones who had already gone to find out such things.

Ishtat, I know, isn't in that position, but with only one school to look at, he should be able to find out something useful. He could even ask around here; I'm sure some other writers and readers have some relevant experience or contacts.

 

[ishtat]

Thanks to everybody who responded. At this stage it looks as though academic issues will take priority.

USA is a relatively cheap alternative for under and post graduate education, following the collapse in the value of the US$ over the past 3 years.

However, the undergraduate education in Science/Maths appears to be at least as good in OZ, though post grad opportunities are more varied and numerous in the USA.

As always, the quality and reputation of the College/Uni is everything, wherever it is.