There is confusion on how academic scholarships and athletic scholarships work. For example, if an NCAA Division II institution offers you a partial scholarship you can still use academic aid to cover your tuition. About 2 percent of high school athletes are awarded some form of athletics scholarship to compete in college.
Academic Scholarships
NCAA rules prohibit athletic scholarships at Division 3 colleges. While Division III schools do not offer athletics scholarships, 75 percent of Division III student-athletes receive some form of merit or need-based financial aid. Academic scholarships are great for students that take care of business in the classroom. The higher your grades and test scores are the higher the chance of you receiving an academic scholarship.
Athletic Scholarships
About 2 percent of high school athletes are awarded some form of athletic scholarships to compete in college. According to the NCAA (https://www.ncaa.org/) Full athletic scholarships cover tuition and fees, room, board and course-related books. Most student-athletes who receive athletics scholarships receive an amount covering a portion of these costs. Many student-athletes also benefit from academic scholarships, NCAA financial aid programs such as the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund and need-based aid such as Federal Pell Grants.
Full and Partial Scholarships
Full athletic scholarships cover tuition and fees, room, board and course-related books. Partial athletic scholarships cover only a portion of those expenses. An athletic scholarship may not cover all student fees and fines.
Paying for College: Athletic Scholarships
With the rising prices of college tuition rising every year many families are finding it harder to pay for college. Athletic recruiting services like (https://www.underrecruitedprep.com/) connect student-athletes with college coaches and teaches them about the academic requirements colleges look for. The average Class of 2016 graduate has $37,172 in student loan debt, up six percent from last year.
College Tuition
Student loan debt in America is well over $1.4 trillion. That’s about $620 billion more than the total U.S. credit card debt. The average Class of 2016 graduate has $37,172 in student loan debt, up six percent from 2015. The average cost of tuition and fees for the 2016–2017 school year was $33,480 at private colleges, $9,650 for state residents at public colleges, and $24,930 for out-of-state residents attending public universities.
Athletic Scholarships
According to the NCAA (https://www.ncaa.org/) Full athletic scholarships cover tuition and fees, room, board and course-related books. Most student-athletes who receive athletics scholarships receive an amount covering a portion of these costs. Many student-athletes also benefit from academic scholarships, NCAA financial aid programs such as the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund and need-based aid such as Federal Pell Grants.
Partial athletic scholarships cover only a portion of those expenses. Many student-athletes don’t know that the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) offers athletic scholarships as well. NAIA colleges and universities provide 60,000 student-athletes with opportunities to play college sports, earn $500 million in scholarships and compete in 25 national championships. Over 90% of schools in the NAIA offer scholarships, and NAIA athletes receive an average of $7,000 of financial aid.
The Benefits of Participating in Collegiate Athletics
It’s no secret that college tuition is rising every year and because of the rise many students are seeking scholarships to reduce the debt. Athletic Scholarships reduce college tuition. Not only is reducing college cost a benefit, but also continuing playing the sport that you love for another 4-5 years. With only 1% of athletes going pro college is the last stop for majority of athletes. So, enjoy it and take advantage of the opportunity while you can. You only get 1 chance at the collegiate recruiting process. Don’t waste it.
College Tuition
According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2016–2017 school year was $33,480 at private colleges, $9,650 for state residents at public colleges, and $24,930 for out-of-state residents attending public universities. Wouldn’t it be better if you had an athletic scholarship covering some or all of these costs? UnderRecruitedPrep.com has helped families save over $20,000,000 in college cost.
Continue Playing The Sport That You Love
Most student-athletes started playing their sports before becoming a teenager. Some even started as early as six years old. Participating in college gives you another set of years to continue playing the sport while also getting a great education from a college/university. Participation in collegiate athletics is more than just playing sports, it also builds character and teaches us life lessons.
The Job Hunt
Participating in collegiate athletics imparts valuable lessons to any potential employee: the importance of hard work and dedication, being a good teammate, and the ability to multitask on different projects. Balancing life as a student-athlete will prepare for these things and even more. According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, women who participate in sports have higher levels of self-confidence and are less likely to suffer from depression. Furthermore, 80% of Fortune 500 female executives identify as being former athletes.
If you are a student-athlete looking for exposure to college coaches build your profile at https://www.underrecruitedprep.com/
How To Get Scholarship Offers
The search to finding scholarships can be long and very confusing if you don’t know where to start. UnderRecruitedPrep.com is an athletic recruiting service that connects student-athletes with college coaches and teaches them about the athletic recruiting process. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) reports that roughly two percent of high school athletes are awarded scholarships and many of those do not cover full tuition or other expenses.
Start Early
Athletes who receive scholarship opportunities are the ones that started early. The athletic recruiting process begins your first day high school, and a lot of athletes don’t realize it. Student-Athletes need to first start off great academically, so then you don’t play catchup in your later high school years. The earlier prospective student-athletes start reaching out to college coaches and learning more about what each college has to offer the more success they will have in the process. There are over 8 million student-athletes participating in high school athletics and only 2% of them will play in college.
STUDENT-athlete
The most important thing in the athletic recruiting process is a student-athlete’s grades and test scores. You can be the best player in the country, but if you are behind academically then your chances of playing in college decreases. Your academics will be the first and most important thing the college coach looks at. The higher your GPA and Test Scores are the more opportunities present themselves. For example, let’s a say a student-athlete receives a partial scholarship offer. If the prospective student-athletes is doing great academically then he/she could qualify for academic scholarships which sometimes are more than the athletic scholarship.
Contact College Coaches
Athletic recruiting services like UnderRecruited Preps makes this step easy and less time-consuming oppose to doing it yourself. Reaching out to college coaches and letting them know that you have sincere interest in their program is the first step in the communication process. This is where a lot of student-athletes lose in the recruiting process. The kids with scholarship offers were proactive, and started the recruiting process earlier than most. A college coach is going to be more interested in a student-athlete who has reached out and built a relationship.
Jeff Brabant is the head baseball coach for Miles Community College, this is what he has to say about communication:
Contact, contact, contact! Being from a JUCO, we normally don’t have great recruiting budgets to either fly to locations or to fly in recruits. Our best form of getting guys on a radar is by either developing relationships with high school coaches, subscribing to recruiting services, or athletes actually doing their own homework on contacting us as individuals.
Once contact is made, assuming we don’t know anything about the players, we start doing character checks with their coaches or other coaches who compete in their same league. We then move on to look at academic standards and then if those all check out we determine, hopefully through video, if the athlete has the necessary skills we need to compete at our level. If those check out, we set up a visit.
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