Plenty of D3 schools give out what amounts to athletic scholarships under the guise of academic or supplemental need-based aid. But the school needs to feel like the student-athlete is going to significantly contribute. Are they going to make NCAA cuts? Or at the least final at league meet?
Looking at MIAA (D3 Michigan conference) results from last year, it took a 4:47 to make the A final at league meet and 4:54 to make the consolation final in the 500 free and a 59/A final 1:03 B final for the 100 breast.
There is a woman swimmer that graduated from my son’s HS last year that is swimming D2 at Grand Valley State this year. I am not sure whether she pursued any scholarship money or not. I have recently heard that she is ranked nationally in the breastroke and the IM. It will be interesting to see if she gets some money for next year.
Also, on a related note. When do colleges start sending out brochures? I seem to recall that I started to receive them towards the middle-end of Junior year. My son already has a HUGE pile of them. Is this because of his academic accomplishment? Or is this because, like everything else anymore, they have just accelerated the process?
The colleges buy lists of students sorted by geographic location and test scores from the testing company. If he did well on PSATs, a lot of schools will be going after him in hopes of upping their National Merit Scholar head count.
And that goes doubly so at mid-pack national level liberal arts colleges. It cost me less to go to Albion than it would have cost for me to go to U of Michigan because they were willing to offer me good academic scholarship money. Same goes for some other nice GLCA schools like Hope, Wooster, DePauw, etc.
Start to put together a highlight package of your son’s results. Include his grades, AP courses, etc. Div III athletics is all about the student-athlete. He’s a soph so it’s early by Div III standards. Coaches may not contact him legally until his junior year (I think it’s Aug/Sept, but check the ncaa website), but depending upon where you’re located, how well your son has done in big meets, a coach or two may already be aware of his performances. Or not. Oftentimes a Div III recruit is a self-made one.
Thank you for your advice. We have started making a list of his results and putting together some video. One thing I really took from the meeting we were at was that it is rare for an athlete to be “discovered” as that Diamond in the rough. A college coach/scout will look at you but you have to tell the where you are. So we will have the boy make some noise and make sure that someone is getting his name on their list.
you’re welcome - there are a lot of rules around recruiting and who can make contact - your son can contact coaches but they are only allowed so much attention back at him. He needs to do the initial part.
**If he did well on PSATs, a lot of schools will be going after him in hopes of upping their National Merit Scholar head count. **
He has taken the PSAT twice now for practice as a freshman and earlier as a sophomore. He officially takes it next year as a junior. I know that he did really well this past fall when he took it. The National Merit Scholar stuff will be HUGE. I have been priming him and telling him that the PSAT test is the one that counts!
One of his teammates is going to Hope. He is a pretty smart kid.
**you’re welcome - there are a lot of rules around recruiting and who can make contact - your son can contact coaches but they are only allowed so much attention back at him. He needs to do the initial part. **
Yes. I have been directed to the NCAA handbook regarding these rules. I think there are limitations on the coaches until he is a senior. My son can always contact them though as I understand it.
Since your son seems to be academically qualified for an Ivy league school (H-Y-P), I would also try them out. They cannot give out a scholarship for sports but they give scholarships to 55% of their students. And at the top three, we are talking about excellent financial aid packages especially if your family makes under $3 mill and really good if it is under $200K and excellent if it is under $100K. Some of the financial aid packages were night and day differences between the top three and other schools. You might also try Stanford since they are allowed to give out sports scholarships. Remember, the best schools in the country are also the cheapest.
Since your son seems to be academically qualified for an Ivy league school (H-Y-P), I would also try them out. They cannot give out a scholarship for sports but they give scholarships to 55% of their students.
Honestly, this wasn’t even on the radar, but I suppose what the heck? Why limit him? It would have to be a significant scholarship I’m pretty sure though.
bernie, bite the bullet and have your son attend the best academic university he can. Loans/scholarships/grants etc. all tend to work themselves out. The best schools are also the best funded and have massive endowments. If your son is gifted academically and can get into a top 10 school, those schools almost find a way to make it affordable. Don’t for a second confuse his swimming hobby with what is in his best interest as a young man.
PLEASE do NOT allow your son to attend a community college. Not a knock against 2 year schools, but if he’s that academically and athletically talented, then there’s no reason he can’t go to a GREAT school and have “The College Experience”.
If he wants to be serious about swimming (obviously academics too) there are some great NCAA DIII schools out there that excel in both…Kenyon, Denison, Emory, DePauw are at the top of my head. I am an alumnus of DePauw University so I am a bit biased. I was and am still best friends with a lot of the swimmers. We lived in the same fraternity house, so I got kind of the up close and personal aspect of being a swimmer. One of them has qualified for Nationals in MANY events for 2009 (50, 100, 200 free…2, 4, and 8 free relays)
Someone threw out times for the MIAA conference meet (I think)…keep in mind that those times are at a conference championship, which for 90% of conferences out there mean shaved, tapered and FS-PROs, Blue70s, or LZRs. Teams that dont taper for conference are the ones that already are going to nationals and taper for that.
One thing you should do now is look at the community and local scholarships provided by organizations. I was fortunate to earn a Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship (Indiana based). The judges for our community were people I had met and known through my involvements in community service, which were a large portion of the scholarship. I was certainly no slouch in the classroom as well, but this scholarship allowed me to attend any school in Indiana for with tuition and books paid by the Scholarship. I had earned ~$19,000/yr from DePauw scholarships, so they covered my room and board.
Have you considered looking at schools in Canada? the best schools here are cheaper than the state schools in the US. At McGill, the undergrad students from the US pay around $14k a year (Canadian dollars).
There is one University in Canada that has become a bit of a go-to place for serious triathletes - my alma mater, the University of Guelph. There is an outstanding varsity running program. The school has won the Provincial and National University XC championships numerous times. There is a great Varsity swim team and I know that both the running and swim coaches are keen to do the give-and-take to make it work for the triathletes in the progam. Guelph has been designated a Provincial Triathlon training center under the direction of Coach Craig Taylor who is a regular here on Slowtwitch.
Ironman Canada Champ Jasper Blake is a product of this system and their are currently two athletes on the National Team who are products of the Guelph program.
I am proud to say, as noted, that I am also a product of this “system”, but back in the early 80’s we really had no clue what triathlon was - it was just something we did in the summer for fun!!
Bernie - I found this old thread as I’m starting down this path with my own daughter. Any updates? Did your son contact any coaches last summer? How did it go? Any advice on those of us just starting?
You have gotten excellent advice so far. One thing I learned when one of my daughters was offered diving scholarships is that they usually only offer partial scholarships (e.g. 1/3) for sports like swimming and track. Good luck.
BTW - My last daughter just graduated from college in December so I’m done with tuition (I hope).
btmoney was pretty spot-on with his advice on good swimming schools. I swam for Kenyon, as did the now-coach of Emory. However your son is going to have to get fairly fast to be able to attract some serious interest (i.e. merit scholarships) from DIII schools based on his current splits. Here is a good page for the current DIII national times:
With a 4.0 there will be quite a bit of academic interest—especially if he can finish top of his class—colleges love to brag about how many valedictorians they were able to attract. Pursue the Ivies, and the sub-Ivies (Colgate, Laffayette, etc) and the top DIII’s----from personal experience I can tell you that if a swim coach likes your son, and is short in that position, that can really help (my sister got into one of the top Ivies b/c she was a decent (i.e. top 20 state) backstroker with decent, but not great, grades—the school needed a solid backstroker). Another avenue to pursue is have your son spend the next couple of summers pursuing the painfull/unpopular races—400 IM, 200 Breast, 200 Fly during the summer LC season—there are a million good 100 breaststrokers out there—not too many fast 400 IM’ers coming out of high school. Potential also helps—if he can demonstrate good drops over the next 2 years, with a so-so coach in a so-so program, some coaches will be interested.
The military acadamies are a great suggestion—the dual athlete/academic really helps there…but so does a good relationship with your local congressman.
Lastly, if $$ is really, really tight, and you need him to get a full ride, there are some DI colleges that will give out scholarships to swimmers who aren’t All Americans and/or top 10 in state. We are talking places like Western Kentucky & other not-so-prestigious schools, but if all you are after is a university degree & then onto grad school of some sort, there are worse options.
Beware. I know there are a lot of companies out there that will make promises about scholarships until they’ve cashed your check.
As you said, most of this is work you can do. I played D1 lacrosse and my father and I made all the contacts ourselves. Plus, if he is good enough to get a scholarship, coaches will be looking for him. Of course that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be sending letters and videos.
If a company is saying that D3 schools are giving money, turn the other way and run. They do not provide athletic scholarships. They can help your kid get in (which is huge) and they may even be able to give him advice on where to look for other types of scholarships,*** but there is no such thing as a D3 athletic scholarship***.
Ehhhhhh technically yes. But a lot of schools give “academic” scholarships to athletes in order to get them to go there, even when their grades clearly don’t warrant it. I went to a DIII college and my freshman year I shared a suite with two football players and a basketball player. They were great athletes but were there on “academic” scholarships. Their grades, tests and extracurriculars definitely did not warrant those scholarships, and they even admitted it themselves. Every school is different, but if a school wants to get around the whole rule about DIII not giving athletic scholarships it doesn’t seem that hard to do.
Look at it this way - I also was there on an academic scholarship, and I got the scholarship in part because I had strong extracurriculars. They happened to be theater and model congress, but so what if my extracurriculars were football and baseball? There is nothing that says a DIII school can’t count your athletic accomplishments towards your “well-roundedness” and offer you an academic scholarship.
Much to my chagrin my son decided to be a slug last summer. I did what I could to motivate him (because I decided ultimately it would be counter-productive for me to do the work for him or even force him…I think it really had to be his decision), but it wasn’t enough. He swam about enough to maintain, but really didn’t get a good base in. For various reasons I would rather not get into, he had already “decided” what college he was going to go to and what field he was going to study. Unfortunately, his rationale and motives were wrong about this and no matter what my wife and I told him, we really had no idea what we were talking about. So the answer is no, he contacted no coaches last summer. He has gotten 3 letters from some smaller schools (which is where I think he would excel) that have mentioned that they would be interested in having him come and check out their schools and their swimming programs. I have tried to convince him to take a look at those…so far no interest.
He entered the season out of shape, which disappointed his coach a bit. He ended up salvaging his season though and returned to the state meet in the breast stroke…but I think if he had not had to make up so much ground, he would have probably been on the outside of all-state.
He has kept his grades up, which I am most proud of him. He did get a B+ and an A- which messed up the 4.0 though. He is still ranked in the top-10 in his class academically. The college search really is beginning in earnest now. ACT’s and SAT’s are starting to roll in. That will probably be a big factor in the whole scholarship bundle.
I have no practical advice to give, but I promise I’ll share when I am not considered an idiot in my own house anymore!
Another avenue to pursue is have your son spend the next couple of summers pursuing the painfull/unpopular races—400 IM, 200 Breast, 200 Fly during the summer LC season—there are a million good 100 breaststrokers out there—not too many fast 400 IM’ers coming out of high school. Potential also helps—if he can demonstrate good drops over the next 2 years, with a so-so coach in a so-so program, some coaches will be interested.
Thanks for all of your advice. Interestingly, he has learned his season about the necessity for swimming seriously all year long. This sprinf/summer/fall he has already dedicated to the USS team. The coach there wanted him last year and he did swim for them, but only laxadasically. He has already talked with her, and she told him that those are the events he will be training for.
“Much to my chagrin my son decided to be a slug last summer.”
I sympathize with you.
My middle daughter was very talented as an athlete. She went to the state meet 11 times in three different sports and had two feature articles written about her in the Chicago Tribune sports section. She was an All-State diver but was also the fastest swimmer on her team, at least in the 50-free. She almost always won both the diving and the 50-free (when the coach asked her to swim it). As the parent of a swimmer, you know that is very unusual. Divers and swimmers are a different breed of athlete.
At her high school there is a board which lists the all-time top 10 highest diving scores as well as the top 10 fastest swimming times. She was just a couple hundreths of a second from having one of the top 10 50-free times even though she seldom swim trained once she got to high school. I told her that that would be unusual if she had both a top 10 diving and swimming score/time. By her senior year, however, she did not want to swim in meets anymore, just dive. I tried to coax her to just practice 10-15 minutes a day for a couple of weeks, get a top 10 50-free time and then she could call it quits if she wanted to. No dice.
Today she regrets it. She coaches diving at her high school and she told me she wishes she had put in that little extra effort so that, when her divers come to the pool, they would see her name on both top 10 lists. Kids!!