NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

 Today the U.S. Consumer Sentiment index remained near a 28 year low.  As recently as 6 months ago, families planned on paying for college by using their home equity or borrowing against their 401K.  Unfortunately, in many parts of the country that equity has disappeared and, due to the recent stock market gyrations, they have watched the value of their 401K erode significantly.  Even if families think they can take out a student loan, that’s not very prudent as pointed out in a recent article.  It tells the frightening tale of a young man who graduated so deep in debt for his college education that he’s afraid to return to the United States.   The key paragraph in the article: “These are people new to borrowing and they didn’t understand what they were getting into,” says Mark Kantrowitz of Finaid.org, an online student loan information Web site. “It’s a very sorry situation that it comes to students feeling they have no option than to leave the country,” he says. “It’s a sign the system is broken.”

In this economic environment, families are asking how they can maximize the scholarship dollars their youngster receives.   If their youngster is a good student and varsity-level athlete by junior year, then the solution to this economic crunch is to understand how to play the college recruiting game.   What could be better than applying knowledge and effort to get a good portion of college paid for by playing your favorite sport?  Now that’s a win-win. 

Whether you’re a student or a parent reading this, you will have to invest either time, money, or both to make playing college sports and receiving funding for your education happen.  I’ve spoken with over 4,000 families about this subject.  All but 10 have freely admitted that this is a confusing, overwhelming, mysterious process.  Expert guidance is the only way to maximize recruiting potential, receiving the most scholarship dollars

In an article about college recruiting and receiving athletic scholarships, I was struck by the following information from the dad of a highly recruited D1- A football player who had visited 21 colleges in 24 days.   The article states: “His father estimates the trips have cost $5,000….” Think about that, this kid’s parents care enough about him that they want him to find the perfect college fit.  That $5,000 doesn’t even include any other recruiting expenses such as SAT test preparation, putting videos together and mailing them, long distance phone calls to set up unofficial visits, personal training expenses, camps and combines attended, medical bills incurred, etc. Is it worth it? Considering there can be scholarships that total well over $200,000 on the line, an investment ranging from $5,000 to $30,000 to prepare a student-athlete to be recruited seems worth it. But what if a parent invests all of that money and they don’t know how to play the Recruiting Game?

Every day, I speak with families who want to do the best for their kids. They’ve been playing club sports since they were 8. When you add their investment in club, travel, training, etc., the total is in the tens of thousands of dollars. Then I ask them what has been happening with college recruiting and there is nothing, zippo, nada. I’m amazed! They don’t know the first thing about playing the recruiting game. Most are hoping all of their student-athlete’s efforts will get them “discovered”. While that happens to “blue-chip” athletes, only about 2% of the student athletes recruited by colleges are in that category. Some parents think they can do it themselves. But what they didn’t bargain on is that it becomes a part-time job. As a parent who has been through this and been close to many others who have, plan on spending a minimum of 500 hours in effort to do it right.  How much is your time worth?

In order for a serious student-athlete to achieve their dream of playing their sport in college, it will require a significant investment in time and money. Can parents do it themselves and be successful? That’s up to you to decide. But if your student athlete is in their sophomore year in high school and they haven’t received any contacts from college coaches, they are well behind their competition and need to catch up in a hurry. Understand getting contacts is only 10% of the game. The other 90% of the game is turning those contacts into relationships with college coaches that eventually lead to scholarship offers. Out of more than 4,000 families I’ve spoken to in detail about this subject, less than 10 have a clue about executing that last 90%. Is that knowledge worth having?  Common sense would answer, yes.   Do you need to pay for it? Yes, you will pay for it one way or the other. You’ll pay by hiring an expert or you’ll pay with missed opportunities of not knowing what to do. You could pay with your student-athlete not playing at all.  Or, you could be in the situation that I’ve heard about 2 times in the last month.  These parents are paying for their kid to attend college and their kid is playing a sport.  One even earned a starting position as a freshman.  However, mom and dad are paying up to $28,000 per year for their kid to attend college.  Why?  They didn’t know how to play the recruiting game in order to maximize their scholarships.  If you’d like to find out how increase your scholarship dollars, contact us here.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 1:44 pm and is filed under Athletic Scholarships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.