Easiest sports to get D1 scholarship offer

Teach your kid the decathlon. Not many people do it- especially in high school. Early experience means big points down the road and colleges know that. Trust me. Find a trainer nearby and get him personal lessons. Where are you from?

Women's golf

Racewalking.

I will assume you are talking about male scholarships. If the goal is just any amount of money, it would be the decathlon in track and field. This is because a lot of time you find an athlete that is a decent sprinter/jumper who wants to compete in college, so a coaching staff will tell them if they are willing to do the decathlon they could have a spot or a little money.

Next to that it would probably be lacrosse because it is a newer sport so the skill set has probably not developed completely, but although there are 12.6 scholarships, not as many schools have it as some other sports so it may even out with a sport like men's golf where there may not be many people on the team but almost all schools have a men's golf team. Wrestling may be a good shot too because a lot of schools do have wrestling, especially some smaller DII and DIII schools.

Track would be the cheapest because a lot of coaches just want to see a kid is fast and has decent ability in the other events, showing that they could be coached better. So more time can just be trained on speed work and strength training. If an athlete already has perfect technique from years with a private coach it may be a turn off because to college coaches because they may not see ways for them to improve quickly.

Cross-country/track & field – 12.6

Fencing – 4.5 for men

Golf – 4.5 for men

Ice hockey – 18

Lacrosse – 12.6 for men

Skiing – 6.3 for men

Soccer – 9.9 for men

Swimming and diving – 9.9 for men

Water polo – 4.5 for men

You can't just look at the number of slots. I mean track has a lot less scholarships than other sports. However, the competition is much weaker. All the best athletes will play team sports. Track is more of a back up sport. Its actually really easy to get money for track if you are somewhat gifted. Its almost a joke. Its more of a glorified glee club than it is a sport.

D-IAA Football by far the easiest. 65 scholarships go out to barely average athletes at each one of these schools every year.

rowing

thenegotiater wrote:

You can't just look at the number of slots. I mean track has a lot less scholarships than other sports. However, the competition is much weaker. All the best athletes will play team sports. Track is more of a back up sport. Its actually really easy to get money for track if you are somewhat gifted. Its almost a joke. Its more of a glorified glee club than it is a sport.

I understand that argument, but football seems to be given so much importance that the number of spots overcompensates for the greater depth in talent.

To me, I have a hard time believing that the athletic depth in football is 7x as great as the depth in all of track & cross country combined. I would guess basketball scholarships are extremely hard to get as there are only 13 scholarships and the difference in the basketball/football athlete pool is not that huge.

Second rowing. 20 full scholarships for each gender. It's a weakly competitive sport.

rowing ftw wrote:

Second rowing. 20 full scholarships for each gender. It's a weakly competitive sport.

My cousin got a full tuition scholarship for women's crew, and she isn't even athletic. Any reasonably fit middle school girl could start rowing and be scholarship worthy by the end of high school.

I would have them do both rowing (crew) and learn how to golf, especially if they are a girl...

I think many posts are relevant here. It's really asking for a "joint hypothesis" in that some sports are harder to be in the D1 top tier, some sports bring in more money and are therefore retained and some have fewer/more scholarships. In a free market, it should be equivalently hard (I guess gender specific) given the costs/benefits.

Since the OP asked more specifically about training at a young age, I think the OP identified certain points that make sense. Of the three items listed above (and I admit there may be more), what advantages can you exploit for a son? Maybe it's the "richer" or more obscure sports. Maybe not.

What seems to matter most is what your son will like to do enough to achieve. Expose him to as many sports as possible. I know that in many schools, if you're the top Tae Kwon Do athlete, there may not be a D1 program, but the school will still give you a scholarship (like the top chess player, violinist or debate person). If you meant a scholarship at a D1 school for a D1 sport, then this is irrelevant.

Interesting question!

Not tennis. Tons of foreigners, very little spots, and tons of committed people. Everybody starts there kid at four years old and you most likely have to know something about tennis.

There are two entirely separate questions here: 1) What sports are statistically less competitive when it comes to scholarship offers? 2) What sport should a kid be put in at age 5?

1) Some sports are bound to be less competitive then others. Still, most of it is going to matter on the kid. For instance, if you've got a 17 year old kid who's topped out at 5'9", no degree of crew experience is going to help him land a scholarship. Got a kid who's 7'2"? No problem, he'll get b-ball scholarship looks with virtually no experience.

2) I believe that soccer and gymnastics are the best sports for 5 year olds -- really no matter what their (or their parents') future plans are. These are fun, but physically challenging, sports that develop a great athletic foundation. As the kid gets older, they can transition into other sports, but I think they will be more successful in these new sports coming from a soccer / gymnastics background.

rowing at a Power 5 conference. very, very few high school rowing programs, and LOTS of scholarship money to go around at the college level to attempt to offset football.

at some schools they are taking kids out of the cafeteria during orientation and asking them to row, no experience necessary.

For guys: football

For girls: rowing, golf, maybe rifle

This is a cool site

http://www.scholarshipstats.com/

If it's about the money, just forget sports and focus on academics. The amount of money given out in academic scholarships is orders of magnitude more than athletic scholarships and you have much more choice.

If it's not about money, yes golf or other white people sports are your best odds, but you're probably shelling out more for youth programs than the scholarship will pay later.

The answer is football. 85 scholarships. They have so many that some of the kids get schollies and don't even play for four years.

On the other hand, track is probably the hardest as there is lots of participation in H.S. but very limited number of college scholarships.