Scholarship Offer for High School Girls In Top 50 Nationally (All Grades)

Bumping this old thread in hope that OP can update us as to what actually happened.

- range of offers?

- post process advice

- when did the schools make their offers? Pre- visit, post visit?

- did they provide an estimate - range prior to official visit?

Hope your daughter is healthy and excelling.

Any others that have insight to share on this process would be appreciated.

Thanks

Not OP (original poster) but similar situation. Daughter is smidge faster than OP's daughter, but not a lot.

She made list of schools she liked, based on team accomplishments (XC and Track), individual accomplishments in her events, academic strength of schools, and geography. Reached out to coaches Jr. year via email. Regular dialogue with several coaches during Jr year via email.

In-home visits this summer from a few coaches. During these visits some made scholarship offers (specific amounts), some didn't. Offers were acceptable $$ (more than 50 percent).

Taking a few visits this fall. Looking for good team mojo, campus vibe. Plans to wait until spring signing to choose.

Let's just consider for a moment the notion, probably true, that offer is proportional to immediate contribution and that there is an extremely high washout rate. In most cases, freshmen distance runners will not score much. The longer they stay, the better the chance that they will score, if they stay healthy and stay in the program. My guess is that, just as with pitchers in the minors and majors, keeping the athletes fit and healthy would produce enormous gains in scholarship efficiency.

Not Op. Thanks for the response. Are the offers typically off total cost or just tuition? Good to know that some offers came before official visit. Good luck.

Offers were off total cost.

Did the conversations about scholarship amounts take place between the coach and your daughter or were you also involved? May not be appropriate in your particular case, however, did you negotiate for more on behalf of your daughter? Trying to gain a better understanding of the process. Thanks.

The process is what you want it to be. It is your daughter. Ask all of the questions whenever you want to ask them.

If money is an issue, make sure that is known early, and don't take any visits until you have offers.

No need to use one of your 5 official vists on a place you fall in love with only to find out you can't actually afford it.

If money is no factor, then roll the dice.

you as the parent are in control, no one can pressure you into doing something you don't want to do. it isn't a game you are trying to figure out. It is a real life matter. Ask all the questions you want to ask. If a university/coach balks at answering, then judge them for that.

I would make academic fit paramount, above all else.

This is so even if an athletic scholarship makes a certain school seem attractive.

There is very little future in running, and unlike when I attended school on a Division 1 track scholarship, a student has to think about career and internships from a much younger age. Yes, it sounds like a grind, but the environment is so much different than in the 70's and 80's.

One really has to think about what will happen if running is eclipsed, for whatever reason.

Alsoran1 wrote:

Bumping this old thread in hope that OP can update us as to what actually happened.

- range of offers?

- post process advice

- when did the schools make their offers? Pre- visit, post visit?

- did they provide an estimate - range prior to official visit?

Hope your daughter is healthy and excelling.

Any others that have insight to share on this process would be appreciated.

Thanks

My daughter could most likely have received a full offer from several coaches she communicated with her senior year but she went her first choice before the others made an offer. The coaches at the school she chose were probably concerned about how her official visit went at another in conference school so they met with us in our home and made an offer shortly after her official visit at the other school and before the other coach made an offer. I knew it was a good offer from this team and every other aspect of the school, team, coaching was good we agreed so I discussed it with my daughter and she decided to commit during the home visit before any other offer came in. I think she would have been happy at the other two schools she was still considering and if the offer had been significantly lower I think she would have waited to receive the other offers before choosing. Scholarship amount was not the only criteria and I am not confident any of the last three schools would have offered a full scholarship as they also have track programs are competitive in their conferences. You know there are some teams that put most or all their scholarship money into their distance programs and little if any in other track events.

I think most coaches make offers after official visits after the coaches have time to discuss with each other their evaluation. The official visit is an opportunity for coaches and the current athletes to get to know and evaluate recruits. Someone else posted that the offer may be presented a week or two after the official visit. They also ask for input from their current athletes and in particular the athletes that host the recruit during the official visit.

A few coaches may have said something to my daughter during the recruiting process about a full offer but until one sees the official offer on paper one really does not know that it will be offered or if it covers all 4 years.

I heard that Stanford offered one runner who say was in the top 20 of national high school distance runners a smaller scholarship percentage the first year and 25% more each year. It started at either 25 or 50% the first year. So the scholarship percentage may be guaranteed the same for each of 4 years or it may be guaranteed to go up. My daughter was offered the same fixed percentage amount for each of 4 years. I have heard that this team has increased the scholarship percentage of athletes as their contributions have increased which I assume others teams do also. I heard this from another parent of an athlete and from the coaches.

I did learn that looking for freshmen race records is difficult since most run unattached their freshmen year and when they do compete it is often at smaller in-state competitions that are not on the team's official schedule because the travel team does not compete at the small in-state meets.

It seems that at many schools the largest percentage of runners drop off the team after their freshmen year. Most of these are probably walk-ons.

I have learned how common injuries are on any high school or college team including my daughter's. My daughter did not compete until late in the spring due to injury. Another runner had a great XC season but was out with injury during indoor and outdoor track. Several others were injured at some point. I have followed the race results and social media postings of the top high school girls that my daughter competed with and know that many of them have had serious injuries in their first two years of collegiate running. Several that are still in high school have had very serious injuries. If you do not see an athlete competing at any events during a season then it may be safe to assume they were injured and not yet ready to compete after recovering from injury.

Many talk about scoring at conference meets as a criteria for obtaining a scholarship. There are several former top state distance runners that I know who scored no points their freshman year in XC and none at conference track meets through their sophomore year. I am sure the coaches hoped that these partial scholarship athletes would have contribute more by their 2nd year it does not always happen.

My daughter has been running healthy all spring and summer so she is getting in the training she needs. With her injuries her junior and senior year of high school and her injury this past fall I have learned that one should appreciate and celebrate whatever successes comes to the fullest and one needs to learn patience through the struggles. I am happy to see my daughter go out for a run each day this summer and glad that she appears to still enjoy running and enjoyed most aspects of her first year of college. I am sure my daughter can contribute to the team sooner or later and that if her team can stay healthy they can do well at the NCAA XC Champion this fall.

sweetie, honey, sugar. you are one serious helicopter momma. stay as far away as possible from your daughter recruiting cuz you are going to seriously mess it up. Coaches look for strong, smart independent ladies and steer clear of psycho mamas.

Alsoran1 wrote:

Did the conversations about scholarship amounts take place between the coach and your daughter or were you also involved? May not be appropriate in your particular case, however, did you negotiate for more on behalf of your daughter? Trying to gain a better understanding of the process. Thanks.

Some coaches discussed potential offers with my daughter early in the recruiting process during telephone conversations. I only spoke once to a coach on the phone and that was when a coach had a financial question for me as a parent that my daughter could not possibly answer. I think these coaches that discussed potential offer on the telephone knew it would be harder for their team to recruit an athlete at my daughter’s level so they showed their cards early while others chose to not discuss any details of a potential offer until after an official visit. The only time I conversed with coaches at any length was during unofficial visits, official visits, and home visit. I helped my daughter get started in making a list of coaches to contact based on academic program and competitiveness of the team because she asked for help. I suggested what criteria she may want to consider initially to get started with a list of team to reach out to and she did all the research and determined for herself the criteria she used to narrow down the list of schools. Once she got started she did all the communicating with coaches as athletes should. The only other time I said anything to coaches would have been hello if I happened to pass them at a competition.

I am not sure how much one may negotiate. If the athlete goes on official visits at comparable schools then the coaches may feel the offer needs to be more competitive. If the schools are in the same conference and just as competitive then that can help. If a higher offer came in and one chose to divulge the amount then that could help but be prepared to also have the coach not attempt to match the offer. I think some coaches may be willing to offer more under certain circumstances or they may chose to present their best off as their first. I only advised my daughter to not accept the first offer immediately unless she was sure she wanted to go to that school and thought highly of the team and coaches. I suggested that she need not accept the offer immediately especially if we thought it was significantly lower than what we expected. I would hope coaches would be willing to give the athlete at least overnight to consider an official offer or give the athlete time to receive offers from other teams as long as the official visits occurred close together. I would suggest trying to limit official visits to fewer than 5 schools. One could go on two or three official visits relatively close together. If these did not work out for some reason then the athlete could pursue a few more schools that were initially lower on their list or reach out to new teams. I would be surprised if any coaches did not discuss the offers with parents as most parents are not familiar with details of offers and athletes are signing a binding agreement. I would hope that coaches discuss such agreements with the parents especially if the athlete is under 18 years of age and the parents will be helping with some of the financial costs.

Scholarship_Question wrote:

Alsoran1 wrote:

Bumping this old thread in hope that OP can update us as to what actually happened.

- range of offers?

- post process advice

- when did the schools make their offers? Pre- visit, post visit?

- did they provide an estimate - range prior to official visit?

Hope your daughter is healthy and excelling.

Any others that have insight to share on this process would be appreciated.

Thanks

I have followed the race results and social media postings of the top high school girls that my daughter competed with and know that many of them have had serious injuries in their first two years of collegiate running.

Yikes! You sound like a cyber stalker! 👀

You need to do a little more research. Of the schools on your list MI, Providence, CO and Stanford are the only schools I would send my daughter to. I wouldn't count on full. New Mexico had a great recruiting yr and is heavy in distance right now.

Academically there is a huge difference between some of these schools so academics can't be all your considering. WV, NMex, Iowa? Unless your instate your wasting your time.

For the person who says his daughter is slightly faster and is waiting until spring to sign. Good luck with that. Kids who sign in the spring are doing so because they weren't offered $ and are hoping to prove themselves indoors. The best teams sign their blue chips Nov-Jan. There may be $ left but be sure they won't hold a scholarship for your daughter to wait and see if her #1 comes through.

Don't go to a school where you'll be top 3 as a freshman. Why?

I am interested in your don't wait until Spring comment. Yes there is an early signing in November but doesn't more money shake loose if you wait. It seems like all the top distance schools are going after the same girls. Once they are off the market, scholarships can be more generous. For example last year Notre Dame signed no one in November. Guessing all their top choices went elsewhere, so all there money was available come spring and they signed 7.

OP, the reason you have so many questions, and so many guesses, is because you haven't spoken to coaches during the recruiting process. You CLEARLY want to be involved and clearly have many questions. You should really be asking yourself, "why are theses coaches ONLY talking to my 18 year old daughter about such a big decision that I will certainly have a say in."

All the questions you are asking on here are EXACTLY the questions you should be asking the coaches that are recruiting your daughter.

All this guessing, hoping, ifs and "not sure." You should be TOTALLY SURE.

If finances are a major concern, that should be stated BY YOU, UP FRONT.

As I said before, how on earth are you going to take an official visit without knowing what the offer is, when you state that the offer is so important.

Your posts portray a well meaning father who is allowing the schools to control the process. Why would you allow that?

Maybe it's just me and my mentality, by why on earth would anyone pay any out of pocket expenses to attend college if you are a talented student-athlete? There is so much money out there and so many great programs.

Here are 100% full athletic cross country and track and field scholarships that we gave out the last couple of years, mid-major Division I, but honestly a bottom tier program for several reasons, but a good school -

Boy- 9:37, 15:17 // State Runner Up in 3200m, Top 10 last 2 years in XC

Boy- 4:24, 9:52, 15:34 // Top 10 State.. looks slow but severely undertrained, his older brother was AA level runner so rolling the dice

Girl- 5:12, 11:12 // Two time Top 10 XC and 3200m, 4 x 800m

Girl- 5:16, 12:18 // Totally undertrained. She will be NCAA regional Top 25 in a couple of years, rolling the dice

Girl- 5:12, 11:04 // State Champion XC

Boy- 1:55, 4:23 // Great athlete, good mid-d potential

I currently coach at the Division 1 level and have signed two girls these last two years who qualify for that list. One has ran under 4:50 and the other is in your 3200m/XC grouping incoming this year.

The sub 4:50 girl we are paying for all of her tuition, her books, a meal plan (not unlimited but close) and about 50% of her housing. She gets a large financial aid package and if we give her too much athletic scholarship she won't actually get the most amount of money possible because financial aid will deem her not in need of it.

The 3200/XC girl does not get as much financial aid. In that case, we are giving her full tuition, books, the same meal plan as the previous girls, and paying for about 80% of her housing. The financial aid covers the rest.

Both these girls are immediate impact for us, as we are a bubble NCAA team but I could see them getting less scholarship at an absolute power house school. They would probably get similar offers at many schools who have the money like us (we are fully funded) and who value this type of athlete.

Hardly any coach would offer a "full ride" and they are right in doing so. We could have threw all of our money at them but we let them work with financial aid to still maximize their total financial package while minimizing our losses in way of scholarship budget. The savings I got allow me to go after a 10:45-10:50 type development girl to fill in the gaps and still offer some money to secure them.

I would say your daughter can look to be getting similar financial packages. If you are going to be hard pressed to acquire financial aid, then you can expect most schools that aren't absolute powerhouses to fill in that gap. The top schools will attempt to get her for as little as possible to save money for fighting it out with other schools in bidding wars.

The stories you hear of super fast runners not getting appropriate scholarships usually happen for guys, as there is not as much money floating around. Even mid-major schools with limited budgets will usually have much greater budgets for women than men. That is why you see things like indoor for women's teams but not for men's teams at some schools. Just the way it is.

Loads of schools will make an offer, the big question is how much?

Thank you for the posting. Do note that my original posting was two years ago so the recruiting process was completed for my daughter over a year and a half ago. I never expected this thread would come back to life like this and surprised it has more views now than when I first posted. My daughter chose the schools to contact based on having the educational degree program she was interested in pursuing and also base on XC and track programs. I gave her my opinion at times but I don't think I could send her anywhere. She matured beyond that long ago. There were a few schools on my list that I do not think she was in contact with and a few additional one that she was in contact with. I want to protect her and my identity and privacy.

Here you say I am allowing the schools to control the process while someone else calls me a helicopter parent. At least you were gentler with you feedback. The main reason I am responding to this thread after the recruiting is long over for my daughter is so that hopefully other parents may receive some good information from various posters.

Some coaches will not give any offer information until after an official visit. They may even try to be the last official visit for the athlete. One very famous top high school track distance runner would not go on any official visit unless she was first offered a full ride. That did not go over too well with some coaches. At least one coach mentioned her by name to other potential recruits.

My daughter wanted to develop a relationship with the coaches herself during the recruiting process. I asked the coaches many questions at the appropriate time at unofficial visits and official visits. I asked some tough questions at times such as why they were interested in recruiting my daughter when I thought they had plenty of talent including 3 or 4 very good freshmen at the time. To be honest the answers I received from many of the coaches started to sound the same after a while. I typically knew how they would answer some questions. But there were a few coaches who were very honest and open. One said why he liked to have one or more foreign student athletes and why he preferred to keep the cross country team size down to no more than 15. We went on 6 or more unofficial visits so I asked many questions and spoke with many coaches during the unofficial and official visits.

The family finances are such that we are able to help out our daughter with whatever the partial scholarship does not cover. So the amount of the scholarship was more a concern that my daughter was offered a fair scholarship given her potential to help the team. But my savings are not such that I would have said that she had my full support to go anywhere regardless of cost.

Some students prefer to go to college in state. Several of my state's top high school distance runners transferred back in state within anywhere from one semester to two years. Some students are interested in the campus, academic offerings, academic ranking, athletic facilities, the team, and the coaches. Some of these were very important to my daughter while others were less so. Her coaches have a very good reputation and she has been happy there. She has done well academically so she has been happy with her choice. If finances allow the best place for a student athlete may not be the school that offers the most money.