Upper middle class family claiming “full ride (sports) scholarship” to small D3 private college?

[Anonymous]

I don’t know anything about division 3 schools and athletic recruiting. Is this possible?

They are on the lower end of upper middle class. No hooks. Their senior is a good not great athlete. And not an especially noteworthy student. She was not in the most advanced AP courses and her parents kept having her retake the ACT and SAT because her scores were so mediocre. Best ACT sitting was 26 and she was too embarrassed to reveal SAT scores.

[Anonymous]

Plenty of small, not prestigious, not selective D3 schools give everybody tons of merit aid.

D3 schools can't give sports scholarships, but I assume this family is betting that you don't know that so that is why they are bragging this way.

It is possible that they receive some extra merit aid compared to the next person for some leadership award or something like that which mysteriously always goes to athletes.

[Anonymous]

OP you sound jealous or like you want to unearth a lie. Why not swim your own lane and don't worry about these people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of small, not prestigious, not selective D3 schools give everybody tons of merit aid.

D3 schools can't give sports scholarships, but I assume this family is betting that you don't know that so that is why they are bragging this way.

It is possible that they receive some extra merit aid compared to the next person for some leadership award or something like that which mysteriously always goes to athletes.

If a coach gets the student merit aid it’s essentially a sports scholarship.

Sure they don’t call it that. Loophole.

[Anonymous]

What is the school? If they give a huge discount to pretty much everyone then this is nothing really special.

[Anonymous]

Is this for real? OP how do you know all this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know anything about division 3 schools and athletic recruiting. Is this possible?

They are on the lower end of upper middle class. No hooks. Their senior is a good not great athlete. And not an especially noteworthy student. She was not in the most advanced AP courses and her parents kept having her retake the ACT and SAT because her scores were so mediocre. Best ACT sitting was 26 and she was too embarrassed to reveal SAT scores.

You sound nosey and judgmental.

D3 schools don't give money for sports per se, but they can award athletes the Presidential Scholarship or the Excellence Grant or whatever it is that significantly discounts the sticker price. (If they cover all of tuition but not room & board, is that still a full ride? Maybe in this family's telling...) The academic or playing level of the student only matters in comparison to the student body -- if they are seen as a valuable addition *to that school,* the school will throw money their way. So if your kid is rocking a 3.6 and applying to a school where the average admit has a 3.3, those coaches and AOs will ask you to dance.

[Anonymous]

She is getting free education, congratulate them. Who cares if its need based aid or merit money or sports scholarship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this for real? OP how do you know all this?

+1, weird that OP would know details about this kid's grades, course selection, and test scores, but also be distant enough from the situation to be unsure about the details of the scholarship. Betting OP is a family member (likely aunt) and possible some/all of her details are wrong or exaggerated anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this for real? OP how do you know all this?

PS - 26 is perfectly acceptable ACT score for many colleges

[Anonymous]

They may look upper middle class but you don't know their financial situation, may have no savings and plenty of debt making them eligible for need based aid. Almost everyone calls need based aid a merit scholarship.

[Anonymous]

There is no such thing as a sports D3 scholarship but there are schools that give merit scholarships to athletes. Semantics. Sports parents are sensitive about this for some reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this for real? OP how do you know all this?

+1, weird that OP would know details about this kid's grades, course selection, and test scores, but also be distant enough from the situation to be unsure about the details of the scholarship. Betting OP is a family member (likely aunt) and possible some/all of her details are wrong or exaggerated anyway.

Bingo !

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of small, not prestigious, not selective D3 schools give everybody tons of merit aid.

D3 schools can't give sports scholarships, but I assume this family is betting that you don't know that so that is why they are bragging this way.

It is possible that they receive some extra merit aid compared to the next person for some leadership award or something like that which mysteriously always goes to athletes.

This. A school may give merit, perhaps it is for sports achievement, but it is not a sports scholarship. I worked in the business office for work-study @ a regionally prestigious D3 overall and nationally in certain fields for four years and saw every student's financials. A number of athletes had merit awards. Some were also outstanding students, others were meh.

Some folks just can't help themselves and need to gab about everything. Or they hear what they want to hear and "merit" becomes "sports scholarship" in their mind. They have a narrative and they shape everything to it.

Regarding the kid's athletic prowess, perhaps they are not an outstanding athlete, but they may be good enough and fill a now vacant role on the team. We have friends with a son who is a very talented soccer player. The deal is that there were not a ton of openings for his spot for this upcoming school year at the schools in the academic range where they were looking. And where there were openings, there were players with better grades, etc. competing with him. Their kid may have gotten lucky.

[Anonymous]

The kid probably worked hard for all of this. The only sane response should be Congrats to the kid. Geesh