Reply to Hating donut hole life: athletic recruiting version

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ugh I hate not being rich right now. DC has athletic recruiting offers to some top SLAC schools, but they don't do athletic or merit scholarships. I ran the NPCs and we get zero financial aid at all of them, but they're just too expensive for us to pay full price.

[b]Now DC has to either 1) go to lower ranked schools offering athletic/merit scholarships or 2) forego athletic recruitment and just apply EA to state schools or shot gun in regular decision in hopes of merit. [/b]

Tonight I have to tell DC that they can't go to either of the SLAC's that they really want and have offers to. And we're not prepared with essays because we spent oodles of time on recruiting on top of an intensive year round sports schedule.

I hope this serves as a cautionary tale for donut hole parents of younger athletic recruits. Don't waste your time on recruiting unless you can either pay full price, your kid is good enough to get a hefty scholarship at one of the few good schools that offers athletic scholarships *and wants to go to these larger schools*, or you qualify for significant FA.[/quote]

[b]The harsh reality is that these are your DS's choices whether he plays sports or not. You can't afford the top privates, regardless.[/b]

My DCs were not college-caliber athletes, but given our financial situation their choices for college were private schools that offer merit aid (that is, not the tops ones), lower ranked publics that had reasonable tuition for OOS students (or offered merit to OOS students), and in-state publics. These will also be your DS's choices. Honestly, it's fine. The only problem is that your son had hopes up for something different. My kids did not, because we informed them from the outset that there was no point in even thinking about certain schools.

Note that your DS can get a fine education at a school that offers merit/athletic scholarships, just like my DCs did. (I had one go to an SLAC offering merit and another go to our in-state flagship. Both had good experiences--learned tons and made good friends--and now have good jobs.)[/quote]

DP. This gets to the heart of the matter. Whether it is sports, other ECs, starting charities, doing 1000s of hours of community service, none of it will matter when they give you an edge getting in but the school is just too expensive.

And that is why we hear stories now about kids who are burned about from doing all the things, only to end up where they could have without all of that.

There can be other benefits to doing those things. I’m the PP who said swimming has done a world of good for my DC, even if he does not end up swimming in college.

All of these ECs only help when you are very well funded full pay and aiming for very top schools. [/quote]

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