Last month I wrote three college blog posts about the hazards of chasing sports scholarships. I promise I’m not going to rehash that, but I did want to share a post that I wrote for CBSMoneyWatch on how teenagers can increase your chances of a sports scholarship.
At a college admission conference that I attended last week in San Francisco, I talked to a former women’s soccer coach at Tulane and Georgetown about what it takes to win an athletic scholarship.
You can read the soccer coach’s six tips here:
6 Ways to Win an Athletic Scholarship
For those who missed my post about athletic scholarships last month, I’m reposting them below. Before I do, I want to share with you a real example of unrealistic expectations by parents, who believe their kids are going to get scholarships.
When I was writing this post today, I was talking to my sister Jane and she said she thought her daughter Kate has as good chance of winning an athletic scholarship. When I heard this, I was stunned. Kate is a third grader and she recently got on a U-9 club soccer team.
I told Jane that the best way for Kate to win money for college is simply to be the best student she can. While more than 270,000 girls play soccer in high school, only 9,3010 win a soccer scholarship. And the average soccer scholarship is only worth $8,404.
Soccer isn’t going to pay Kate’s tuition bills.
What You Don’t Know About Athletic Scholarships
The Hazards of Chasing an Athletic Scholarship
Two Worst Places to Look for College Money
Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and a new eBook, Shrinking the Cost of College. She also blogs for CBSMoneyWatch. Follow her on Twitter.
Hi Lynn,
I am just replying to your blog about how to shrink the cost of college tuition and that your sister was already thinking about it for her third grader. I want parents to understand that the college athletic scholarship may be a choice for their student athletes, but first and foremost, the kid has to like what they are doing, because, if not, the “work” of a college athlete is just that work, lots of it. A student athlete has to have a passion for their sport. The second and perhaps the most important thing is that academics are what counts. Most college athletes do not go on to the pros. The college athletic scholarship should be viewed as an avenue for earning a college education, not to supplant it. Just my two cents.
Al Musante
Keep Playing! Athletics