@atlnon posted:To answer the original question, my son was just offered by a D1 mid major last Fri. Unfortunately, they don't stack athletic and academic (is this very common?). The amount he will get from either is similar so we chose academic as he has opportunity of getting more in academic money come Feb/Mar. Coach also said that it's possible (although rare) to get athletic money after year 1 and that can stack on top of academic he already has, but the other way is not possible.
I tried to do my research but not sure if I know enough to do a thorough research. They took 10 HS players in 2021, 5 in 2022, and 9 in 2023 (as of today). Coach said they do take in Juco players but don't really play in the transfer portal. Since my son will not be taking athletic scholarship, my understanding is he will not need to sign an NLI, correct? We asked the coach if going with academic scholarship means he is treated as a preferred walk on with no assurance of a roster spot compared to someone going with athletic scholarship. Coach said they still will have an agreement that the school and my son will sign that commits my son to the school and commits a roster spot to my son. Hope this all makes sense. Is there anything I need to be careful of or look out for?
I think that I can add some insight to the Stacking academic scholarship question and why it is different from school to school.
Each school is different depending upon how they handle academic scholarships. In years past no one could stack scholarships because almost all academic institutions had scholarship boards/committees that awarded academic scholarships to students based upon their application. It was a subjective process. The NCAA doesn't allow stacking of academic scholarships under such a subjective process for fear that academic scholarships are being used to circumvent the NCAA scholarship rules. Many of the institutions have started to move away from that in large part because of accusations of unfair scholarship awarding practices. They have instead instituted sliding scales that predetermine the award based upon set parameters. In instances such as this then the NCAA allows academic scholarships to be awarded to athletes and not count against the scholarship limitations.
So for example if your son is going to school A, that doesn't use a predetermined sliding scale, then the academic scholarship can't be stacked. If he were to go to school B, where every incoming freshman academic awards are predetermine based upon the merit sliding scale (ie.. a 4.0 GPA and 27 ACT equals $10,000 academic award for all students that meet that criteria) then you can stack the $10,000 on top of the Athletic scholarship as long as you have those GPA/ACT numbers. Also, some states have land grant scholarships for their citizens also. Those can be stacked as well if you are a citizen of that state and go to a state institution that qualifies for those awards.
As far as not being able to stack as a Freshman, but can stack as a Sophomore and beyond. That is typically true if the institution has predetermined scholarships available for current students. For example.... You son attends School A as a freshman and finishes his first year with a 3.5 GPA. School A happens to have a "Retention Scholarship" for all Sophomore students who completed a Freshman year with that GPA. If this is the case then the academic scholarship can be stacked with the athletic scholarship in subsequent years.
I hope that I explained that well.