Athletic and Academic money

Tough question .... The college my son committed to last year also separated the Honors awards from anything else and that award wasn't made until the spring.

After some soul searching and looking at his academic qualifications and experience, we decided that we thought that he would get further academic money, so we signed the NLI on faith. Luckily, he did qualify (which helps mom's and dad's pocketbook quite a bit)...

With the stress of the institution you are talking to based on academics, regardless of whether the coaches have been there 10 months or 10 years, they may not have any leverage anymore.

Remember: Due to NCAA regulations, in D1 ball, you have to meet one of the following 3 criteria in order for academic money not to be considered an athletic award:
1. SAT score of 1200
2. Un-weighted GPA of 3.5 in core courses
3. Graduate in top 10% of class.

Our experience was as follows:

The coaches knew, based on my son's grades and SAT score where he would fall on the academic money side. At one school, he told us he would push for a full academic scholarship(academic money applies only for tuition and not room and board). However, he told us that a full tuition scholarship was rarely awarded. He told us to expect a 65% tuition scholarship and that's what he got. There was no athletic money because it was a D3 school.
The D1's that were recruiting him did the same thing and then came in with athletic money. All the offers were about the same(50% of total costs). My son chose to play D3 because of the academics and because he knew he would play right away.
It helps to apply early action that way you know by Dec. if he's in and by Jan. how much academic money he's getting. It's tough when you have a new coach and he doesn't have connections with the scholarship committee. Normally they are able to tell you right away what you can expect from both sides, even before you apply.
I hope this helps. Good luck.