quote:
Originally posted by Midlo Dad:
Second point in response to the above:
The practice of budgeting your scholarships by shares of 11.7 only works at private universities, where the average cost of attendance is the cost of attendance each player faces.
At state universities, the availability of in-state tuition breaks skews things. Here in VA, for example, let's say UVA costs $16,000/year in state, $28,000 out of state, with 60% of students being in state. The average cost of attendance is therefore $20,800. That makes UVA's baseball scholarship limit 11.7 x $20,800 = $243,360.
If UVA then offers an in-state guy 50%, that costs the program $8,000. But with the $243,360 budget, you could get over 30 guys on half rides if they were all in-state players. Thus, if UVA focuses its recruiting in state, it can get over 15 scholarships' worth out of its supposed 11.7 cap. Every time they sign an out-of-state player, though, that player is proportionately more expensive to the program.
So if your son were offered 45% as an in-state student, that would still be a strong offer, but not necessarily one of the strongest offers on the team. There could be quite a few 70% guys on the roster in that scenario (though most of them would likely be pitchers, not his competition for playing time). On the other hand, if the 45% is to your son as an out-of-state student, that would indicate to me that, in their minds, they are making a very strong commitment to him, which is a good thing to know.
If you were in TX, FL or GA where there are state programs that allow good students to attend state U's with all tuition and fees paid, then you might have several guys given 40-45% baseball money who were attending school for free. That leaves a lot of the baseball budget available to be spread around pretty liberally to the other guys the coaches want. There's a lot of roster depth at U. of FL, U. of TX, UGA, Ga. Tech, etc., that other schools have trouble matching. On the flip side, there are guys riding the bench at those schools who maybe could've been starters at other places.
I will never understand why the NCAA allows state U's to have this advantage in sports (not just baseball), but it does. For you, though, this is just food for thought, something else to know in trying to decipher how your son stacks up in the eyes of the coaches at this particular school that made the offer.
I don't believe that ALL State schools figure it that way, do they?
Is it based on the "average cost" figured by the percentage of out-state students at the school?
Anyone know for sure?
The private schools do typically have more latitude with academic $$ because their scholarships are not always based on State standards. My older son, who did not play in college, could have gotten much more academic $$ at some private schools, but he chose a larger state school.
It became especially difficult after changes began to take place, new bosses with different views from the last one. Or in a few cases, supervisors who most likely shouldn't be in that position. The one saving grace for most of us is that we loved each other as coworkers.