Hit the books!

Zeke
I'm going to add another perspective to your statment. My son and I did not realize what it cost to attend private schools until mid way his jr year. We were shocked with what we saw, 32,000 - 27,500 - 25,500 etc. While these were the only schools interested in him for his baseball skills we realized we would not be able to afford the tution unless he improved his grades (2.88 end of his JR year). Well parents and players don't let that word senioritice or what ever its called (lazyness) stop you from your dream. Well he went to work on improving his grades and his GPA for his senior yr end up at 3.65 which gave him a total GPA of 3.07. He also took his SAT 4 times and improved each time. The college loved that work ethic. The academic money they gave him, well long story short he now attends that 32,000 a yr institute and I'm paying about the same cost if we had sent him to a state university. So it doesn't have to be in that 3.8 to 4.0 to recieive free money you just need to show some williness to work hard and show success and the institutions will work with you.

Go Hampden-Sydney Tigers

Zeke good luck to Steve, and fcvdad Coach Kinnie is tops in my book.

CV

More responses, please. I'm printing this off for our son to read. Sometimes (most times) there is more impact coming from someone else.

Thank you

Or-ee-gun,

Well, it's been said many times before on this site from others besides myself, but...

Almost without fail, the first thing a coach asked my son after watching him play was "What's your GPA, ACT, SAT?" I imagine a couple reasons were they were questioning if the kid could qualify for their school, but IMO were trying to figure out if they were going to have someone who might not go to class or for whatever reason be ineligible academically. If two kids are fairly comparable playing wise, they will usually take the one with the better grades. This is NOT A BLANKET STATEMENT, but it CAN also show a good work ethic to the coach.

JMHO.

fcvdad is absolutely correct. Most D3's in PA are private schools [staties are D2], most in the $30K plus range. My daughter is getting almost 50% b/c she got 1300/top 5% class rank; she's playing field hockey, but would have gotten the $$ even if she didn't. Almost all schools have discretionary funds: ***X SAT score + Y% class rank + $ZZZZ, most have a sliding scale too - you have to give them a reason to want to award that to you. The better you do, the easier it is for them to justify giving you any of the discretionary schollys they have lying around - Boy Scout/Eagle scout?? Probably have a 2K leadership scholly. Maybe one specific to your religion/Knights of Columbus/ legacy/ethnic bkgrd..the best part about those moneys [besides being free of course] is they don't go away. Coach takes your baseball scholly away?? Happens. They can't take away your Vito Corleone scholly b/c you didn't all the sudden stop being Italian. Check out ALL the schollys the school has to offer - the more free money you get, the more attaractive you are to the coach, too.

To son of Or-ee-gun
This is very important.

Don't worry about your BA,ERA,velociity, yard time, etc. only things you have to really worry about is GPA,SAT,ACT.
My son had the same experience as Frank's, first question out of the coach's mouth after watching him play was about his GPA.

Tiger Paw Mom,
Thank you for personalizing your response.

FAct:

My son was not a great student and lost a number of situations because of it--fortunately he was able to find a place where it worked and he played Division I ball and got his degeree with a better college GPA than he had in HS

HS PLAYERS ---make sure the grades are there ---each year it becomes more important--baseball players are not football/basketball players and do not get the same "breaks" getting into college-- you need the grades

Or-ee-gun wrote:

" More responses, please. I'm printing this off for our son to read. Sometimes (most times) there is more impact coming from someone else."


Here's one for your son...

My LHP got a ton of top D1 interest between his junior and senior year. Offers to come visit some very impressive D1 schools. They couldn't stop calling the house...until we offered to send them a copy of his transcript. Even then one school made a great offer and was willing to risk that he would be eligible by the end of his senior year. He turned it down. And he wasn't eligible.

Here's why...

He did not do what he should have done his 1st three years of high school. Trying to make it all up in one year was impossible. Accepting an offer like that on the chance that he would make it wasn't fair to him or the school. He had already blown his chance to go straight to a D1 right away before he ever got out of high school. He understands this..now. Fortunately he is playing his first year of college ball in a very good JUCO program. The baseball is very good, but the best part is his grades are very good. Please, don't misunderstand me. I'm not knocking JUCO's. There is some great talent there. But what he did was limit his opportunities. He's a bright kid, but he let himself get caught up in the "just get by and it will be okay" syndrome. It isn't okay.

Keep telling your son how important those gades are. Baseball could end for any player tomorrow. An education is for a life time.

Good luck!

When my son was being recruited, the grades and SAT/ACT scores were asked by everyone who called, without exception.
With so few athletic scholarships to give out, they always started with the academic $ and tried to close the gap with the athletic.
Same thing is happening now with my daughter. If you keep yourself healthy academically, a lot less comes out of pocket!
Also, coaches always remarked that they liked to give athletic $ to kids they felt would keep their end of the bargain in the academic side of it all.

Agree with fc v dad...you can still work hard as an upper classman....and make a favorable impression...but for young players reading this thread now.......it's great to come off your freshman year with a good GPA...it helps a lot. Work in a high school doing transcripts...and think entering freshmen forget that unlike middle school, your high school GPA sticks with you.....

Son's experience with his high GPA and SAT's...the academic/merit money being offered by schools far out weighs any athletic money......also son has a lot more "academic" school coaches looking at him...they are more confident that he can make the grades, get the merit money, and play ball too....he now has several choices.....and....if the stats are to be believed....only 5% of high school players go on to the next level......you need to have as much going for you as possible.

We lucked out several years back....son had a private instructor who worked at the college level and eventually went on to coach at the professional level. He stressed from the beginning the importance of academics...would call when report cards came out and ask son for his grades....he just kept reiterating over and over that there was little baseball scholarship money to go around....and son had to work as hard at his grades as he did at his baseball......in retrospect....we think Coach knew that we did not have a pitcher.....but....whatever the reason....we are grateful for his emphasis on grades. Or-ee-gun put it well.....it seems to always sounds better to them.... when someone else is saying it.......

Or-ee-gun,
No problem, I felt that addressing "son of or-ee-gun" was better than "son of a gun".

I read recently, (I think it was Baseball America) it was proposed that colleges will start losing scholarship money if they don't maintain a certain graduation rate.

This may or may not go into effect, but, you have to know, that academics are going to place an increasing role in sports programs and how attractive you will look to college coaches.

Savannah

I do not see that happening--they have no "pure" was of calculating graduation rates

All though I had received several all area awards during my senior year, I just couldn't generate much interest from colleges. I could go JUCO and for baseball purposes, that might have been the best route. However, I was concerned with getting a college education and knew my athletic ability was limited. I went to a Division II school to play because I COULD GET AN ACADEMIC RIDE! Through various grants, I didn’t have to pay anything to attend. I remember the coach commenting that because of my academics, he could get two players for the price of one. HIT THE BOOKS!