Scholarship Levels?

Dad - It really is too broad of a question for someone to give you an honest answer IMO. The problem is because institutions all fund differently. Some may be fully funded with the full allotment of scholarships to give out and others may only fund two scholarships. Also, some other monies count towards the athletic scholarship at certain schools/certain divisions.

I think the best way to judge your son's scholarship is by what he's being offered at various schools comparing that against their cost and their individual funding.

For instance, if a school is fully funded and COA (cost of attendance) is $30,000 and they offer your son $15,000 total package to come there verses a school that only has three scholarships to offer, COA is $30,000 and they offer your son $10,000 to attend there. Would that mean he's less valuable to the school with the smaller offer.... maybe, but remember that would be 1/9 of their total monies!

Also, many private schools have their own "Financial Aid Estimator" where they mimic the FAFSA to help determine what aid you might be qualified for outside the institution as well and that helps them determine their offer. I know a player who is there for no baseball money, but has to only pay $3,000/year of total cost. He's a starting position player and plays much more than some kids there for some major baseball bucks.

I had the same question earlier this year and found that private vs public does not make much difference except that private schools cost more. It seems to break out as;
Pitchers command the most dollars.
Up the middle commands the next (Catcher, short, second and center)
then everyone else.
The exception of course is the guy batting 400+ or is a home run threat everytime he steps up to the plate.

The best advice I got was to look for a percentage offer so that as cost change over time you get the increase automatically. Next best advice was to look for the best FIT. We were looking for a good pitching coach and believe we ended up with more than we could have asked for!

First of all, if he goes Ivy he probably won't get anything athletic, as to my understanding they don't pay anything athletic. Maybe other financial aid, but not athletic scholarships.

But more to the point of your question: I don't think there is any standard. Each coaching staff has their own approach to how they allocate dollars. Making matters more confusing, the NCAA is imposing a floor of 1/3 aid for anyone getting baseball money starting with the 2008's. So you won't see kids getting 10% of 20% or "book money" any more. This may free up more money for the stud guys to fight over. I don't know for sure how it will shake out, but I can say that this is all in flux right now, so there are no solid guidelines anyone can give you for what you'll see.

You have to talk to the schools that interest you and see what they are offering. In the end, it doesn't matter what someone else might be getting. All that matters is what choices you have before you.

In answer to another point above: public university programs can do more for you than privates. That's because the dollars they have to spend are determined as 11.7 times the AVERAGE cost of attending. They can milk that to more than 11.7 scholarships if they focus on in-state prospects, who cost less than the average. If you're in GA, FL or TX, where there are "Hope Scholarships" and the like, it gets even more skewed. In turn, those schools can often offer the stud player a higher % because they have more left in their budget to spend.

At a private school, the AVERAGE cost of attending is the same as the cost you face, whether you're in-state or out-of-state. So if you take each player's fraction and sum them all up, you get no more than 11.7. Whereas with a public U., the fractional shares may well sum to more than 11.7.

But sometimes there are other considerations that make you choose the private U. anyway!

Midlo

Would you be good enough to explain how you can have more than the permitted 11.7 scholarships in baseball money---as I see it the sum of the parts can equal no more than the 11.7 or they are in violation

TR ... I'm sure that Midlo is referring to the fact that the scholarship amount is based on the COA. For publics, out of state students drive up the average COA since there is normally a "bump" for out of staters that doesn't exist for private schools.

So, for some In-state schools that fund the full 11.7, based on COA, they could possibly stretch that to a full 15 if they just recruit "in-state".