The term "Full-ride"

A "full ride" is very simply, tuition + fees + books + room & board.

Anything less is not a full ride.

Many parents and players use that term (full-ride) very loosely when telling people what they received. It's a much-used, much-maligned term. As you know as well as anybody, there are very few 100% scholarships due to only 11.7 scholarships for the whole baseball team. I would love to get in a discussion on how Title IX has ruined college baseball (especially for minority athletes) but that is a discussion for another day. Full-ride means tuition, books, room, and board 100%. Everything covered means that all of the above is paid but the scholarship might only be 80-90% and they are making up the difference because the housing stipend might be more than what it actually costs to live and they don't need to give the whole stipend. Hope that helps. Also, good luck to E starting next weekend along with the other fellas. What a once-in-a-lifetime experience. He'll do great.

Me too , that was always my understanding of the term. Just thought I'd throw the topic out there as it was funny to hear a few others this past week use the term differently!

Here's a story, strange but true.
My son is an 04 grad, 1160 SAT..2.75 GPA..Played all sports in and out of school, from the time he could walk. great sport, great athlete, no head case. Can be put on the mound with bases loaded, no outs and be just as cool as if the score was 15 and 0. He broke a hand playing goalie at s****r and broke the other hand snowboarding, different years, just missed some basketball one yr, but played goalie 3 weeks with a broken hand until a specialist reread the X-ray and said the hand was broke and would need surgery and a screw in the hand the same place as the other hand had a screw, one in a million shot. Now a screw in each hand.
He was in great shape for his last season of BB and pitched his team to the sectionals plus played SS. A wall full of athletic and accedemic awards. He had talked to some colleges but i guess not of them got him excited because of playing time and as a pitcher he probably wouldn't bat and would sit most of the first yr.
He finally decided on a JUCO because after the coach saw him pitch and play SS the coach said he would have a job pitching and he would also be the starting SS..the coach called me after he watched him play and said he was more impressed with his hitting and playing SS then he was of the pitching, i think he really needed a SS more that a pitcher for the college. Everything was going my sons way, even put on a wood bat team for the summer, playing with guys that had been playing in college for a couple of yrs, starting SS, pitching every 4th day and the only pitcher on the team that batted.
In July because of his age he was lent out to another team to pitch and play SS for a 18U wood bat tourny in Canada. While pitching against what the people said were the 2 best pitchers in Canada, 2 left handed flame throwers- 93-95 and both have been drafted, one by the padries and 1 by the Reds. the scouts had their guns on them all night. we lost the game 2-1.
Anyway after the game a coach from a great D1 school cornered my son and his 2 coaches, this is what the coach told them."if my son would come to his college, it would not cost him one dime plus he would get him about 500. a month spending money" The coach said he had not seen a person with his will to win in a long time and that impressed him more than the pitching and also praised him for his hitting. My son is 6'1" plus, and according to the coach throwing 89 consistantly, has 4 pitches with great controll but has a lot of growing and filling out to do. Will be throwing in the 90s before they're done with him, the coach from the JUCO said the same thing. plus the JUCO said in 2 yrs he would put him in a big school down south and he would probably get drafted, all this impressed my son but I just wanted to see some degrees and if anything else happened fine, if not we would live with it..
My son was on cloud 9 for a while and the wood bat coaches wanted me to go have a chat with the D1 coach, but I declined, reason- the college doesn't have my sons major and what an assistent coach says in Canada could be a lot different then what the head coach says in America. It was really my sons decision anyway, going to the D1 college meant going to another school for an extra yr to get the classes the D1 school didn't have.I also wondered how many other players were told the same thing over the week end. I don't go by anyones word any more, if someone tells me it's raining i look out the window.. If the coach had just scribbled all his promises on a piece of paper and signed his name, I would have been more interested.
We came home from Canada and went to a couple more nationally known tournies, my son still starting SS and pitching, batting, an all around player. We finished the season last week and the D1 coach and college was all but forgotten.
Yesterday I went fishing about 2:00 and for once my son decided to stay home. I came home about 8:00 PM and my son was out to meet me.. The D1 coach had called and apoligized for not getting back to him, but said he had been trying to get the money for my son to go to his college.. He also said all the money for the fall had been used for the basketball team, but the full ride offer was still there starting in Janurary 05 plus the spending money, starting pitchers position, everything that he told him in Canada.
All this remains to be seen, but if it happends, I'll post the college BB rosterin Feburary or when ever it comes out.

"Full ride" in college baseball usually (and only) goes to 1st/2nd round pitcher types.

Guys that actually have been drafted but haven't signed.

Jeremy Sowers who went to Vanderbilt and had an All American career is a good example.

For all practical purposes, you can define a full ride as going to school and not paying for it.

For example, a 50 percent baseball scholarship is huge. Do some get more? Of course, but not many. But a 50-percent scholarship still leaves you 50 percent short.

That's where the often-discussed scholarship blending and straight financial aid come in. If your financial aid covers the rest of the costs and it's not loans, you've got a full ride.

It might not be the 100 percent scholarship that 1 in 1,000 might get, but so what?

Few baseball players get a full ride, even by this definition. My son did not get a full scholarship and he does not have a full ride. But (brag warning: danger, danger) we're very, very happy with his situation.

Scholarship %...my 2 cents...do not discuss this with anyone outside the family and the institution...bad karma that could lead to issues with other players. Be blessed with what you worked hard for. Coaches really frown on this.

I don't know of any permissible program that pays for everything, with "$500 per month for spending money", with the exception of the Service academies where presumably you can receive the same military pay as the other students from the Service at the appropriate time. A full ride is one thing, but $500 spending money doesn't sound right to me. I'd be real careful and check it out six ways to Sunday (that's southern for "a whole bunch").

lol a Full ride would mean { to me ) that the coach would show up at the house about 2 weeks before the kid reports and take him { my son } shopping. after he is done with the general house hold items he could run by the computer store.
by the time he is done I bet the coach would NEVER use the term full ride again.
full ride should be defined as when everything you have or will have is spent.

What was it that Uecker said? He signed out of high school for $500. $500 was alot of money but his dad thought it was worth it to get rid of hime, so he paid it. Something like that. I miss him in the announcers booth. Kelly18, I think you forgot to start your story with "Once upon a time".

Hokie,
It happens often. It was an option offered to my son by a school that was recruiting him AND happens in states where scholarship money is given for good grades.
I think that many fail to realize that if the school really wants you badly enough, they will make it happen one way or another.

Fighting Squirrel
I think you forgot to read the last sentence, i just wrote what was told to me and I have no reason to think my son or his coaches would lie.

The fact is that the large majority of parents who view the college recruiting process as an exercise in creating a "full ride" are setting themselves (and their sons) up for a major disappointment.

My advice: If college baseball is a prospect, view your son's opportunity to play a game that he loves while receiving a college education as the goal. Any defraying of expenses that the baseball program is able and willing to provide is icing on the cake.

The “Full Ride” is very complicated. For the most part it is a figment of the imagination. Check out the parent with the rose colored glasses. Sometimes I think they’re wearing rose colored hearing aids too. Let’s assume you have a fully funded D-1 with 11.7 scholarships. Now if you have forty players on this roster, out of that forty you will have eight “Full rides”, ten “Almost full rides”, seven “Pretty close to full rides”, nine “Real good scholarships”, five with a “Substantial baseball scholarships”, and one walk-on with a full academic ride that could have qualified for at least a “Pretty close to a full ride” baseball scholarship but accepted the academic scholarship just to help out the baseball coach.
On a serious note:
Players are allowed to receive all or part of their scholarship in real money. We were told what our son’s scholarship was worth in real dollars and were given the option to: Receive a check for that amount (made out to our son). . . . OR . . . . the college would take care of the expense. We opted to have the college absorb most of the expense they offered as a scholarship. Not to get into the amount of my son’s partial scholarship, but he does receive a check four times a year. The total amount of the check, plus the expenses the university absorbs, does not, and cannot, exceed the amount of what the NCAA considers a “full ride” at that particular university.

Hope this helps,
Fungo

PS As some know, my son had to medically withdraw the fall semester of his sophomore year due to an operation. That was OK because the NCAA credited him as if he had taken 12 hours so he could remain eligible the next spring. The bursar’s office mistakenly refunded his tuition back to him in the form of a check. Thank goodness it came to our house and I opened it. Being the honest person I am, and after weighing the odds of this being caught in an internal audit at a later date, I returned the check so the athletic department could get their credit.

oh, ok. Guess our son has a "full ride" at his Juco. Funny how it doesn't feel like it to me. Every school expense is covered through scholarship and some financial aid.

Going into this, my hope was that him playing ball would help with the costs of going to school. You know, get an education while playing baseball. We are fortunate.

Question: Do many JUCO's have the facilities to provide room and board to baseball players? If they don’t have those facilities, do they provide an apartment allowance and food allowance to the baseball players? We have a JUCO in our town and parents talk about their son's "full ride" at the local JUCO but these boys stay at home and eat at McDonalds.
Fungo

fungo,

Most of the jucos in Texas that I know of do provide "full rides" to many of their players and that includes their oncampus dorm rooms and full meal plans along with tuition, fees, and books. Ryan was offered "full rides" to some top jucos here but he committed to OU early because it felt like the right "fit" for him. It would be nice if all baseball players could get full rides like most football and basketball players do.

Ann

Just to clarify, and to educate me, are ya'll saying you can have everything paid for, (and I mean EVERYTHING-tuition, books, room, board)AND receive $500 a month "spending money" and the NCAA is okay with this?

In my son's case the Jucos with out dorms offered off campus housing and a monthly food allowance

hokieone
No, we all didn't say anything about Rm and Bd.,, just tuition, books and spending money.
I haven't spoken with any coaches from the college yet, but I'm assuming that when my son and his coaches were told that it wouldn't cost"one dime" for my son the attend his college, he -the coach was assuming that we had tons of fed aid and that it would pay for what the college didn't. Someone is in for a suprise, because we ain't eligible for "One Dime" of aid although the fed was good enough to tell us what we could borrow.
Even if rm and bd was 10000. per yr, with 500. per month spending money from the college, it leaves a bal of about 4000..not bad for a player that wasn't even looking for a ride.
Personally i hope he sticks with the JUCO, for some reason i believe and trust that coach and have got to know him pretty good over the summer. He seemed to be more of a teaching coach with the players then one of those coaches that wants to hang a player after an error. Also some of the parents have told me that he is on top on the teams grades all the time, he gives them no slack if their grades are down.
If he went to the D1 school, the most it would cost us is maybe 25,000 for thr 4yrs and the extra yr to finish his major.
If he sticks with the JUCO, it will probably cost us close to 90,000. because after the 2 yrs of JUCO, the next 2 yrs won't be cheap. The JUCO coach said he would get him in a big school, but there has been no talk of money.
we'll live with the boys choice as he'll have to live with it longer then us.

Hokieone...the "spending money" will normally come from "in lieu of" funds that are earmarked for room/board when a student athlete elects to live off campus.

Kelly18....your location is absolutely right...EARTH FOR NOW...soon it will be REAL WORLD...DOWN TO EARTH...unfortunately, I believe you are in for a surprise...also, make sure the credits from a JUCO transfer to a 4 year college...many are VERY SURPRISED on this issue...check it out.

Good Luck!

Starzz
I've on the earth now for 64yrs7months and probably saw more and know more about the real world than you ever will.

Naughty, naughty!!

Kelly...I'm right with you on time on the earth...I am not debating your experience in the real world, I am trying to advise you that there are rarely many situations as you described them and thought you should be aware of that.You also asked about and were talking about JUCO's...I also advised beware of JUCO's transfer of credits to DI, II etc, and to beware of a player getting $500 spending money in addition to rm/board and tuition.

There are many excellent players parents on this site and probably a few have approached a "full ride" @ a DI. Juco's have given full rides too several players I know, but most have had real issues with the credits.

Sorry for not coloring the issue...and making it sound nice.

Good Luck!

The phrase that we've heard is "costs of attendance." And, if what I've read is correct, that can include the cost of two (or maybe even three) round-trip coach plane tickets.

I've heard of schools offering academic scholarships that include all costs and some form of stipend.

And Starzz, you're right about not disclosing the actual percentage. But some media outlets will ask for the percentage and some will say they only note those who get "full rides." What we've done is use words like generous and significant and we're very, very happy.

It doesn't duck the question but it says nothing at all.

Paying for plane tickets as part of a scholarship is a violation of NCAA rules. I doubt many, if any, schools violate that rule...its well known.

I went to school on a full ride to a military JUCO, on a two year football scholarship, and got to play BB too. Was recruited to a four year D1 and received a full ride through graduation. In exchange for my efforts on behalf of the school I paid with my sweat but didn't pay one single penny.

However at the JUCO school I worked in the mess hall and received $9.00 a day for spending money for my labors. At the D1 I worked for one of the alumni at a job 4 hours a day, through the athletic department, and made a couple hundred a week...but I didn't pay a dime for my degree.

The cost has been post grad...get letters all the time for money donations. Love those alumni they always have some cause for you to contribute too.

From Fungo's post:

quote:

---

The “Full Ride” is very complicated. For the most part it is a figment of the imagination. Check out the parent with the rose colored glasses. Sometimes I think they’re wearing rose colored hearing aids too.

---

The following are 2 true stories that support Fungo's thought here. They are true stories from high school teammates of our son ... I wouldn't exaggerate and these are not atypical of other stories we heard:

Player A's dad tells everybody his son got a full ride to a very expensive private D-1 school. We were pretty sure that was a bit of an exaggeration, to say the least, but we weren't going to be the ones to tell him we doubted his story. And the proof of his untruth came even before player A started classes in his first year. When we shared that our son had been granted an additional $1000 before he started (somebody left the program and more $$ became available), the dad told us that the same thing happened to his son. (Hmmmmmm ... that's funny ... I could have sworn he was on a full ride. How does he get more money than that?)

Player B is heavily recruited after July 1 ... makes 5 official visits by the end of September, 3 of them to out of state schools, 1 to a very expensive private Calif school, and 1 to a state university. Apparently player B isn't really interested in playing out of state, and then B's Mom tells everybody that the expensive private school offered him a "full ride". Player eventually ends up at the state university, and in the meantime, tells our son that he would have liked to go to the expensive private Califoria school but ... they didn't have any money left by the time he visited in early September !!!

So goes the truth to many of those "full rides".

When our son was recruited by UCR, and when the coach made the offer, he told our son: A "full ride" at UCR is 75% ... and that goes to the 6'5" left handed pitchers who throw 95 mph. We thought that was a classic line ... and appreciated his honesty and his humor.

A "FULL RIDE" is defined in many ways and usually none of the definitions include the term "100%".

The term FULL RIDE usually pops up when mom and dad are talking to neighbors and relatives--

Thanks for the stories folks! I was getting a chuckle out of the parent comments I'd been hearing lately.