What is a "Good Offer"?

"a good offer" for each individual is what fits the individuals specific needs

There is no general "good offer"

A good offer in my opinion differs from family to family. I would say that if the offer eliminates strain from the family budget it was a good offer. If going to that school is gonna cause strain it was not a good offer in your situation.

For me, I don't care about per cent, I care about what is out of my pocket.....for example, some kids may be better off with academic & merit scholarships than athletic scholarships.

I think a "good offer" is a very relative term. It is relative to only those schools an individual is looking at at that particular point in time....kind of like economics 101 with supply/demand pricing. It seems pitchers get the majority of the money. When you start mixing public and private schools, then I think it gets down to the nitty gritty because you have to prioritize what is important to you (as TRHit suggests above).

There are two ways to make college affordable. If they haven't been done already it's too late. 1) Contribute regulary to a college fund starting when your kids are born. 2) Emphasize academics. There's 22 times more scholarship money than athletic money.

A "good" offer or a "great" offer, in my experience, is one presented from the perspective of the coaching staff and is an expression of how much they would like your son to play in their program.
It reflects the "best" offer they can make from the scholarship funds that are not already committed to current players. It reflects their judgment of their need at your son's position, and it reflects their assessment of the players value within the team concept and how he compares with scholarship allocations to other players based on skill.
Within the NCAA rules, very, very few programs can meet the expectations of any parent for a "good" offer, as you have presented them, Jeff. It is the rare and unique talent that might be able to look at it in terms of how much will I have to pay.
It isn't that the coaches wouldn't like to offer more. With 11.7, or less if not fully funded, and the 27 player requirements, most are working with very tight budgets and strict compliance oversight.
The only players likely to receive a "good" offer, when viewed from the perspective of how much it will cost the family, are those who go in the first two rounds of the MLB draft, and then it is MLB which is speaking in terms of a "good" offer that meets the parents' expectations.
In a sense, this is the "welcome" to the business side of college baseball. Except for unique talents, each team has a list of players at each position. There isn't much difference in them, from a coaches perspective. There is some and that is why they rank them, obviously.
Within their team framework and scholarship limits, very few players/parents will receive a "good" offer if that is defined on how much will I have to pay. If the parent's don't agree with the coaching assessment on a "good" offer, they either negotiate a little, or move to the next ranked player with that same "good" offer.

Fact: not every D-1 school has 11.7 scholarships

quote:

Originally posted by TRhit:
Fact: not every D-1 school has 11.7 scholarships

agreed and absolutely correct...the D1 school my son was recruited to only funded 8 scholarships....

It is a very individual decision as to what the parents can afford and what they are willing to contribute. Unfortunately in this economy many people have lost a lot of money in the market or are unemployed. If newspaper articles are to be believed some kids are graduating from their "dream schools" in massive debt. Unless you're a doctor,lawyer, or Wall Street professional how will you ever pay off several hundred thousand dollars?????

I told my son from the time he started to realize he wanted to play baseball in college (about 6th-7th grade) that we could not pay $50K/yr for him to play baseball. We really emphasized academics as a way to fill the gap that an athletic scholarship would not cover. Like RJM I had always heard there were far more academic dollars available. He worked really hard in high school to be a great student and it did pay off in a great academic scholly @ his college.

We all emphasize "fit" here in choosing where you want to play but if it's not affordable it's not a great fit.

It depends on the kid. There are several kids from our school district who went off to college and flunked out due to having too much fun. These are kids who had too much handed to them along the way. My kids are very grounded despite the environment they've grown up. They have not been spoiled. They are/were honors students taking difficult courses. They understand how I feel about education. My daughter graduated from college PBK. She had 75% of her college paid for by academics and athletics. Now the surplus is available for law school. My son's joke is if I had a bumper sticker on the car it would read, "My kid is an honor roll student or I'll kick his a$$."

To me, when someone says "good offer", they are expressing their opinion that this is a decent deal relative to the perceived standing of the player vis a vis the other players who are competing for the same slot in the recruiting class.

It's not their duty to cover your education costs for you. That is something families should plan for. If you did not, it's not the baseball coach's fault that college can cost a lot, nor that the player maybe isn't good enough to command a higher percentage.

As to net costs, if you couldn't afford the school, why were you even looking there? Seems to me you could save everyone a lot of trouble by narrowing your search up front to places that you might actually be able to afford, from the standpoint of what the net bill would likely be. If you went after pricey private schools assuming you could command a near full ride only to find you weren't held in that high of esteem, then I guess this may be just your cue to realize they don't value you as much as you want to be valued. That doesn't necessarily mean they're right and you're wrong (though you should humbly consider whether that is indeed the case). It does means it's time to look elsewhere.

As for UNC, as of this writing I believe they still offer in-state tuition to anyone getting any partial scholarships, by state law. There has been movement in the NC state legislature towards doing away with this due to budget constraints, but if the rule has already been repealed, I missed that news. (And if I did, I'd greatly appreciate someone letting me know.) The real quandary there is if you commit in reliance on that law and then have it repealed while you're still there. That could cause financial problems and you need to have a candid discussion with Coach Fox & Co. on that point before committing.

BTW, if the point of this post was to say that college costs are completely out of hand, I definitely agree with that. As a VA resident, I would never have paid to have my son go to Wake Forest as a full price student. He could've gone to William & Mary like his brother! Very similar schools, but one has a price tag of 51k, the other only 21k (for Virginians). IMHO, colleges have completely lost site of their historic commitment to public service, and are now simply charging what the market will bear in order to build fabulous facilities and fund historically high salaries.

But you can't expect the baseball coach to solve all the problems of the world for you.

I think I may have asked this question in the past already but granted you get the minimum 25% from a baseball scholarship, can academic and other kinds of scholarship ( ie Merit, Hispanic or any other heritage etc) be added without any penalty to the Baseball program.

In simple words, Can a baseball program offer you a spot without using their baseball scholarship and use your other scholarships instead to be part of the team ( NOT A WALK ON) or they are legally bound to give you a 1 year offer.

RR23

Actually for me, this topic came about with the reality of my son getting to the end of a journey and having to make THE DECISION. I came to realize that what I had told players and parents, as a high school coach, a few years ago were "good or great offers" were probably not that good or great from their financial point of view. I was not the one having to look at the bottom line and realizing that 25% at one school may be better than 75% at another school according to out of state and other things.
Midlo, I agree with most of what you said except you can't dictate in most cases who recruits your kid and there is no way of knowing who will offer what until the end of the process.
We have had schools that have recruited my son to the point that they probably know too much about him and never made an offer, which to be honest would only taken 25% to have a full ride because of instate and other scholarships available, and then there were those that saw him pitch one time and made a "good offer" that are a lot better schools athletically and academically.
(AS for North CArolina schools none of them have mentioned waiving out of state. All of them have said the opposite. I will check into that.)
As I realized through this and many of you have said, "A good offer is in the eye of the beholder."

North Carolina schools cannot wave out of state , at least not for Georgia residents .

Wait... You guys are telling us that even after we pay for travel ball, private lessons, agility training, supplements, showcases, and recruiting consultants, that we still have to pay $20-50k per year for our kid to pay baseball in college?

I thought we were the ones that were going to be rich. I think I read about this in the gold rush days.

quote:

Originally posted by SultanofSwat:
Wait... You guys are telling us that even after we pay for travel ball, private lessons, agility training, supplements, showcases, and recruiting consultants, that we still have to pay $20-50k per year for our kid to pay baseball in college?

I thought we were the ones that were going to be rich. I think I read about this in the gold rush days.

So True!

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanrod23:
I think I may have asked this question in the past already but granted you get the minimum 25% from a baseball scholarship, can academic and other kinds of scholarship ( ie Merit, Hispanic or any other heritage etc) be added without any penalty to the Baseball program.

In simple words, Can a baseball program offer you a spot without using their baseball scholarship and use your other scholarships instead to be part of the team ( NOT A WALK ON) or they are legally bound to give you a 1 year offer.

RR23

The only way they are legally bound is by an NLI which is only given when baseball money is given. And yes they can offer you a spot without dipping into their athletic dollars, with academic money. Also many players are not even getting 25% bseball money, but rather small percentages with acedmic money making up the larger part (if criteria is met). So perhaps 25% of baseball money is a good offer these days.

You've heard of creative finanacing, now there is creative recruiting, coaches are strapped, tuition is at an all time high, and the in state player is becoming more and more attractive to programs that used to recruit more from out of state.

Putting good or great aside it should be about the best offer however, where it will fit into your economic budget, get an education and continue to play ball after HS.

I agree with Midlo, if a school is out of reach economically, one shouldn't be considering it. We did that and that was years ago, those expensive private schools quickly came off of the list, even with good offers. We were just like everyone else, thinking that our son was a talented pitcher and he should get lots of baseball dollars for it, but even in his case most out of state offers were surprisingly low. Although a good student, he was off a bit with out of state academic requirements, which still meant lots of out of pocket (don't forget it's not all about room, board and tuition either). The only reason he ended up with a great offer to where he went was to keep him from going to UF, but many programs do not have that luxury to spend money like that anymore, for those reasons.

I think that there are a lot of folks (not necessarily here) that are running into sticker shock with the little baseball money their players are being offered. Then really stuck when they don't meet out of state or academic requirements for academic money.

However, I have found that those are the parents who spent and spent on the early baseball years, for travel, for expensive lessons, tournaments, showcases, etc. thinking they will see a return with their sons talent.

It never worked that way and never will.

I think for some they hear of the full rides and football and assume they are for all sports. Not even close. I just wonder how/why some of these kids and parents do it when I know what they are getting out of state. How do you look your kid in the eye and say I will pay or you will pay $60,000 to $100,000 in college debt back. There is not a baseball experience in the world worth that. I know some say that is just reality in today's world but that is not reasonable. I know of kids that are wanting to be coaches who are coming out of school owing $75,000+. You can never pay that back on a coach's salary.
There is also the myth that you have to go to a certain level of school to get drafted and that is not true. After studying the draft, players are being drafted from all levels and conferences. I think investment is what some are looking at and that is real hard to judge these days.

jeff

i think the first question is, what do you want to go to school for ? doctor,lawyer, etc. then you can wittle things down some. as a parent of a non acedemic son. jc was the right fit for him and our wallet.

as an old scout once said to me, "you don;t go to college to become a baseball player." school first, baseball is just a part of it.

it isn't an easy path to travel, i wish you luck in your family's decision.

I agree you have to find a school that your son will enjoy. Don't get hung up on the academics. Most guys are better getting a general education with some courses that interest him. Undergrad is not that big a deal. If he is leaning towards a certain field it might be advisable to take some courses that help towards that goal. Most change their minds in mid stream.
There are no full rides but you can make things very inexpensive.
We got a large BB scholarship and academic scholarship. Also son worked 2 part time jobs, One in a cafeteria which gave him a full free meal plan. The other was a coaching job that paid very well. Both catered to the BB schedule and both jobs were part of the great experience.
We took out a student loan because it made economic sense. The money allowed him to live a great life style. Big screen TV, nicely furnished apt and money to enjoy himself.
Where it made great economic sense was in our tax laws. He paid no tax on scholarships. The tuition is deductible as is the interest on his tax or a designated spouse\parent. My wife applies the unused tuition against her income which gets a large refund of her withheld taxes which pays off the student loan. In fact it is enough money refunded to pay 2 years of payments. So in efect there is no burden of a student loan.
I am not sure if you can do that but I would think you can.
After 3 years of writing off the unused tuition there is still a balance of approx $120,000 to be used which could last 10 years.
Look into this !