At 6’2” and 230 pounds, Dylan is a football coach’s dream. An offensive lineman, Dylan has fantastic footwork and excellent field awareness. Currently, a sophomore in high school, Dylan dreams of playing Division 1 football on a full ride.
Emma is an exceptionally fast point guard and natural team leader. She holds her high school’s record for most points scored during a season. Emma loves basketball and hopes that a sports scholarship will pay for the private college that is financially out of reach of her family.
Put 100 Dylans and Emmas in a room. Guess how many get a full-ride athletic scholarship?
One.
Yet parents spend thousands of dollars to help their child secure that one-in-a-hundred full ride. Many parents — and students — feel incredible pressure via social media to join a travel team, attend a high-priced skills camp, pay for a recruiter, and spend countless nights in generic motel rooms.
Just browse through any high school’s Twitter and Instagram posts. Seems like everyone has been invited to attend a camp or received a letter from a college or university expressing interest. (Understand that schools send out thousands of these letters. You are not being actively recruited until a coach gives you a formal offer.)
D1 and D2 schools give out more than $2.7 billion in athletic scholarships annually. That’s a huge dollar amount, but the reality is that fewer than 2% of high school student-athletes are offered athletic scholarships.
Sure, we all know of…
