Hunt for Tennis Scholarship

Hunt for Tennis Scholarship

From the following post we are going to write more about college tennis scholarship. We want to help  junior tennis players to choose a right college and finance their education through tennis scholarship and/or generous financial aid from rich private universities. I invite college tennis coaches and players to share their experience with the readers of the blog. Now, read the article and discuss it.

“Where do I start to find a good US college tennis program to satisfy my academic and tennis needs?” I have been asked this question numerous times by potential recruits, coaches and parents.

Well, the reality is that your search does not really require you to pay 3 -5 grands to recruiting agency if you start at least a year ahead prior enrollment and know exactly what to do! I was asked to provide some information and answer possible questions about college tennis recruiting and enrollment process in this blog.

I’d prefer to remain anonymous due to paid recruiters and agencies’ that could be losing business if this blog ever becomes too public in nature. My sole intent is to help many uninformed student-athletes and their parents to make conscious choices for themselves!

For today’s blog, I will first tell you about men vs. women difference in scholarship funds at Division I Universities. Secondly, we will briefly touch on NCAA eligibility requirements for a scholarship. The reader should note that numerous questions must arise after this introduction and are definitely welcomed!

All right! Let’s quickly discuss the difference between male tennis program and female tennis program at Division 1 University in terms of scholarships offered. Every girls’ tennis team offers eight full rides. Girls rock (!) and offer eight (8) 100% scholarships with only 6 players playing. While, men’s tennis offers only 4.5 scholarships with 6 players playing.

How come you’d ask? Well.. It’s all due to the Title IX legislation. The equal rights for participation in athletics by women as compared to men. Since most of the division 1 Universities carry football and basketball programs with 100% scholarships offered to male athletes, women’s tennis becomes an “equalizer” to the total number of male to female athletes at each school.

It is always a full scholarship that should be offered to a female student athlete who makes a team, and it is NOT always a full scholarship coach can offer to a comparable male student-athlete.

Ivy League schools are generally exceptions to this rule, due to “financial aids” instead of scholarships offered. I will explain more about Ivy’s in our future posts.

This in mind, we can proceed with academic requirements for a Division 1 University. First of all, every native or foreign student-athlete applying to Division 1 University should be registered with the NCAA clearinghouse, where he or she will provide personal information, scholastic (high school) information, grades for the past 4 years, as well as scores for all SATs taken.

Here is the link to NCAA registration site:

http://www.ncaa.org/student-athletes/future/how-register

NCAA will then use your core GPA and highest SAT or ACT score in determining your eligibility status. Please note that for your SAT test, only Math and Verbal parts count towards the eligibility requirements. Core high school GPA is calculated based on 16 core courses that NCAA deems important!

Please also note that NCAA is familiar with most of the worlds’ secondary education systems and, therefore, evaluates foreign high school transcripts fairly quick. As a general rule of thumb I use – the NCAA eligible foreign student has a solid “B “ core GPA and at least 800 SAT score.

Although, NCAA does not require TOEFL score, the University does. I have heard that you must get at least 81 on iBT based TOEFL to be admitted. In addition, please keep in mind that if you passed NCAA eligibility barrier with 800 SAT you MIGHT not pass general University admission!

It means that you can be NCAA eligible and cleared, but still cannot be admitted to the University of your choice. Therefore, it is important to get familiar ahead of time with admission criteria for the University of your interest.

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