My daughter is a senior in HS. We have toured 4 or 5 different colleges. She has been offered a scholarship at one. My concern is this school has 40 kids on the roster. This is a NAIA school if that makes a difference. They are offering a combined academic and athletic scholarship, but being our girl is a good student, the athletic scholarship part of it is not much. Is this normal for a school? Or does it show they are not concerned with the team just filling seats for the school. Also the coach has sent this all in writing, a scholarship and a nli agreement. We are still looking into a few other schools but does this sound normal?
College decisions...
- Thread starter LRH1969
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40 geez
Last season how many on the roster played? Look at the allocated playing time players got. How many, if any, got zero?
... or don't cuz it might scare you away.
Last season how many on the roster played? Look at the allocated playing time players got. How many, if any, got zero?
... or don't cuz it might scare you away.
Thats a good question. Website only list 25 players, but I got the 40 plus number direct from the coach. He said they have a varsity and junior varsity team.
- Jun 20, 2015
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many NAIA schools have full on JV seasons in the fall as well and varsity in the spring.
Also, the attrition rates at these colleges is crazy. Girls get homesick, injury, crap grades, discipline issues, transfers, pregnant, etc. I'd wager if they started with 40 in any given fall... maybe 20-25 are still there come end of spring semester.
Also, the attrition rates at these colleges is crazy. Girls get homesick, injury, crap grades, discipline issues, transfers, pregnant, etc. I'd wager if they started with 40 in any given fall... maybe 20-25 are still there come end of spring semester.
Florida someplace?
NAIA lets teams that field a JV and V team more money for scholarships and lets them pay additional coaching.
Most of the Florida NAIA schools that do this have a pretty strong JV schedule - 15 or so games in Fall and then 20+ games within the regular season. No post season, but a solid number of games to keep a large roster happy especially if you throw in some varsity games as well.
If done well, they don't lose as many players as people might think - especially edge V/JV players as there is playing time and games for them - not just practice and waiting for one of the starting Varsity players to get injured or have a bad run of form.
Is there some 'seat filling' for the college here - absolutely. You will also carefully figure out how much money is not covered in this scenario as this is way more important than the scholarship dollars themselves. Some of these NAIA school are private and not cheap. Also it will give you an idea of where your daughter stands - the more it covers, the more that the coaches actually think of her. #1 varsity pitcher is paying close to nothing - #35 rostered player who is only ever going to be on JV is getting close to nothing.
I am a big fan of both JUCO and NAIA in Florida. The level of play at the top of the conferences is really strong, lots of Florida girls get to continue to play the game - especially those who want to stay close to home, and most of the schools are solid academically. Florida has huge amounts of softball talent - and not enough D1 or D2 schools for players to stay in state and play, NAIA gives these players some great options.
Definitely room for confusion in that.
All opportunities should be researched thoroughly.
Asking about this is on the right track!
In my limited NAIA experience...not uncommon for the academic part to exceed the athletic portion. Especially for good students. As Sonerai wrote, I would view this as a positive.
What’s the goal here? Is it to play softball. Go to school for as close to free as possible, or is it to get a specific degree in order to get into a specific type of career path.
Without knowing these things it’s hard to advise. Softball will end for your dd in the next 1-5 years. Life goes on for another (hopefully) 60 or more years.
Without knowing these things it’s hard to advise. Softball will end for your dd in the next 1-5 years. Life goes on for another (hopefully) 60 or more years.
Sounds very normal from our experience. The athletic dollars will vary greatly from 0 to 50% at NAIA schools. I don't see the roster size as a negative if they also have a JV team with a full season (as many do). Do NAIA schools use sports programs to fill seats in the school? Of course. Again, I don't view that as an issue as long as they are serious about competing. The truth is that some of them just aren't interested in being competitive, but many of them are. Good NAIA programs can compete with schools at any level outside of the upper half of Power 5 schools.
