The NCAA released some statistics today regarding the probability of high school students to be able to compete in college for their sport (the link can be found here). I know I wasn't the only one that thought "What about Volleyball???" - so I figured I'd write a little piece with some other sites that gives information on this subject matter on our sport.
Before reading further, the numbers will most likely disappoint a lot of high school athletes and parents. Don't let this deter you - while the amount of athletic scholarships are limited, we will talk about the other opportunities to play in college (and looking for financial assistance). I will be focusing on the Women's side of the game for now, but if people would like information on the men's side, please contact me and I'd be happy to write a separate blog for that.
In 2013, ScholarshipStats.com released numbers on participation for college volleyball (link for scholarship availability) (link for participation information) - so what does this all mean?
Let's start with scholarships: There are currently 331 Division I schools that have Women's Volleyball. At this level, it is a 'head-count' sport, which means each scholarship is a full-ride and awarded to one individual. For Division II, there are 287 schools that have Women's Volleyball. It is an 'equivalency' sport, which means their scholarships can be split and divided as the coach sees fit (If a coach had 8 to give away, she could do 8 full-ride, 16 1/2's, and so on). Division I can have up to 12 scholarships, and Division II can have up to 8 scholarships - that does not mean that their athletic programs are 'fully-funded' and provide all of these.
So in a best-case scenario, for the NCAA you would be looking at 6,268 scholarships that are available for Division I and Division II. There's also the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics), who are up to 226 schools and award up to 8 scholarships per team - best-case, that's an additional 1,808 scholarships that would be available. The NJCAA (Junior Colleges) have 98 Division I schools (Up to 14 full-ride scholarships) and 127 Division II schools (Up to 14 scholarships of tuition, fees, and books) - that's 1,372 for Division I and 1,778 for Division II. SO, according to the statistics taken from NFHS, NCAA, NAIA, Scholarshipstats, and NJCAA, and high-balling it making the assumption that EVERY school uses EVERY scholarship slot:
Amount of girls participating in high school: 418,903
Amount of NCAA Division I Scholarships: 3,972 (.95%)
Amount of NCAA Division II Scholarships*: 2,296 (.54%)
Amount of NAIA Scholarships: 1,808 (.43%)
Amount of NJCAA Division I Scholarships: 1,372 (.32%)
Amount of NJCAA Division II Scholarships: 1,778 (.42%)
Amount of Full Ride Scholarships (NCAA D-I, NAIA, NJCAA D-I/II**: 8,930 (2.1%)
*Can be broken up, so while more than 2,296 athletes will get Division II scholarships, less will get a full ride
** For 4-Year schools, this will be dropped to 5,780, or 1.4%
The reality is, it is VERY hard to get a scholarship exclusively for volleyball. This is why as college liaison for my club, I'm always preaching to our girls about getting the grades - it will open more doors for them. By no means should they give up on going for an athletic scholarship - I just tell them not to put all the eggs in that basket.
I will write Part Two tomorrow, which will discuss playing opportunities in college outside of scholarships.
2 comments:
My daughter, a freshman, wants to play college ball. She is in all honors classes (straight A's) and has committed to the advanced honors diploma and she is in the school orchestra. What else should she be doing???
Hi Carolyn,
It's great to see your daughter doing so well - at this point, I tell parents young players should be doing two things:
1) Get the grades
2) Whatever she has a passion in!
Obviously the more repetitions she gets the better for her skill - but I've seen girls 'overtrain' and get to college feeling burnt out - When I coached at my Division I institution, we had three girls in a seven-year span from a club that is known nationwide for producing elite players. However, all three of them ended up handing their scholarship back and quitting before their four years were up - they wanted to be college students and were exhausted from the grind.
I think if a player is in the gym 4 months of the year and is excited to be there every day, that will be better than doing 8-12 months where the sport becomes a burden/obligation, and the coach has to focus on pushing effort more than teaching X's and O's. That being said, if she's interested in playing more and it doesn't feel like work, by all means encourage it! I'll speak on this subject a little more in my next post, but feel free to ask any other questions you may have.
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