Future of Division III

['gro]

I had multiple schools tell me that when the FA package came if it wasn't enough or if another school had a better deal to call them before making a decision because the package could be changed.

Both sides can play the system. Are there NCAA or conference rules against this in DIII?

My brother, who didn't plan on playing sports in college (and therefore had no coaches backing him in admissions) asked Boston U and Northeastern for more aid and got it from BU.  Moral of the story: ask for as much as you can get!

[Warren Thompson]

Let it never be said that D3 doesn't offer athletic "scholarships" when pursuing a prize recruit .... 

[Jonny Utah]

Yea, like I mentioned in an earlier post, once your in the school all you have to do is ask the FA office for more money and they can basically give it to you (within the limits of school allowed scholarships)

Now, I have to go take a "Union".

[union89]

Yea, like I mentioned in an earlier post, once your in the school all you have to do is ask the FA office for more money and they can basically give it to you (within the limits of school allowed scholarships)

Now, I have to go take a "Union".

+1K because you used it properly in context.

[joehakes]

With the new Financial Aid Reporting System having been in place for two years now, you will not see much changing of packages when it comes to athletes.  The rule has always been that you can't offer more because the prospective student is an athlete.  Now with the reporting it will be apparent that athletes have gotten more if there is dealing taking place.  Unless they do that with all students (and that would be a very poorly run FA office) it will show up.

Financial aid offices are all tightening up--athletes or not. 

[Jonny Utah]

With the new Financial Aid Reporting System having been in place for two years now, you will not see much changing of packages when it comes to athletes.  The rule has always been that you can't offer more because the prospective student is an athlete.  Now with the reporting it will be apparent that athletes have gotten more if there is dealing taking place.  Unless they do that with all students (and that would be a very poorly run FA office) it will show up.

Financial aid offices are all tightening up--athletes or not. 

Right but Im going to say that ALL students are going to be calling for more money and you wont notice that much of a difference, especially when many athletes are some of the better students at d3 schools.

[johnnie_esq]

I think schools pretty much plan for a group of students who will ask for more aid, and include that in their computations when they budget.  The athletics aid issue doesn't approach this-- if it is an across the board financial aid budget that doesn't take athleticism into account, it is perfectly appropriate by D3 standards.  But where athletes somehow get bigger pieces of the pie because they are athletes, that is a "masked athletics scholarship".   That's what the reporting system is looking for.

The reporting system may indicate problems at bigger schools because of ratio issues-- if athletes are truly getting a little more aid than the student body at large, and there is a large student body, that should show up pretty clearly when multiplied over a large population, whereas, at a small school, that may not show up as well.  They identified this, if I remember correctly, upon their review of the program last summer-- do you count non-traditional students (who typically receive little or no financial aid) into the category that is being weighed?  That would seriously skew the weight the aid of the general student body, especially for mid-size schools that have large graduate or nontraditional programs.  I know it is being addressed, I don't recall offhand how.

Nevertheless, we may never know who the offenders of the financial aid game-players are.  The NCAA, if I again can recall, does not release the names of the schools that are being examined more closely, and the data does not show a trend to date because they've just now received their second year of data. 

[Warren Thompson]

Just out of curiosity ... if a D3, non-scholarship, venue wants an athlete, won't it likely find the "appropriate" FA package in order to land her/him? {Or am I possibly being overly cynical? Kindly advise soonest ....}

[Ralph Turner]

USA Today article on male practice players in NCAA Women's Athletics..

[johnnie_esq]

Just out of curiosity ... if a D3, non-scholarship, venue wants an athlete, won't it likely find the "appropriate" FA package in order to land her/him? {Or am I possibly being overly cynical? Kindly advise soonest ....}

Yes*

* = For an individual or a "few" individuals, this can likely occur, assuming the other student athletes receive relatively the same packages as the rest of the student body.  But if there were a practice of doing this for a great number of athletes, and not in relative proportion for non-athletes (for some reason, the 4% differential figure is sticking in my head), the discrepancy should be apparent in the financial aid reporting process, which, in turn, could lead to further review and/or sanction by the NCAA.  So this process isn't perfect, but it is a lot better than the previous system of holding schools on their own honor of playing by the rules.

[Pat Coleman]

I believe 4% is the threshold the NCAA uses as an acceptable variance, yes.

[Josh Bowerman]

I realize I'm a bit late to the party, but hey--I was on vacation.

When I was at Bucknell, we began awarding "merit" scholarships for athletic ability.  We only awarded these to men's and women's basketball players, though--the participants in the rest of the sports the university sponsored did not receive athletically-based financial aid. 

They may have received merit aid for meeting certain criteria, such as race or geographic location of home, however, as the institution was making a concerted effort to more broadly diversify its student body and was actively making financial aid decisions accordingly (from a merit standpoint).  There may have been some athletes in other sports that received this type of merit aid, but the pool of money available wasn't that large when compared to the number of students applying for aid, so I'd be surprised if there were more than just a handful of students where this was the case.

[Wydown Blvd.]

Hey Josh. If you don't mind me asking, what year did you graduate from Bucknell? (just trying to finish my mental timeline for this patriot league stuff)

[tmerton]

USA Today article on male practice players in NCAA Women's Athletics..

Despite itself, the NCAA apparently dodged a bullet on this - at least in Division 1 - click here.  Was this not an issue in other divisions?

[Ralph Turner]

USA Today article on male practice players in NCAA Women's Athletics..

Despite itself, the NCAA apparently dodged a bullet on this - at least in Division ! - click here.  Was this not an issue in other divisions?

Yes, it was, but I am not sure of the status in other Divisions.

I like your comment about dodging the bullet.

"The idealists" inside the NCAA don't comprehend what the most enthusiastic advocates of women's athletes, the coaches, were saying about the use of male players. 

1)  You cannot mimic a taller, stronger opponent if that player is not on your practice roster.

2)  You cannot concentrate on teaching your own offensive and defensive schemes to the bench roster if they are having to run the opponents' schemes.

3)  If you are down to less than 2 full healthy teams, then against whom do you scrimmage?