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  What makes a good offer? The Scholarship Divide Avg D1 Scholarship $8818 Scholarships 101 Pay for College?	Small Colleges & Universities An Edge at Elite Colleges How D2 Compares Why Consider an NAIA School? About College Opportunities
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• 5 Mistakes to Avoid
• Position Specific Information
• Scholarships Available

• Baseball Scholarships Are Partial
• Crunching the Numbers
• Academics Count

• Grades Count
• 8 Facts About College Athletics
• The Importance of Grades

• Scholarships 101
• NCAA Talk Scholarships
• 5 Academic Questions to Ask

• Recruiting Rules & Academic Standards
• The Recruiting Timeline
• Player & Parent's Job

• Baseball Recruiting Guidelines
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• Lessons Learned

• What makes a good offer?
• College Recruiting Information
• Eyeing a Scholarship

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• Understanding Scholarships
• Reality of Sports Scholarships
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• Slicing the Pie
• Athletic Scholarships
• An Edge at Elite Colleges

• How Many Scholarships
• Small Colleges & Universities
• Market Yourself

• The Scholarship Divide
• Getting a Scholarship
• Pay for College?

• Know What To Ask
• Baseball & School
• About College Opps

Baseball scholarships are very limited and there is major competition for those scholarships therefore the importance of academics cannot be overstated. Many baseball coaches will first look to give money from the school's academic budget before accessing athletic department resources. This improves the package for the player with better grades (ie. typically a 3.5 high school grade point average or higher) because a significant portion of financial aid can come from academics. Additional monies will be made up through a baseball scholarship.

Scholarships

HOW WILL I PAY FOR COLLEGE?

Understanding how to pay for college is almost more important than focusing on how to play in college.  Players and parents invest a lot of time, money and effort into baseball hoping that when the player graduates from high school, all their college tuition will be paid for by an athletic scholarship.  This might be possible for the elite athlete, but most players will have to look for other forms of financial aid as well.

Don't place all your emphasis on athletic skills, your grades and test scores are vitally important.

Of the collegiate athletes in Division I, II, III, NAIA or junior college, only eight-tenths of one percent (0.8%) will receive fully funded athletic scholarships.  And the majority of these are in "head count" sports like football.  Baseball is classed as an "equivalency" sport.  This means that a coach can divide the scholarships between a large number of players.  Say 25 partial instead of 12 full ride scholarships.

Because of this, it is imperative that athletes put themselves in a position to receive academic aid.  An athlete that has good grades and high test scores is a gold mine to a college coach.  Why?  Because it is cheaper for the coach to recruit them.  If a coach can get you an exempted academic scholarship then your chances of being recruited and playing college baseball are greatly improved.

Most coaches work very closely with the college financial aid office; they have to.  The first thing a coach will do is see if the athlete qualifies for some other form of financial aid.  The coach will determine what "needs based aid" the player can get and then try to boost this with a partial athletic scholarship.

If you qualify for an academic scholarship then that money does not count against the total athletic scholarship budget the coach has to work with.  You can see why this is so attractive to the coach.

Numerous other grants as well as athletic scholarships are available.  Financial aid, including grants, loans and work-study, are also available on the basis of need.  One big advantage of receiving a financial aid package instead of, or in addition to, a scholarship is that even if you stop playing ball, are cut from the team, or lose your scholarship for some reason, you will still receive the non-athletic funding and can stay in school!

Two key points to remember:

1. You won't qualify for any form of an academic scholarship without good grades.
2. Without good grades and test scores, you might not even get to college let alone qualify for an athletic scholarship.

Scholarships Available at the Different College Levels

NCAA Division 1

• 11.7 full scholarships
• Scholarship monies can be divided up
• Full scholarships are VERY rare
• Some lower level D-I schools do not fully fund all 11.7 available scholarships
• Blending of athletic and academic scholarship monies is permissible for academically qualifying student-athletes (this will vary from school to school).

NCAA Division II

• 9 full scholarships
• Scholarship monies can be divided up
• Full scholarships in baseball are very rare
• Many D-II programs do not fully fund all 9 scholarships (in other words, a school may only have 6 funded scholarships to work with, due to athletic department funding restrictions)
• Blending of athletic and academic scholarship monies is permissible for academically qualifying student-athletes (this will vary from school to school)

NCAA Division III

• 0 athletic scholarships available
• Many D-III schools do a very good job of finding the players academic and other aid funding

Ivy League & Patriot League

• Do not offer athletic scholarship aid
• Some schools in these conferences have programs available to offer "need based" aid to student-athletes
• Exceptional academically student-athletes may qualify for academic scholarship assistance

NAIA

• 12 full scholarships
• Scholarship monies can be divided up
• Full scholarships in baseball are very rare
• Some schools do not fully fund all 12 scholarships
• Several programs also have "junior varsity" baseball programs
• Blending of athletic and academic scholarship monies is permissible for academically qualifying student-athletes (varies from school to school)

NJCAA Division I

• 24 full scholarships including:  tuition, room, board, books and fees
• Blending of athletic and academic scholarship monies is permissible for academically qualifying student-athletes (varies from school to school)

NJCAA Division II

• 24 scholarships including:  tuition and books
• Blending of athletic and academic scholarship monies is permissible for academically qualifying student-athletes (varies from school to school)

NJCAA Division III

• 0 athletic scholarships
• Typically junior and community colleges are very inexpensive so many D-III juco baseball programs are able to field very competitive programs

Scholarships at different levels adapted from article by Bob Howdeshell