Great Read for Parents, PLayers, and AAU Coaches!

http://www.viralhoops.com/scholarship-odds/

Great mathematical breakdown of the chances of getting a scholarship to play basketball. Excellent brain candy.http://www.viralhoops.com/scholarship-odds/

Great article FormerFalcon. A lot of parents of younger kids have no idea what it takes and the chances of "athletic scholarships" in basketball. One thing the article does not go into is D3 recruitment. When you apply to D3 schools you will receive some amount of reduced tuition in the form of what the school will deem a "merit scholarship" My son was pursued by 5 D3 colleges to play basketball. After doing our due diligence (good campus environment, good academic fit, quality of facilities, overnight visits with team, etc..) he narrowed those down to 3 that he applied to and we submitted paperwork for. All the schools tuition's were in the same ballpark The range of the merit scholarship ,with the exact same set of academic and financial factors, ranged from 8K to 22K. In my conversations after the offers with administrators and coaches I discerned that the amount of influence the basketball coach has with the administration, and how much the coach wants your son on his team will effect the amount of the offer. Would love to hear others story to see if they were similar

I played Class L (DI) NHIAA back in the 80's and 90's and I was heavily recruited by D3 schools and had mild interest form a couple of D2 schools. When my parents and I did the homework on schools, financial aide, etc... the D3 schools had more flexibility with respect to aid and merit scholarships. When I played D3 I received 2 academic merit scholarships totaling over 18K per year and I paid out of pocket around 3K and graduated without any student debt. The D2 schools who offered me partial athletic scholarships would have totaled only 9K per year and I would have been taking out over 10K in student loans to "get a scholarship".

My experience with parents, kids, and AAU coaches has been negative with respect to understanding the reality of how scholarships for D1 or D2 work. Most D2 programs only have 8 - 10 scholarships at anytime. Most parents & players don't realize that many programs divide them up to make some of them partial, not full.

Private D3 schools do a better job than state schools with financial aid packages and merit scholarships. I know 3 kids right now playing D3 (kids of my friends) who all received better $ packages from D3 than D2 schools for sports (1 soccer, 2 basketball) but they were all heavily recruited by D2 programs but for partial scholarships only.