In this day and age the increasing cost of college is becoming a frightening reality. for most people including myself we have a way not to avoid this, but a better chance of not paying for college out of pocket. This is called a full scholarship. This literally pays for everything you need in school. I found out about this full ride scholarship as a freshman in high school. As easy as this process sounds it’s actually a long and difficult process, that is if you make it that way. Unfortunately I have made this a longer process than it had to be. The way to make his short and sweet is just being an overall good student athlete, this will get you looks from school in general but one thing that will turn those schools away are unacceptable grades.

Being a student athlete isn’t the easiest thing to be or do. For example being a student athlete is very difficult, what makes it even worse, is if you are one of the top players on the team. This makes it so difficult because most of the time you are always the one putting in the hardest work in practice and then after that most of the time the coach wants you to do extra. It’s as if they forget that we have school work too. Sometimes I think this come from coaches wanting to be so good or caring more about the players than their school work. Personally I’ve been a victim of this, since freshman year being one of the top players in both sports I played I played a major role in these sports which took time away from me being an A or B student. Not only have this affected me in school, out of school this took its toll as well. I got so use to not doing homework and making up the work I started to do this even when I wasn’t doing a sport. Because of this attitude as I grew older I became more and more lazy, I could remember just at times not going to school or skipping school because I didn’t feel like I had a reason to go.  Looking back at this I really regret this because those old ways still haunt me to this day. Also this has taken away opportunities that I would have had if my grades would have been great from the start. and it has made the process much harder than it’s supposed to be. So to any younger Student Athletes coming up, this would be something to read because not only can you learn from my mistakes that I have made in the past but you can now avoid taking the long way towards this full ride scholarship process. In this “Full Ride” process you there are a few things coaches and scouts look for.

one thing that anyone would look at in general would be your grades, probably the biggest factor in this recruiting process. It doesn’t matter how great of an athlete you are if you can’t meet their standards they won’t even look your way. The reason for this is so that they are not giving their scholarship to someone who might end up flunking out of school. Also they want overall student athletes not just athletes, you are going to have to do everything to keep your gpa above a 2.0 and for some schools 2.5 depending on the school. Personally I’ve seen this happen to some great players.

Another step in this process that would fall into place are grades and test scores. If your grades are average you will have to score high on your SATs or ACTs this is the “Clearing House” rule. The clearing house is basically where college coaches decide if you can join their program, in this process they will look at your grades from freshman year to junior year and get the average of them all. After they sort this out the next thing that will happen is the test scores viewing. In this if you're GPA is low in the range of 70-79 then that will force you to score much higher on the SATs or the ACTs. Also the clearinghouse is how not only the coaches but also the NCAA decides if you are NCAA eligible. In this process for some athletes they will try to balance out your grades and test scores. What I’ve done that I probably shouldn’t have waited this long to do was take the SATs and or ACTs early so that I can either get better or know my weaknesses and where I need to work on.

Although this is a long hard process the ways you make this easy is to overall be a positive athlete, make sure that you have a highlight tape that you can show the coaches. Also you would want to email coaches ahead of time, one thing to not do is wait for the last minute. Also keep in contact with these coaches ask when can you do visits or come see the football team practice, something of that source.

Another thing I just learned actually last year was not every college has your major. The worst thing you can do is accept a Scholarship to a school that doesn’t have your major or anything you want to do there. A mentor once told me that he accepted a scholarship to a school that was very good at lacrosse (Syracuse) he then found out shortly after that the school didn’t have his major. He then had to go to Hofstra for the remainder of his college years, this forced him to give up a scholarship and had to pay for college. This is because a lot of athletes will get offered and get into the school because they are playing sports but they won’t really think the process through. the best way to do this is get all the colleges that you have in mind and the first thing to do is look at the field of study that’s one thing that can help you narrow down your college choices because you may actually want to pursue a job in the field that you studied. Be sure to make college visits as well because this is where you will be for the next four years. Besides the fact that you want to go to a place that has your field of study you also want to be at a place that you will feel comfortable at.

To close this out, make sure you take care of business that way your process to getting into college as a student athlete won’t be as hard as some people make it. Also remember you want to go to a college that you are not only comfortable at but one where you can study what interest you and something to fall back on just in case sports don’t work out for you.