WAG College recruiting

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gymgal

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Rather than pulling the current young recruiting thread further off topic, I figured I'd start a new one.

I would like input from those who have been or are currently going through the recruiting process, and from coaches.

What exactly are the different situations you encounter when dealing with colleges? What exactly do the coaches say and does this change based on the grad year of the gymnast? Is it as direct as "we are offering you a full ride scholarship" or more subtle "we would be thrilled of you joined our team". When pressed regarding scholarships do they give you more information?

Do the colleges extend more offers than the scholarships they have available and then as the time gets closer they decide who gets the athletic scholarships? I know I have read this about other sports, with players assuming they were recruited with scholarship assurance when in reality, it was just a spot on the team.

What is the rationale for publicly announcing a commit? Is it to serve as a form of validation that - yes, this conversation did take place and we are holding you to it? Do these commits all entail scholarship offers? Are there club gyms who don't allow their gymnasts to public announce a commit before actually signing the LOI?

Ds is a competitive swimmer and his club has had numerous teammates get scholarships. I don't ever recall them announcing them until the LOI signing party. Could be that swimming is different or could be that the club has made the decision to not announce until it is official.
 
I'm glad you started this thread, I have the same questions!
 
A. Is it as direct as "we are offering you a full ride scholarship" or more subtle "we would be thrilled of you joined our team". When pressed regarding scholarships do they give you more information?

B. What is the rationale for publicly announcing a commit? Is it to serve as a form of validation that - yes, this conversation did take place and we are holding you to it? Do these commits all entail scholarship offers? Are there club gyms who don't allow their gymnasts to public announce a commit before actually signing the LOI?

Well as someone who has been through this twice (yes, I know, shoot me now), I can answer as to what we went through...

A. Yes it was as direct as that ...for all of our offers the coaches said exactly that , no beating around the bush.

B. I don't think clubs prohibit the gymnast from announcing their commits because it's good marketing for the gym...the rationale for publicly announcing commits is I think it's just part of a more open society now , where everything gets announced on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc...and of course, the girls are thrilled when they get the offer! We did ask the schools if it was ok to announce it publicly and they all said "of course!"
 
From what I've read Div. I schools have 12 scholarships available and about 20 team spots. Do schools often habe preferred walk ons who earn scholarships later? Or do walk ons receive a large pell grant or something equivalent to offset cost?
 
From what I've read Div. I schools have 12 scholarships available and about 20 team spots. Do schools often habe preferred walk ons who earn scholarships later? Or do walk ons receive a large pell grant or something equivalent to offset cost?
That is a great question. My daughter is going to be a Sophmore and a Level 10. She has always hoped to get on a D1 or D2 team. In our research we discovered that on most teams there are way more girls than scholarships, so it just seems like it isn't possible to get a scholarship if there are only 12 scholarships and the school may not actually be able to give out all 12 and there are 20 kids on a team....and in a year say 3 Seniors graduate wouldn't the kids already on the team without a scholarship who have proven themselves get those 3 scholarships leaving none for incoming freshman??? On the hand if the kids are competing without a scholarship what would motivate the shool to give them one when they can keep adding on to their team and having the majority compete for free? This practice really, really seems unfair.....also we heard that lots of kids that teams have as walk-ons don't get to compete......seems unfair that a coach would invite a kid to walk-on and then never let them compete. Seems like the Coach to encourage them to go somewhere where they will actually be able to compete.
 
@ stormy you might be right in your assumption that once a walk always a walk since scholarships are so limited. Though I know in say football, walks often earn scholarships later on in their career.

My DD is hoping for the same. If she progress as she has been she will be a lvl 10 freshman year, after reading the other thread and looking at gymdiva my DD seems to have started the sport a year or two too late. there is already over 50 or more level tens for her graduating year. Silly me, I thought potentially four years at lvl 10 would make her very recruitable if she had success at that level. Guess we will see in a few years.

I was recruited to a D3 school (no scholarships) and they gave me almost $8k in pell grants, unfortunately it was a private school and that only covered about half. I would assume that walks ons would get a little more assistance as a student athlete vice a student of similar financial background.

I will have to find what it said about splitting scholarships irt title IX, but I thought the article I read said a school could.
 
This might be a dumb question but how do you know which schools are D1, D2 and so on.
 
Division 1 Colleges may fund 12, full, athletic gymnastics scholarships in any given year. There are no "partials" in gymnastics because it is a Title IX headcount sport. There is no NCAA limit on the number of gymnasts who may be on a team, but each team may have its own limit and only 15 gymnasts can be on the floor as competing gymnasts. At NCAA nationals, for instance, it is common to see some team members sitting in the stands.

Sometimes these teams have gaps in 4-year contiguous scholarships. For instance, Gymnast A is 2015 but would like to come in 2016 because she is trying for the Olympics. Her college will have a 2015 one-year scholarship it can offer to one of its gymnasts or as incentive to recruit a gymnast they would like to join the team. There is no "priority" among walk-ons, but each gymnast (on the team and who have verballed to the team) has an expected arrangement with their team (based on merit, team need, etc.). Scholarships are renewable year-to-year and sometimes are not renewed, causing gaps. Gymnasts can medical, causing gaps.

Although some NCAA sports are different, gymnasts who have "walked on" their D1 teams can receive neutrally-awarded other scholarships. For instance, some schools offer free tuition if an applicant scores a 30 on her ACT. This aid is completely separate from the gymnast being on the gymnastics team and needs to be kept separate in its decision-making criteria.

No offer and verbal is binding until the gymnast signs an NLI during their senior year. Even if they sign an NLI, they must be admitted to the school and must be certified eligible by the NCAA clearinghouse. Being admitted to some schools is not difficult, but a few top academic schools have their own minimum scores/GPAs for athletes and have unique course requirements. Further, particular academic schools, such as UNC, GW(?), W&M(?), Ivies, and Stanford cannot academically admit a gymnast until after their junior year. For this reason, many gymnasts with athletic offers to attend these schools wait until summer or fall of their senior year to announce their verbal.
 
NCAA Women's gymnastics teams, by division (from the USAG website):

Link Removed
 
A fully funded D1 school has 12 scholarships, but not all D1 schools are fully funded. There are D1 schools out there that have less than 12 full scholarships. Also, 12 full scholarships can be split up (even the schools with less than the 12 tend to split up the scholarships), so it would be possible for a roster of 20 girls to all have scholarships, but only a percentage. It's kind of like salaries in the real world, you don't really discuss them among your teammates (co-workers).

My dd has lived the true Cinderella story, I don't think I'd believe it either if I did live through it. My dd wasn't even a L10 until her Junior yr. She started off fine (competing her Jr yr) and then had an injury that basically sidelined her for the rest of the season. She was able to fight back and be released by her dr. 2 weeks before Regionals (she was able to be petitioned in). She competed Regionals and placed on bars, but nothing else, didn't make NIT or Nationals.

She ended up verbally committing (Oct of her Sr yr) to her D1 school and signed her NLI back in November of her Sr yr. She was given a partial scholarship, at the time it was specific percent communicated. She started her Sr yr, only her 2 yr of 10 and honestly an unproven 10 because she missed most of her 1st season of competing due to the injury. She ended up being a State event champion, a Regional event champion and even qualified to Nationals. Shortly after Nationals, dd got a phone call from her college coach and she was told that he upgraded her partial scholarship to a full ride.

Honestly, like I said, I wouldn't believe the story either, but I am living part of this dream as well. This whole process will toy with your mind, make you a doubter and with what seems like every other girl committing, you start to think it is never going to happen. There are no guarantees, but anything is possible.
 
A fully funded D1 school has 12 scholarships, but not all D1 schools are fully funded. There are D1 schools out there that have less than 12 full scholarships. Also, 12 full scholarships can be split up (even the schools with less than the 12 tend to split up the scholarships), so it would be possible for a roster of 20 girls to all have scholarships, but only a percentage.

Womens Gymnastics is a head count sport for scholarships in D1. These schools can only give out 12 fullride scholarships total. They cannot take 12 scholarships and split them among 20 gymnasts. And from what I have read, they are also not allowed to give out partial scholarships (like what happened with your dd), even if they don't go beyond 12. They must be full ride. Now, they do not have to offer all 12 scholarships. They could just give out 8 due to budget constraints. Also, the coaches may not be able to offer an athletic scholarship but can offer partial/full academic scholarship so it may seem that all the gymnasts are there on scholarship but they are not all athletic. I wonder how your dd's coach was able to do it. Did she start as an academic and switch to an athletic?
 
No, she never started out as an academic and only have partial athletic. Many of the girls on her team have partial. And if they don't give out partial why do the list partials on collegegymfans??? Maybe fully funded schools are under the rules you are saying, but possibly schools that are not have different rules??
 
No, she never started out as an academic and only have partial athletic. Many of the girls on her team have partial. And if they don't give out partial why do the list partials on collegegymfans??? Maybe fully funded schools are under the rules you are saying, but possibly schools that are not have different rules??
I have seen that too and wondered. I used to think it was because colleges chose not to fully fund each scholarship but when I began reading different sites, they all said full-rides must be given, which I thought was strange. I do know that in D1, the gym scholarships cannot be divided among gymnasts. That can be done in D2 schools though.
 
I have seen that too and wondered. I used to think it was because colleges chose not to fully fund each scholarship but when I began reading different sites, they all said full-rides must be given, which I thought was strange. I do know that in D1, the gym scholarships cannot be divided among gymnasts. That can be done in D2 schools though.

Well, from my own personal experience with my dd, D1 schools can offer partial scholarships.
 
Is there any possibility that since they are "head count" that if they have budget restraints that they may do partial for up to 12, but aren't allowed to give out more than 12?
 
Well, from my own personal experience with my dd, D1 schools can offer partial scholarships.

A D1 NCAA gymnastics team cannot give a partial scholarship to a female gymnast without violating federal law. Any gymnast receiving a partial scholarship would have a federal claim for money damages for discrimination. There are zero exceptions to this law.

A partial scholarship would be taking a $20,000 scholarship (costs of attendance) and giving $10,000 to one child and $10,000 to another child, as is found commonly in MAG. A partial scholarship is NOT, however, 1) giving in-state cost of attendance to an out-of-state gymnast (this works at certain schools), 2) giving an athletic scholarship in only particular years instead of all 4 years, 3) giving a 5th year athletic scholarship, 5) giving all of the perks and benefits of being on a gymnastics team to a gymnast whose tuition is not paid (including food as of 8/1/14) and 6) certain arrangements for international athletes (highly limited).
 
I'm having trouble adding to my post. Not all gymnastics teams are D1 headcount teams because not all D1 programs are headcount programs. Smaller gymnastics schools sometimes have AD that have opted out of this scholarship balance (usually at schools without strong football teams). I'm trying to find the rule allowing these schools to avoid the Title IX balance.
 
I'm having trouble adding to my post. Not all gymnastics teams are D1 headcount teams because not all D1 programs are headcount programs. Smaller gymnastics schools sometimes have AD that have opted out of this scholarship balance (usually at schools without strong football teams). I'm trying to find the rule allowing these schools to avoid the Title IX balance.

I found the exception. D1 schools that do not have the financial resources to fund all of their headcount athletes fully may give their athletic recruits less than the full cost of attendance. The limit of 12 athletes still applies and males and females (on headcount teams) at these schools must be treated the same. Again, this happens within smaller conferences with smaller football teams.
 

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