Pursuing an Athletic Scholarship If you have just graduated high school, you are probably thinking about college options for your future. It is very wise to think about options for your future before the future actually arrives. Many people make the mistake of not thinking about their future and then they do not have any goals to work towards. Many of these people find themselves squandering away their time and not really doing much of anything. Many high school graduates, when thinking about their future goals, realize that they would like to attend college on scholarship. They may decide this for a variety of reasons. A lot of high school graduates also cannot afford to go to college and pay for tuition out of pocket. This makes sense, considering college tuitions are higher than ever before.
How Will You Fund a College Education? College tuitions, unfortunately, will continue to rise. This can be detrimental for high school graduates. Sometimes, when high school graduates look at the actual figures of how much tuition is for their desired school, they become very disappointed. They know that they cannot afford to pay for school and they are disheartened. However, many students realize that they can try to apply for scholarships so that they can attend the school of their choice. Many students try to apply for athletic scholarships in particular. When a student decides that they want to apply for an athletic scholarship, they may believe a few things that are not true. For example, many students believe that you have to be exceedingly good at your sport in order to qualify for an athletic scholarship. This idea is simply not true. While you do have to be talented and a hard worker in your sport, you do not have to be at an Olympic level in order to qualify for your sport.
It is up to you to market yourself so that coaches and people from the sports teams of colleges notice you and see that you have talent. You must go out of your comfort zone enough so that you can be noticed.
Getting Noticed by Schools and Scouts Many lazier students think they can just be good at their sport, and their phone will suddenly start ringing with offers for athletic scholarships from many different schools. While this is probably the case for a few small percentage of athletes, this is not the case for the average high school athlete. If you want to start marketing yourself for an athletic scholarship, you will need to review the kinds of divisions that exist within college athletics. Within the National Collegiate Athletic Association, there are 3 divisions that teams can be assigned to. It would probably be helpful to know a little bit about each division, and what qualifies a team to be assigned to a specific division. If you go into talk to a coach about a scholarship, make sure you’re wearing the apparel of the school that the coach teaches at. Wear your Florida State apparel proudly when you walk in to talk to the coach. The coach will be able to tell by your Florida State apparel that you are serious about getting an athletic scholarship to Florida State. Photo Credit: Lee Stockton, donsathletics, Dianna Chenevert