Scholarships – Page 2 – Do It Yourself College Rankings

What are My Chances of Getting a Softball Scholarship?

06/01/202301/25/2023 by Michelle Kretzschmar

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As softball players start deciding which gold teams to aim for, they’ll start asking themselves what their chances are of getting a softball scholarship. And if they aren’t, I’m sure as parents start to pull out their checkbooks to pay for playing on these teams, they’re considering the question. After all, it would be nice if there was some financial return on all their investments in lessons, teams, and travel. However, if you’re planning on using softball to pay for college, you might want to develop a plan B option because the odds aren’t great.

5 Rules About Paying for College That Most Parents Don’t Know

06/01/202301/24/2023 by Michelle Kretzschmar

Woman in glasses and casual attire using a laptop with a blank screen to research ways to pay less for college, sitting on a gray sofa with her feet up.

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(Updated for 2023) If you want to get any financial aid, you need to submit college financial aid applications such as the FAFSA and PROFILE. This is obviously a critical step: no application, no aid. But if you want to pay less for college, it certainly isn’t the first step.

The fact is that the FAFSA is just one of the final steps of many in paying for college. I’m not talking about the savings account you were going to set up for your kids when they were little but never got around to. What I’m talking about are the things you need to know before students even start applying to colleges. Before you even start making a college search list, much less worrying about completing the FAFSA, you should know the following five things about paying for college.

50-50 Highlights: 105 Overlooked Colleges for National Merit Scholarships

06/07/202301/10/2023 by Michelle Kretzschmar

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(Updated 2023) The National Merit Scholarship® Program seems like a great opportunity for test savvy high school students and their families to make a substantial dent in college costs. Well, it really all depends. Much to the surprise of many families, being a National Merit® Finalist doesn’t mean a full-ride scholarship to the college of your choice.

5 Financial Mistakes that Can Limit Your Chance of Playing Your Sport at the College Level

06/01/202311/30/2022 by Michelle Kretzschmar

A collection of sports balls, including a soccer ball, basketball, and football, arranged on grass against a clear blue sky, often used in athletic recruiting.

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So far I’ve covered college recruiting mistakes concerning signs that you don’t understand the college athletic recruiting process and mistakes players and families make about their ability and what it means. Today, I’m going to cover mistakes related to finances when looking for athletic scholarships. If it’s really about using sports to help pay for college, you need to avoid the following college recruiting mistakes:

5 Financial Aid Strategies Parents of Sophomores Need to Know Before the Spring Semester

06/01/202311/15/2022 by Michelle Kretzschmar

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Parents of sophomores need to know that their students’ college financial aid awards will be calculated on the base year that starts January 1 of the student’s sophomore year. This means that the fall semester of the student’s sophomore year will be the last chance parents have to implement some financial aid strategies that could significantly increase their student’s eligibility for need-based financial aid. Furthermore, there will be some major changes of the FAFSA starting with the 2024-25 school year that parents need to be aware of.

Is Stacking Athletic and Academic Scholarships Allowed?

06/01/202309/29/2022 by Michelle Kretzschmar

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The first thing you need to know is that athletic and academic scholarships can’t be stacked at D3 schools because they do not offer any athletic scholarships. Until recently, it was theoretically possible to do so at D1 and D2 schools but only if athletes met certain academic requirements. Otherwise, it was assumed that that athletes were just receiving academic scholarships, or institutional need-based aid, simply because they were athletes. What happened in cases where the athletes didn’t meet the academic requirements, the award money was counted against the total number of scholarships allowed for the team. It was complicated.

15 Things Parents of High School Freshmen Must Know NOW About Preparing for College!

11/29/202209/27/2022 by Michelle Kretzschmar

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As the parents of college freshmen drove home from dropping their kids off at college, many had to be thinking about how they’ll do things differently next time knowing what they know now. Many were probably wishing, “if only someone had told me four years ago when we first started thinking about preparing for college that…, things would have been so much easier.” It’s a common dilemma in life, you don’t know what you don’t know. So I’ve created the following list of things that parents of high school freshmen need to know about preparing for college and how financial aid works. Let me know if you have anything to add.

The Hard Truth About Private Scholarships

09/20/202209/20/2022 by Michelle Kretzschmar

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There are two major delusions/misconceptions about paying for college that too many parents have. The first is that by not saving for college, parents claim this will make their kids eligible for more financial aid. Why bother saving if it means they won’t get any financial aid? This falls into the delusional category. I generally give people the benefit of the doubt but I can’t help but think this has more to do with preferring to spend money now rather than saving for later. Oh, FYI, financial aid doesn’t work that way.

The second is really a misconception that I can’t fault parents for having-scholarships will pay for college. By the senior year in high school, there’s every reason for parents to believe that their bright, high achieving seniors will be able to pay for college if they just apply for enough scholarships. There are easily a dozen different websites just to search for millions of scholarships worth billions of dollars.

Should you tell coaches about an injury during the recruiting process?

08/24/202208/24/2022 by Michelle Kretzschmar

A healthcare professional in blue scrubs and a stethoscope is examining a patient's bandaged leg, possibly from an injury during the recruiting process, while they sit on an examination table.

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Just asking this question suggests that it’s possible to hide the injury from the college coaches. I suppose it’s possible to hide an injury during the recruiting process if it occurs off-season and the player isn’t actually on crutches or doesn’t have an arm in a sling. But how many sports today actually have an off-season? Even those players being recruited in sports that do have a limited season such as football are likely to be playing other sports. Don’t you think the recruiting coach might wonder why the player is sitting out his secondary sport?