Greetings all! Yes, I found the other swim parenting thread, but it's two years old, so thought I'd start a different one.
Our daughter is currently a junior with decent swim times. We've started getting letters from D3 schools interested in her swimming for them. Thus, questions abound.
a) Is there such a thing as D2 schools? Our DD has great times (as a junior!) to place and in some instances win D3 meets right now, but she is nowhere near D1 times. Where is D2?
b) So far, the two states we want her to look at (Texas and Virginia) have many D3 schools, but only one total (in VA) state school. If you have a child going to a D3 private school, how much financial aid (percentage of total cost is fine) did you get from the school? (Yes, I know that D3 schools don't give athletic scholarships, but I'm learning, at least for other sports, they will find money to get your kid there.)
c) Does the financial support come with a guarantee to 4 years of support? What if my child gets injured?
d) Is there such a thing as financial support for College Club swimming? (I only just learned of CCS in another thread.)
e) Anything I'm not thinking of with respect to a child competing in a varsity sport in college? Holidays ruined? Required living arrangements? Practices taking precedence over studies? I don't even know where to begin.
I thank you all in advance. This'll be our first of four we're self-supporting. (Previous one used my GI Bill and the other two both joined the military.) Our current college kid knew exactly where he wanted to go and (thankfully) got accepted there. Our daughter isn't sure where she wants to go or exactly what she wants to study. (We've recommended a gap year and she is not for that at all!)
Cheers all and stay healthy!
Thanks Calvin and Windrath, both very helpful.
As to the Northeast, our daughter expressly does NOT want to stay up here. We're a military family (I'm retired, but still DoD), so we're sked to move from Boston the summer after she graduates anyway, so there'd be no benefit to her going to a state school up here as we'd lose residency the minute she starts, plus she hates winter, which won't help with her studies.
She wants Texas A&M, mostly because she loves the state, campus, city and we have family there. She knows she won't be able to swim there, except we just learned about CSS, so that excites her. She'd be out of state unless I can pull an assignment there, but as I recently learned, Texas law requires 3 years of residency before granting residency rates. Sigh... But! A&M does have a policy that if the student brings in $4000/year of outside support, they're considered state residents for tuition purposes, so there's that.
We are also making her look at VA schools, mostly because we own a home there, that's technically our home state (although Uncle Sam doesn't see it that way, except when I have to pay state taxes every year b/c of the house), so I can make an argument for state residency AND that's probably next assignment location. We'll see.
Our DD loves swimming, especially competing, so I think her impetus is to continue swimming and not hoping swimming will get her college money. She's competitive, and our recent looking at meet results for some D3 schools where she would have placed 1st in some of her events has intrigued her. She's pretty open on a major, so most of the schools we look at she's happy with, academics-wise.
Thanks for the insight from an athlete and coach. Very helpful. Looking at the college swimming site now. Thanks also for that.
Thanks Calvin and Windrath, both very helpful.
As to the Northeast, our daughter expressly does NOT want to stay up here. We're a military family (I'm retired, but still DoD), so we're sked to move from Boston the summer after she graduates anyway, so there'd be no benefit to her going to a state school up here as we'd lose residency the minute she starts, plus she hates winter, which won't help with her studies.
She wants Texas A&M, mostly because she loves the state, campus, city and we have family there. She knows she won't be able to swim there, except we just learned about CSS, so that excites her. She'd be out of state unless I can pull an assignment there, but as I recently learned, Texas law requires 3 years of residency before granting residency rates. Sigh... But! A&M does have a policy that if the student brings in $4000/year of outside support, they're considered state residents for tuition purposes, so there's that.
We are also making her look at VA schools, mostly because we own a home there, that's technically our home state (although Uncle Sam doesn't see it that way, except when I have to pay state taxes every year b/c of the house), so I can make an argument for state residency AND that's probably next assignment location. We'll see.
Our DD loves swimming, especially competing, so I think her impetus is to continue swimming and not hoping swimming will get her college money. She's competitive, and our recent looking at meet results for some D3 schools where she would have placed 1st in some of her events has intrigued her. She's pretty open on a major, so most of the schools we look at she's happy with, academics-wise.
Thanks for the insight from an athlete and coach. Very helpful. Looking at the college swimming site now. Thanks also for that.
