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!
Let me throw another idea out there since it appears you're in the northeastern USA - consider Canadian universities. If you're contemplating paying out-of-state tuition or private school tuition in the USA, you'll likely find it more economical to pay international rates in Canada (especially given the exchange rate). The USports (https://usports.ca/en) program offers a great academic vs athletic balance. At the top end - University of British Columbia, University of Toronto - swimmers train and perform like D1 athletes in the USA, but there are a wide range of schools and swimming programs. The other nice thing about Canadian university sports is that athletes get 5 years of eligibility. Not everyone needs to take that, but it does give an option to space out coursework and make some demanding faculties like engineering more feasible to balance with swimming. My oldest daughter (who is a dual USA/Canadian citizen) swam at UBC and it was a fantastic experience.
Let me throw another idea out there since it appears you're in the northeastern USA - consider Canadian universities. If you're contemplating paying out-of-state tuition or private school tuition in the USA, you'll likely find it more economical to pay international rates in Canada (especially given the exchange rate). The USports (https://usports.ca/en) program offers a great academic vs athletic balance. At the top end - University of British Columbia, University of Toronto - swimmers train and perform like D1 athletes in the USA, but there are a wide range of schools and swimming programs. The other nice thing about Canadian university sports is that athletes get 5 years of eligibility. Not everyone needs to take that, but it does give an option to space out coursework and make some demanding faculties like engineering more feasible to balance with swimming. My oldest daughter (who is a dual USA/Canadian citizen) swam at UBC and it was a fantastic experience.
