Originally Posted by CageSage
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Not my son, He is a sophomore with a guaranteed ATHLETIC scholarship that can't change, to a top school (Not Ivy) we negotiated very carefully to ensure his success! Committing to an Ivy is very risky, unless it's the right kid!
Remember a few very important points.

[1] Injury : Any type of injury could eliminate this guaranteed athletic scholarship. Academic money will not disappear as easily.

[2] Golden Tickets and Academics : Ivy League coaches will have golden tickets that allow them to walk specific players through admissions (via a "likely letter") who are on the margin. Expect that an Ivy coach will have no more than three such admission waivers available. Striving for an Ivy education is wonderful if your student-athlete can actually complete the academics. (Hint : If you are not tasting your first Advanced Placement courses as a sophomore, you are behind the curve academically.)

[3] Athletic Money : Ivy League teams do not have money for lacrosse - so the angle has to be about the academics quality.

[4] Guarantees and NLIs : Fourth and most importantly, while it might be comforting to point to your negotiations and guarantees, nothing and we mean nothing is guaranteed without a National Letter of Intent. BOTC just wants you to be very clear about what the word guarantee actually means in this context.


I must disagree with a number of your statements. It does vary by school but the school we committed to which is a top 10 program and top 40 Nationally ranked college, stated that the scholarship offered will not change from the verbal agreement. It can only go higher based on performance. SAT requirements are quite reasonable. Injury will not affect scholarship. We were assured that they committed to our son. Coaches were very firm about that. Research has also shown us that it is extremely rare for a school to rescind a verbal agreement. I could not even find one instance where it actually happened. What does happen, is kids decommit due to a variety of reasons. The only thing that could affect the agreement is questionable moral behavior (arrest, ect) Or failure to maintain reasonable GPA. Every school and kid are different in what they offer. Some people are looking for their above average (not top) kid to walk into an Ivy, that happens , but be prepared to pay big $$. We were looking for a substantial financial package. was a win-win for us, my son, and the awesome school he committed to.