Stop making blanket statements!!! Every situation is different and every program has their own philosophy. Some "Big Time" top 20 schools like to spread the money around (give 25 -60%) and get more kids that are very good and have a chance to be starters. Some of the "Big Time" top 10 schools like to identify 2-4 girls they feel are "can't miss" impact players that they offer 75% plus to. YES some FULL RIDES (athletic, including room, board and books))!!! They are able to do this because they will get Very good players to go there for little or no money, because they are happy to get into a great college and have a chance to win a national championship. (who knows, they may get academic or financial money as well.
Please allow BOTC to offer some calculation based on your numbers.
First, let's look at the NCAA scholarship counts. Remember that lacrosse is an equivilency sport which allows for fractionated scholarship offers and that these are measured not in terms of dollars but annual funding of a single spot.
NCAA D1 Sport ...... Men's Women's
Lacrosse ........... 12.6 / 12.0
NCAA D2 Sport ...... Men's Women's
Lacrosse ........... 10.8 / 9.9For ease of calculations, let's just use a total team scholarship count of 12.0.
Your calculations suggest 25%-60% athletic scholarships are awarded. If the average recruiting class contains 10 student-athletes, that would imply upwards of 2.5 total scholarships to a freshman class. If you assume the midpoint, that would imply 4.25 scholarships which over four class years would come out to 17.0 scholarships exceeding the NCAA limit. Hence, clearly, an average of 0.425 across 10 recruits is too high.
Now, let's go to your 75% estimate for a targeted set of 4 can't-miss recruits. That would come to 3.0 scholarships which multiplied by 4 classes would imply the full allocation of 12.0 awards. Hence, no other entering students would receive money nor would any existing award winner see their award increased. So, clearly four student-athletes getting 0.75 athletic scholarship does not work either.
Hence, we can conclude that both of your sets of numbers are wrong. If that does not convince you, let's try it this way : What very good player will attend an institution for no athletic scholarship in order to allow four other players to harvest the bounty?
BOTC has said the same thing over and over - a 0.25 offer is a solid freshman offer on average. If you work the numbers from a 0.25 base, you will start to understand why that award becomes the standard.
