Football scholarship in USA

[HairyLurcherGirl]

My son is currently doing his A’levels and is planning a year off because he didn’t know what to study at uni. He’s now saying he is interested in a football scholarship at a uni in the USA for next year. He’s a good footballer and says he wants a chance to play at a high level . He has a contact working for some company who helps to sort everything out. I’ve always encouraged travel but four years away now sounds a bit much and I’m really not sure what he’ll come out with in terms of quality of degree. Does anyone have any experience of this system? Thanks

If you mean the 25/26 academic year it is too late - all places and scholarships are offered already. If you mean 26/27 start that's different.

The quality of the degree will depend on the quality of the college/university.

I live in the US and I wouldn't travel here now as an international student given the current administration's attitude to student visas and sudden revocation of visas.

Yes I was meaning 26/27.that’s interesting thanks could you give me a bit more detail on the visa issue please?

Read up on Trump’s views on international students

BBC News

My own DS is interested in a football scholarship. He's only in Year 10 so has a couple of years to go until we start looking at it seriously. I'd be very wary of sending him right now.

Friends son did this and had a great time! It was very expensive for them as a family-travel expenses, insurance etc and he managed to break his leg in the middle of it (def get the best insurance). He came back to uk after and got a job fairly quickly so I assume his degree was ok!

By football do you mean American soccer? Has he had offers from schools? Are you familiar with the ranking/ sizes of schools such as D1 - D6 as relates to sports? Can you afford to travel over to visit the achool
learn about the program and fly him back over breaks or summer?

Yes sorry I suppose I do mean American soccer. I know absolutely nothing as yet and the financial aspect is worrying. My son appears to think that this will all be covered by the scholarship but I’m sure there are many expenses.

@HairyLurcherGirl I would really recommend you take a look at what Trump is saying and doing wrt foreign students. Were you not aware of this at all?

A friend’s lad is going to the US on a scholarship (he is a runner) but the last time I spoke to them about it was before Trump's ruling on Harvard so I am not sure how the land lies for him now. He is doing A levels right now and was planning to go there in September.

As I understand it you take a four-year degree with the first year involving a lot of English and maths and if you are a GB student you will probably be well ahead for that year in academic terms.

Football or soccer as ofc they call it in US is becoming increasingly popular so there are certainly opportunities – but I would research carefully.

It could be a wonderful opportunity and it could be but not might be what we call “a full ride” which would pay for all expenses or it could be a partial scholarship. You have to find out what is out of state/ international scholarship fees and what $$ are being offered in scholarship funds. I am not the correct person to tell you specifics but I would see what is offered, research school online and see if school employs in international recruiter who will be well experienced in all the nuances.

As others have said I know people on a full ride but they don’t pay you to fly home for Christmas they just cover all costs (tuition, loving etc). The pound to the dollar is good but it will still cost thousands every year.

Its isn’t easy to get a full scholarship and you would need to as fees can be 10-50k a year. And you would pay international fees which are high.

You would have to playing fairly high level and soccer isn’t the size it is here. Think more like cricket or rugby. American football is huge.

There are tiers of unis (so think Russell group, old polys etc in terms of differences) and they can be at schools you have never heard of and aren’t really prestigious. They aren’t all in Miami. Imagine winters in Minnesota with -20 degrees weather and waist high snow. No joke. If your son wants a career unless he is playing at NCAA Division 1 it isn’t going to happen. The same way a kid in the UK is almost always going to be at a category one academy in the UK to make it here.

You have to maintain a GPA (grade point average) to keep your scholarship so grades have to be decent but the degree may not be awesome. Also just because you get a scholarship doesn’t mean you will ever play - you may be the reserve team so the a team has people to play against.

It’s a serious culture shock and you couldn’t pay me to live in the US right now.

it’s a nice dream but you need to do a lot more research.

No I really wasn’t aware. This is what comes from trying to avoid the news! I think I feel much better for it ! But thanks for the info.There’s definitely a lot to consider.

You are way behind on the planning here.

How good is your son? Does he play on a school team? County team? Professional development squad?

Does he have videos to start sending to recruiters?

How are his academics? He will need to do the ACT or SAT and provide references from teachers and testimonials from coaches. He should be getting tutoring for the ACT or SAT now if he's serious.

General education requirements in US universities are much broader than English and maths in freshman year - he would be required to do a lab science, probably stats, maths (various levels of calculus), history, a MFL, English language/ writing, psychology... If he's dropped a lot of those at GCSE, he would have to put his ears back and work really hard.

NCAA scholarships only offer a full ride for Division I teams. There would be no advantage to applying if he isn't likely to be accepted into a Division I program or at most Division II. Even those programs have a cap on the number of full ride scholarships they can offer. Soccer scholarships are extremely competitive as soccer has been a very well established sport in middle class areas for decades now, and schools producing athletes likely to get NCAA soccer scholarships tend to be excellent academic schools too.

Some really great points about SATs, broad subjects and videos.

As an example my kid recently was selected and played for a national team (football) and was asked to send x40 clips approx and x5 full games. Plus a whole load of info from his club (physical aspects, past injuries, height, school report etc) It was a lot of effort with his club to get this done.

So here you have three a levels (techs I don’t think will cut it) but over there it is broader like GCSE’s to get to uni. You also may have to take entrance exams.

Sorry OP but this sounds a bit like a good idea but not a serious consideration. It is big business in the US and not like getting a scholarship to a private school.

Yes good post from @mathanxiety with a lot more detail than I know.

I meant to say that the lad I know doing this (or something like it) has been talking to different institutions in the US for at least two years to see what he needed to do and what it would all entail before he got his current offer.

I have a friend who is a senior US academic, she is currently on an overseas study trip with a number of students and she is pretty worried that there will be an issue at the border when they get back. I would not even contemplate this under the Trump government.