EducationUSA Canada
Sports Scholarships
OVERVIEW
The process by which international students are recruited and vetted into American athletic sports programs is lengthy, complex and highly-regulated. Sport scholarships are granted by the university or athletics association in which a university participates, and athletic directors or coaches play a central role in the decision-making process.
Scholarships are provided on a yearly basis and are generally renewable over each of the four years required to complete an undergraduate degree. If you enter university with transfer credits or advanced standing, you will still be considered a first-year student for sports scholarship purposes. It is important to realize that while sport scholarships aid in covering the cost of undergraduate study while playing a sport, you are ultimately working towards completing your undergraduate degree – and maintaining academic standards is often a condition of retaining an athletic scholarship. Your degree can be in any field of interest to you, and can complement your ability in sport such as through the study of physical therapy, sports psychology, management or education.
Award amounts vary from a few thousand dollars to up to $30,000. Universities however are strictly regulated in terms of the amount of scholarship funding they can allocate each year. Subsequently sport scholarships are often offered on a percentage basis, allocated to cover a pre-determined percentage of university costs to you. Larger scholarships held by university or athletic associations are often subdivided as to be allocated to a greater number of student athletes, and therefore offers of partial funding is the norm for athletic scholarships.
Sports programs in American universities and colleges are offered at the varsity (competitive; organized between universities) and intramural or club (participation oriented; less competitive) levels. Some universities offer sport scholarships at the varsity level to students who are academically-qualified and gifted in a particular sport. No scholarships are offered for participation in sports at the intramural or club levels. Athletic scholarships are only available for undergraduate study.
Scholarships can be awarded for the following sports: baseball, basketball, crew (rowing), cross-country, fencing, football (American), golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, indoor track, lacrosse, skiing, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo, women’s field hockey and wrestling.
Archery, badminton, bowling, equestrian sports and squash have been designated as 'emerging sports' and scholarships in these sports are often available to women only in an effort to achieve equality between men's and women's scholarships. Some universities offer martial arts, riflery, rodeo, rugby and sailing, but very few of those will offer these sports on a scholarship basis.