Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton have insane endowments and need based financial aid. If someone has a household income under 120K - will be cheaper to go to stanford than UNC (out of state). I believe HYPS have some financial aid over 160K in household income.
also, travel baseball and travel soccer are also very affluent sports so the parents can afford to pay college. If the quality of a sport were simply based on need based financial aid, harvard, stanford, Yale, princeton would be ranked 1-4. .. (maybe they are, I don't follow baseball)
So...these kids who have families that have been paying for ECNL and travel all over the US since the kid has been 9 or 10 can qualify on a "needs" basis? Very interesting. Most of these kids that he is recruiting are not poor inner city kids. Maybe a few come from lower socioeconomic situations, but they would be outliers.
you can play around with calculators on various college webpages (they all have them), and YES if your household income is under 160K you will get some financial aid from from HYPS. And yes statistically, I believe typical travel soccer household income is ~120K so many of those ECNL girls would get financial aid from HYPS schools. It's the great irony -- standardized text scores correlate with household income - yet the most elite schools are the most "affordable" for families making less than 100K. Which is probably why their financial aid is so generous - not many poor kids have the ability to get into those schools
Stanford, household income below 125K is tuition free. Stanford has insane recruiting advantage. Should be winning titles every year. https://financialaid.stanford.edu/undergrad/how/parent.html best weather in the country, top 3 school by any metric, and as generous financial aid as harvard.
I also find irony in your statement that families making under $100K are "poor." Unless you've seen some of the conditions of inner-city blighted areas you should probably not use the word "poor" so lightly. Many of the people living in those areas would be thrilled to be making $100k per year. Heck, many would be thrilled to make $30K per year.
Stanford disgusts me these days. They are like the private high school in town that steals the top players from the public high school(s.) The good thing is that no matter how many national team players they have riding the bench, there is so much talent in the PAC-12 that they are bound to lose at least 2-3 conference games every season. They are easy to cheer against. Granted, their depth can be important toward season's-end if/when injuries stack-up. I'm not saying that any of these girls aren't smart, and girls in general take their studies more seriously than the boys, but I'm pretty sure that Stanford has various men's sports where they admit very borderline students if they are cream of the cream athletes, and then the school holds their hands 24/7 until they graduate. I don't think that's bad in every case...especially for truly disadvantaged kids...but don't give me the laughable line of BS that your jocks are also always top students. Stanford's philosophy towards athletics changed about 15-20 years ago to one of winning at all costs. They'll say differently for PR purposes of course, but let's see the high school transcripts and test scores compared to the past. Go Trojans. Go Bruins. Go Buffs.
I absolutely agree with your point about definition of "poor", but I don't believe that was what chch was saying at all. The point he was making as that since academic achievement correlates so highly with income level, the "need" based scholarships offered by the well-endowed private schools are not that often (with exceptions of course) offered to truly poor (your and my definition) kids because the majority of them don't get the grades to qualify when compared to the more affluent kids from families near the 100K range. Indeed, it is an "irony" (or should we say the facts of life) that the majority of poor folks don't get a fair shake (again with exceptions, of course.)
you are either misrepresenting or misunderstanding me. I did not use "poor" and "100K" in the same sentence. it is true that since standardized test cores are highly correlated with income, that not many poor kids qualify to get into HYPS schools academically. (who ironically could use college tuition assistance a lot more than a family making 100K). The second part that is also true is that since stanford is tuition free up to 125K lots of travel sport kids can go to stanford tuition free since they meet stanford's need based criteria. I was simply factually pointing out in response to previous comment how stanford can take so many players beyond scholarship limits. (tuition free up to 125K) Perversely (I don't know if this is true) in theory the stanford coach could use scholarships for the richest kids (households over 125K) knowing the lesser income but still well off kids would get need based money.
thanks soccer hunter, I never combined 100K and poor in the same sentence. And yes you ascertained the relevant part, the irony is the HYPS schools give need based money to families that don't need it as much as others who will never get into their schools. and yes this topic has got me wondering if Stanford is using scholarships for Doctors' kids knowing other kids can get need based money as a way to stretch scholarships.
....And.... to drive home the point about Stanford's recruiting advantages, do I see that Catarina Macario's verbal commitment has changed from CAL to Stanford? If that is the case, Stanford now once again has the top recruiting class! (Beating out UCLA even with the postponed entry of the US youth and senior national team members.)
She already withdrew her verbal commitment from Cal long time ago. I do not know how she recovered from her ACL injury. IMO Stanford should have won numerous championships. The fact that they have won only one is the most serious underachievement in the history of D1 women's college soccer.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win the college cup. Look at FSU and all those great teams they've fielded over the last 6 years. They made it to the college cup 9 times since 2003 (and every year from 2011 to 2015) and only walked away with 1 championship. They've only made it to the finals match 3 times.
Just kind of funny that after everybody agrees that they had the best recruiting classes years after years and they won only once.
I could see Stanford or a school like it doing this--offering scholarships to the wealthy kids knowing generous financial aid will go to the less well off recruits. What's to stop them? $125K is a pretty high threshold, and so Stanford could effectively have many more players on scholarship than most other schools, which can't be nearly as generous with financial assistance. There might be the occasional parent who really wants an athletic scholarship for his kid to affirm her talent, but most parents are thrilled to get free tuition, no matter how it is offered--who cares. And given Stanford's academic and athletic (soccer) reputation, it is in a very enviable position.
I've said this many times. With the current college rules on liberal subs and the compressed season, with games bunched so close together and little recovery time, the teams with recruiting advantages like Stanford, UNC, etc have a much bigger advantage because of their depth. If you had FIFA rules with 3 subs and spread the season out, parity would increase significantly because you are competing mostly with a starting XI and a couple subs that has proper rest and recovery between games. And as you say, these days there is significant talent spread throughout college soccer. Just because someone has been on YNTs (which usually means they were Id'd at U14) -- which helps get them recruited by schools like Stanford -- it doesn't mean they are the best players at U18 or U20 or in college. Changing the rules would improve the quality of play, make better int'l players, help identify the best players in college, etc. Anson Dorrance and college coaches overall seem to even support the change, and it wouldn't benefit colleges like UNC, Stanford, etc. from a competitive perspective. It's the ADs as a group that don't seem to be on board -- citing possible increased cost, field conflicts in spring or whatever. I think any costs could be offset by having fewer players on a roster. College soccer is for top 1-2% of players anyway, so that shouldn't be an issue.
You can argue the merits of what rules might yield "better" soccer however you want to define it. BUT, in an educational setting like a US College, roster sizes have massive benefits. Each of those 30 soccer players, 125 Football players, 45 Baseball players, etc. is sleeping in dorms, eating in dining halls, buying books and supporting local businesses. Many ARE paying some level of tuition and fees as well. Some small college coaches are specifically told to go out and generate X applicants and fill Y roster spots to help pay the bills. You cannot just ignore all of that because you want to see more attractive soccer in Division 1. So, I would argue limited substitutions, roster limits, and even the full-year season are perhaps good ideas, but are not appropriate for college soccer. It's OK for college soccer to be different! College baseball does just fine with schedule constraints AND has a very mature developmental pro system of minor leagues, like we apparently want for US soccer. It's OK for college soccer to be what it is - an extension of the educational process for college students.
Her knee is fine. Nice kid. I wish her well. A couple of very good players from DeAnza last year on the team in the midfield to complement her skills. Perhaps they will be able to play a game that resembles soccer next year.
I'm not a fan of Stanford, but I think recruiting is only half the battle when it comes to winning a championship. Great coaching, defense, and some luck make up the other half.
Actually I did both - misrepresented you and misunderstood you. I'm sorry about that and it really wasn't my intention to do so. In my first read through your post I thought that the insinuation was there that those families making less than $100K were "poor." With that being said, I agree with your points regarding test score and income correlation. I also will state that most students at schools that are considered "elite", the Stanfords, Dukes, Ivies, etc, are more than likely going to be from homes in which the incomes exceed $100K per year. At those schools, though, will be students, athletes in particular, from homes that have incomes less than $100K. It brings up a lot of interesting questions that have been pointed out here about Stanford recruiting and the offering of scholarships to those from high income backgrounds knowing that many from less affluent backgrounds will get generous need-based aid. I think if all of that is restricted, and I haven't thought enough about it to have a solid opinion on the matter, a new can of worms may be opened up. It's a complicated issue. I know it's an apples to oranges comparison but it would be interesting to look at some of the elite academic D3 institutions, Chicago, Washington in St. Louis, Carnegie Mellon, etc, and see what kind of need-based aid the players on the soccer teams are getting. Those schools are very expensive and are notorious for not giving a lot of merit aid. They are also competitive D3 soccer schools that could probably hand it to some mid-major DI schools. They do, though, have large endowments and are generous with need-based aid. Perhaps a better comparison, because they're DI schools, would be to look at the Ivies. As most of you here know, Ivies don't offer athletic or academic/merit aid. Everything is need-based. I would like stats on all of that but only for curiosity. A larger socio-economic question for soccer and other sports in which the club has taken a prominent role is how much better could this country be in soccer (the National Teams) if we could somehow find a way to serve the truly poor and under-served kids. NTs aside, how many of those kids could develop into impact players on the collegiate level? Soccer already neglects those kids. Baseball has been neglecting them for awhile now. Basketball is moving that way as well, particularly on the girls side. Look how many of the female basketball players are coming from backgrounds similar to where our youth players are coming from - middle class to upper-middle class, disposable money for travel and private training sessions, etc. This is all interesting to me but it is a big digression from the topic being discussed here and not appropriate for this thread. I'm just having a "Holmes-like" stream-of-consciousness writing session.
If you had FIFA rules with 3 subs...Ziggy1010, I understand your thinking/rationale, but for college sports, I'm for unlimited subbing. Can't think of any other team sport that limits subs. But looking at the box scores of most of the top teams, it does seem pretty typical to sub only 3-5 players, especially in the tourney.
PlaySimple - I was going to mention baseball but I think that's only not being able to return after being subbed. A coach can clear his bench and put 9 new players out if he wants to...but those replaced can't return.
The key is to get to and make it through the tourney with your top players healthy/fit. During the regular season, some teams with quality depth (like UNC, UVA,etc) are able spread out the minutes and play 18-19 players and still win. Other teams need to play their top players the bulk of minutes throughout. The toll on the teams with less depth is hard to overcome and the injury risks much greater given the fatigue and lack of recovery between games.
I'm not following. Why would the # of students at a college change if the roster sizes were smaller? They would just be replaced with non athlete applicant eating in the dining halls, paying some level of tuition and fees, sleeping in dorms, etc.