Another big question that comes up relating to College offers is in relation to the quality and quantity of offers. This question is brought up literally everyday.

“We don’t want any offer. We want a quality offer. We want to make sure that it’s a quality offer!”

When I say we, I’m speaking from the voice of a parent or an athlete that’s either on our program or they’re looking for offers on their own. So, what is a quality offer?

Essentially, for us as an organization, a quality offer is what you’ve asked us to go and find, right. When you’re an athlete on the NSR program, you provide your preferences. You provide your preferences in what you want to study. You provide your preferences in areas of the country that you want to be. You provide your preferences in terms of a budget and how much you can spend. You provide your preferences in terms of different levels of play. Our job is to evaluate you, look at what you want to study and the schools that offer that. Look at how academic you are or potentially are not.

“You provide your preferences”

When those coaches look at the information that we’ve provided about you and they come back and say, “Yeah, Johnny is a fantastic athlete. We want him to be a part of this program,” look, it’s a quality offer because it’s ticked all the boxes that you provided us to tick.

Firstly, it’s ticked all the boxes on this side, and on the other side, the coach has looked at everything and they’ve said, “Yeah, I agree. I think he or she would be a great fit for this program. We want to get in contact with this athlete”

Now if you’re not an NSR athlete and you’re out there on your own, we’ve got the 12-step guide available on our website. It’s one of our eBooks that you can download.

If you follow the 12-step guide and you’ve genuinely evaluated each and every bit, what you want to study and you’ve researched schools, you’ve looked at what types of schools that your grades will get you into, your SAT scores if you have one of those, you’ve worked out your athletic eligibility and what divisions and competitions that you’re eligible to compete in, you’ve done some research on the type of athlete that you are and sort of where you fit … it’s the same process.

“The coach has looked at everything and has come back to you and said, Yeah, I would love you to be a part of this program.”

A quality offer is somewhere where you’ve sent your information, the coach has looked at everything and has come back to you and said, “Yeah, I would love you to be a part of this program.” Most importantly, if that opportunity comes through, then the final cost out of pocket is something that is affordable and sustainable for you and your family. The same thing with NSR athletes goes. We’re working within those parameters that you have set in terms of budgets, in academics and sport.

A lot of the time, people believe that a quality offer is somewhere where they’re going to get a large athletic scholarship because look, at the end of the day, a lot of the student athletes on our program are going over to continue playing their sport and athletic scholarship is potentially a big deal. So, a quality offer in a lot of people’s eyes is somewhere where they’re going to go in and receive an academic scholarship or a large Athletic scholarship.

“Even places that don’t offer Athletic Scholarship have ways of-decreasing costs”

Let me ask you this. If there’s one school that’s $30,000 a year that wants to give you a $10,000 athletic scholarship or there’s a school that’s $30,000 a year, they’re just as competitive, but you qualify for three different types of grants that gives you $18,000 in scholarship and that leaves your cost 12,000 a year as opposed to 20,000 a year. One’s giving you an athletic scholarship, one’s giving you several different forms of financial aid, which offer is better? They’re just as competitive in terms of programs. Is one better than the other? That’s for you to decide which one’s more “quality” for you and what you expect, but certainly, the athletic scholarship component does not make the offer what it is. It does not make it more quality than another offer.

Also, there are plenty of schools that have unbelievable Athletic programs that don’t offer scholarships at all. Even places that don’t offer athletic scholarship have ways of-decreasing costs. Again, the scholarship itself, whether it be athletic, academic, a combination of several different forms of financial Aid that shouldn’t be the determination.

“Ultimately, is it an opportunity that’s going to be affordable and sustainable over the course of time that you stay in the US?”

It should be, does it meet your academic needs and allow you to study what you want? Did the coach feel that you’re a good addition to that program? Is it going to be a place that is catered to your ability and giving you the chance to get involved and compete early and often? Ultimately, is it an opportunity that’s going to be affordable and sustainable over the course of time that you stay in the US? I think a lot of people think a quality offer is from Stanford or a quality offer is from UCLA or a quality offer is from University of Florida or Florida State or- The big schools that everyone knows about, that’s a quality offer. Anything aside from that is not quality enough and not worth my time.

I promise, if you get an opportunity from one of those schools, it’s not going to be a quality offer because it’s going to cost you a fortune – Or if you’re an athlete that attracts an offer from a program like that, it’s because-you’re one of the best Athletes in your entire country, and you’ve earned that.

Programs like that don’t give offers to people that aren’t on top of their sport- In the top 2% in their entire country.

“there’s a ton of quality options out there aside from the top 20 schools that you can Google”

If you’re just a standard athlete, a standard player, you don’t play for the country, you don’t do anything like that, but you only think that a quality offer is going to come from a place like Stanford or Oregon or Texas, then you need to spend more time doing research and understand that there’s a ton of quality options out there aside from the top 20 schools that you can Google.

Quality offers are not what we think are quality offers. Quality offers are essentially what you determine to be quality. It’s not our opinion essentially that matters we obviously work on your behalf and if you’re part of the NSR program we promote your information to the schools that obviously you can get into academically first, and foremost somewhere that’s based on your preferences and if you have a particular area of the country that you want to head to.

“if you’re not on top of your game in your country, then opportunities in your first year at those particular schools probably aren’t going to come through”

Again, we always suggest that you keep your preferences in terms of locations pretty open. You don’t want to seclude yourself to a particular part of the country. You want to receive offers from everywhere and from a college that suits you athletically.

As mentioned before, UCLA and Stanford – if you’re not on top of your game in your country, then opportunities in your first year at those particular schools probably aren’t going to come through and  that’s going to be affordable. If you are going at it alone, these are the things you need, with the 12-step guide, these are the things you need to look at before contacting a coach at a particular school.

Are you eligible for that school first and foremost? Because if you’re not and you’re just contacting schools at random coaches a lot of the time aren’t going to look too much into it.

Flying by the seat of your pants and just sending information, random schools here and there and not doing any research … You will not get an offer that way.

“You’ve provided us with your academics, what you want to study and your budget”

Much less a quality offer. It’s all without any structure, without any direction in terms of how you’re going about this process, then it’s very, very difficult to even get a response, much less an actual offer.

Remember, you’ve given us preferences. You’ve provided us with your academics, what you want to study and your budget. We’ve evaluated your athletic eligibility. We’ve then shared that information with programs in safe areas of the United States.

In places that complement who you are as an academic and an athlete, and when an offer is passed through to you from our team, it’s because that’s a direct result of your ability, your academics, your budget, your everything. We would look at it as a quality opportunity, but at the end of the day, we don’t decide what quality is for you. You look at the options that you’ve got and you make that decision.

“It may just be the fact that you’ve been able to create a better relationship with one coach over the others”

You look at the options that you’ve got based on everything that you’ve given to us and you decide, I think that this school in Kansas or this school in Florida or this school in North Carolina-is my best opportunity. Again, that’s your decision to make.

You are the one that determines which one’s more quality. It may not be anything that separates the schools in terms of academics or scholarship or any of those finer details. It may just be the fact that you’ve been able to create a better relationship with one coach over the others. They were more on top of their communication. They made you feel more wanted than another program, and that’s been the difference in terms of what has allowed you to feel that one offer is more quality than another offer.

 

Don’t forget to grab your FREE 12 Step Guide on how to find Sports Scholarships in the USA – Click the image below to get yours