What is up with college eq team recruiting?!?
The race for college teams is so weird to me. I did not ride in college, but my daughter and her friends are on a race for it. (trying to go D1, etc…)
Flying all over for a mediocre camp, getting so many videos, making websites, sucky coaches, eq finals, then just waiting for the moment to sell said hugely invested finals horse.
Is the return really worth it? Most colleges are not that competitive in our kids major for a scholarship. Oh my.
Ha ha, I have a recruited athlete (different sport). Except for the sale of the horse, what you wrote is true for all athletic recruiting. (Well maybe with the exception of big time football/basketball). Many people use recruiting to get into selective colleges with low admit rates, so there is a payoff, the value of which depends on each family’s particular circumstances.
The potential problem is that many of those schools (the hard to get into D1 schools where you might use your position as an athlete to improve your chance of admission even if you can’t get a big scholarship) are not the schools that offer riding teams. So I think that makes the pool of schools smaller for serious riders who also want specifics out of their academic path.
Probably cheaper to just pay the tuition rather than chase an equestrian athletic scholarship. 
My family owns a sports performance company and part of that is helping advise kids through their recruiting process for several sports. There are VERY few athletic scholarships, despite what people tell you. If you look at the number of people competing for the spots, and the limited amount of schools that can offer them (only D1), spread out across multiple sports, it is slim odds.
The vast majority of students who play college sports are there either on academic scholarships, or do not receive aid related to grades/sports. I always tell our students that if a coach has two equally talented athletes, and one has better grades, the coach is going to pick the one with better grades because its one less thing the coach has to worry about, and then they can offer academic scholarship money (any division school can do that) and save athletic scholarship money for the students they really want/need.
Another issue I see is this hang up kids have on the school being D1. Sure, it sounds great, and the kids are all starry eyed, but few actually look at if the school is a good fit for them. It is not uncommon to see kids go off to a D1 school and it turns out it is not a great fit for a variety of reasons. I always ask our students if the school will serve their academic needs/career paths, how do they feel socially and culturally in the school, and THEN how would they mesh with a particular team? For many (not all) D1 sports, the rosters are deep and the student becomes one of many. Often in D3 sports a student will receive more mentoring and play time because the roster isn’t as deep. Just because a school sounds cool doesn’t mean they will work well with that trainer or training philosophy. These are all personal preferences a student needs to think about.
Lastly, remind your daughter she can show outside of the college team. I hated my college team (drama, politics, bad coaching) and was captain my Sophomore year and quit. I was learning FAR more riding elsewhere and wanted to pursue that. I am still to this day grateful I made that choice. Wherever she goes, there will be a trainer nearby that she can link up with. A team is for a few years, her academic pursuits are forever.
In addition to the good advice already in this thread, I’d add that being on an equestrian team in college does not appear to give most students a boost in their horse lives post college. It’s not like football or basketball where playing in college is a pipeline to bring a pro in the sport. College competition is siloed off from the USEF and FEI rated show circuits which are where horse pros make their names. You don’t get recruited out of college horse teams to “ride pro” in some way. The young folks who switch to pro after they age out of juniors are embedded in show barns as working students, assistant trainers, exercise riders, etc. And not going to college.
What are the goals of these girls? Do they need scholarship money or could the cost of horses and competing just go into a college fund? Do they have academic goals and career goals? Are the schools with riding teams a good fit otherwise?
I can totally see a bunch of competitive 16 year olds getting swept up in the glamor of getting an equestrian scholarship as a testament to their riding, but it may not be a good fit. Especially what will they do if the coaching is not up to par? Or they dislike the team situation? They can’t keep their scholarship if they quit the team.
These girls should find a college that has a good academic program for their career plans, that they can afford without a scholarship. If the college is in the suburbs or a small town there will be riding opportunities off campus.
Such good advice
Equestrian scholarships are counted as a Equivalency sports when accounted in Division 1 and 2,
Equivalency sports have a certain dollar amount they can split among multiple athletes in any proportion they choose. This includes all of the other sports
NCAA Allowed Scholarship Numbers Equivalency Sports **
There are NO Equestrian scholarships (Zero) for Males Division 1 or 2
There are women 15 per school school for Division 1 and 2
my oldest daughter went to a private college and was able to take Riding as a course every semester. And Added Note these private colleges do look for diversity in the student body and will offer scholarships. She was on a 50% scholarship which made the cost less than attending a state school here …and she got an excellent education as 97% of her professors held PhDs
If she were looking today Sweet Brier would be at the top of the list
Our oldest son was requited by a Division 1 school, they offered him an academic scholarship that included a slot in their equestrian program as an enticement … he was eighth in his high school class of about 750. He was riding several disciplines at the time and into computers and had already accepted another
The game has changed SO much. I was on a team from 2006-2010 on a full scholarship—basically one of the last of its kind. I was a good zone-level rider, but nowhere near what they recruit nowadays. Now I’d wager that, except for trainers’ kids, 90 percent of the kids on the team don’t need a scholarship.
I was on a team too (during the same years!). I had a $5k/yr scholarship (not much, but it combined with a much heftier academic scholarship). Things have drastically changed from back then. There didn’t used to be the crazy recruiting where juniors spend their entire junior careers with the sole purpose of getting on a team like what happens now.
The team is only given so many “full rides” and they get to split it up how they want, so I doubt many people get full rides these days. I only knew of one full ride when I was doing it, and that was out of 80ish girls. A lot don’t get any money at all.
There were plenty of other team perks though; things like free books, free tutors, and a special academic advisor so you get the best class schedules and professors. I personally loved it, but I also don’t think it’s worth the pressure I see some juniors putting on themselves.
My daughter went to Oklahoma State a D1 school on an full ride equestrian and academic scholarship from 2012-2016. Her goal was not to be a professional rider. The cons was the time commitment to the team as she double majored in Physiology and Microbiology. The pros were it paid for her entire education, room and board, books, free tutoring and preferential scheduling of classes. Year wasn’t a well known rider, but she catch road a lot and I believe that helped.
There are so many options to riding in college - it’s not all about the NCEA. Scholarships are not given out as freely as they would have you believe. They use them as a way to recruit the finals winners and the rest of the kids have to get academic scholarships or other financial assistance. There are some schools that do offer riding scholarships but those are for equine studies majors.
I’ve always told kids to find the right school for them and then worry about the riding later. Some of my kids have had successful careers after not riding in college and others have used the IHSA experience to become better riders. NCEA teams are geared toward title IX compliance not towards creating a career. The majority of the kids on NCEA teams are there as place holders to keep the academic averages up to snuff not to compete.
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