Academic vs. athletic By Jacob Kriewald

It is a normal afternoon, you’re scrolling through twitter and see that an athlete that goes to your school has received an athletic scholarship to play their sport for another four years. But what about the students that are receiving scholarships for something other than athletics?

Since the dawn of social media, people have been able to post about whatever their heart desires, but it has been mainly targeted for a younger audience. One of the things that can be seen often is athletes posting thanks to coaches who have recently offered them a scholarship to go to their school.

“I feel the athletic scholarships often overshadow academic scholarships. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to accumulate large scholarships to schools, especially “full ride” scholarships. Athletic scholarships allow students who are more academically challenged to go to school and even pay less than those who aren’t,”senior Aden Perry said.

One thing that is not seen as often if at all is the students who have received academic scholarships pushing out their scholarships over social media like athletes.

“I think athletic ones sometimes get more notoriety because there are signing days for athletes.  I wish we did that for academic ones, to,” counselor Colleen Pribyl said.

Athletic scholarships are impressive nonetheless. According to scholarshipstates.com, only 7% of high school athletes receive the opportunity to play their respective sport at the collegiate level.

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Academic scholarships are still impressive no matter the dollar amount. A study showed that $6.1 billion in scholarships was awarded to 1.58 million students in 2018 which is around 8.1% of students and receiving around $3,852 per student, according to the washington post.

“Many are also advertised on the windows of the counseling office.  We are advertising them as much as possible.  We can’t do much if students do not apply for them.  One big difference between athletic and academic scholarships is that students need to apply for academic ones typically, whereas athletic ones are often offered by college coaches without any application,” Pribyl said.

Both categories of scholarships are to be respected, but in recent years the number of students advertising athletic scholarships has outnumbered the that of academic scholarships being advertised.

“While students should look to get good grades for scholarships, the return value of your efforts isn’t nearly enough to support you at the next level. Colleges and universities make it difficult for students to understand what is going on by using tricky words and other tactics to try and trick the students,” Perry said.