There is one thing that is inaccurate in this article. I know for a fact there is indeed cross country scholarships only, but to schools that do not have officially recognized NCAA sports and in this case I'm referring to track and field. The conference we were in did not have it listed as a sport either, although it was a very young conference at the time and has since added it. It is usually a club sport in such cases. I went to such a school and got a lot of money because of this reason. To clear another possible question, we were required to compete on the club track team and we traveled to meets like any other team. We just did not have a conference meet. There's definitely a trade off, but if money is the issue....hopefully that helps. So just because a school does not have track listed as one of their sports, but they do have cross country...see what options exist.
Another thing...D2 school have the same allotment of athletic scholarships as D1 schools. They just might not be fully funded to offer the same amount, which is often the case but you might be surprised who does. I have a friend whom coaches a very small business school on the East Coast whom has so much money to offer he cannot give it away each year due to the limited number of majors on his campus. So just because a school is small, go ahead and check them out anyway if you might have a slight interest in it.
Also, some coaches at small schools might have the influence in the financial aid offices to help out together financial aid packages due to need based reasons, academic rewards, etc. The good thing is that since these are not athletic based, if you decide to no longer compete for the team, they cannot take these away from you strictly for that reason. Ask around though. Requirements vary for these situations. You might have to keep a minimum GPA, etc. I'm from the East Coast originally and there was quite a few small, private, D3 schools that offered such assistance so do not limit yourself to athletic scholarships only.
Posted on Jul 2, 2009, 5:57 AM from IP address 72.199.58.203