Negotiating Offer

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Mar 24, 2014
450
18
Parent called me this afternoon about their DD's offers. She is a junior. All offers are about same percentage but the top school will cost the most out of pocket. They wanted opinions on 1) if it was appropriate to go back to top school about increasing percentage and 2) how to ask without offending.
 
Last edited:
Oct 5, 2017
214
43
Western Indiana
I have never negotiated with a coach because my son and daughters did not wish to continue athletics in college. All three are very good students and had many offers of scholarships to go to certain colleges. So I have talked to a lot of admissions people at different schools. One avenue I would suggest is talking to the financial aid department at the desired school to see what they have to help out. One thing that I have learned is there is always extra money to give out in scholarships that no one knows about or that do not get claimed/used.

You could also see if the coach would talk to the financial aid department on your behalf. If they want your DD they may be able to push for more from them. The coach may be tied with what they can offer DD but there are other avenues. Another life lesson I learned a long time ago, you don't know if you don't ask.
 

JAD

Feb 20, 2012
8,231
38
Georgia
A couple of random thoughts....
1) It never hurts to ask if done tastefully.
2) Once your DD signs her NLI her negotiating power drops considerably.
3) Getting multiple schools to "compete" for your DD's signature is the best way to increase your offers.
4) Use total "out of pocket" expenses when comparing offers.
5) Know your budget for "out of pocket" expenses and try to negotiate to that number or lower.
6) Realize that it is in a coaches best interest to sign your DD for the least amount of athletic money possible.
 
Last edited:
Sep 29, 2014
2,421
113
What JAD said:

Always use your "out of pocket expenses" as the true value of the scholarship.

I think Indy's approach also sounds like the tasteful way to approach it "the offer sounds good, we are considering the total financial aid that we can get from schools we are considering, do you know someone or have a contact in the financial aid office that might be able to help us find other academic or need based scholarship money"...if they have a real interest they should always offer to help out by at least personally connecting you with someone in the financial aid department so that the financial aid person hopefully treats you a little different than someone walking in off the street.
 
Mar 9, 2015
321
18
Talk to admissions and financial aid to see what other grants or scholarships may be able to get. Also see how much academic money is available. I've seen different levels of academic money but have to get very high ACT/SAT scores, that might not be achievable. Some coaches increase athletic money based on performance. A lot of variables to consider so have to decide as a family if school is best fit. As a rule of thumb I think it's harder to get more money if the initial offer was pretty good.
 

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