What is an athletic scholarship?
An athletic scholarship is an amount of financial aid awarded to a student-athlete from the college athletic department. These athletic scholarships are awarded based on the student’s athletic abilities and how they can contribute to the team. A coach decides who receives scholarships and how much they are awarded.
Both the NCAA and the NAIA offer athletic scholarships to prospective student-athletes. However, Division 3 schools in the NCAA do not. Their scholarships usually come from other areas of the school, and not the athletic department.
There are two types of athletic scholarships: full and partial. Some collegiate teams only offer full ride scholarships, known as head count sports and others offer both full and partial scholarships , known as equivalency sports. Head count sports can only offer full scholarships to a limited number of players on the team. Equivalency sports can offer full scholarships and can also divide full scholarships into partial scholarships and give the athletic scholarships to more members of the team.
Whether or not you could earn a full or partial athletic scholarship depends on several things: your sport, your athletic abilities, your potential at the school, and the availability of scholarship money on the team.