At many school events I do, I get people asking me about how to get a sports scholarship to the USA. They’ve heard that they can get a lot of money to pay for an amazing educational experience, and want to know more.
In my work, I am constantly having to explain that what you think the situation might be is not actually necessarily the reality. Many of the students I meet with might already be on sports scholarships at a UK boarding school, and they assume that it will be the same at a US university. The reality, however, is that it can be completely different.
Richard Sherman, a former sports scholar at Stanford University, in 2015 was asked about how student athletes were able to combine sports and academics, saying the following:
As he explains, the nature of how a US undergraduate education works – with more time in class and a focus on cumulative academic assessment – can conflict with the needs of athletes to be in training, weights or analysis sessions. For some students this is manageable, but for others it might not be, something it is important to be aware of when choosing this route.