Hundreds of Scholarships for Women’s College Volleyball
Collegiate Volleyball has helped millions of American athletes get financial assistance with their college educations. Most of these scholarship dollars are earmarked for women. Why? Truth is, despite the fact that the NCAA sponsors Men’s Volleyball, the teams are few and therefore the scholarship cash-cow, lean.
But for women the news about volleyball sports scholarships is really good. Both the NAIA and the NJCAA also sponsor women’s scholarship-level volleyball.
NCAA Volleyball Scholarships
In championship men’s volleyball you’ll find 35 teams for the D-I and D-II combined. Each team is limited to 4.5 maximum scholarships. That’s fairly slim. Coaches may opt to create partial scholarships from these funds, giving them more cash leverage for attracting guys to their team. But, unfortunately, guys—college volleyball is not a major men’s sport.
But overall the real college competition for volleyball scholarships is among the legions of female athletes. All 3 NCAA divisions sponsor volleyball. D-III lists 420 teams alone, albeit non-scholarship granting. Scholarship cash runs deep from D-I (316 teams) and D-II (275 teams).
Div I women’s volleyball is a headcount sport so each team’s 12 scholarships must be awarded intact, as full-rides, if they are awarded at all. But at the D-II level the 8 scholarships permitted per team may be used at the coach’s discretion. Often they opt to split these 8 into many more partial scholarships, thereby making it easier to multiply the number of ultra-competitive recruits happy just to get partial funding.
NAIA and NJCAA Scholarships Expand Your Opportunities
A lot of air-time is given to NCAA collegiate sports and athletic scholarship sponsorship, but both the NAIA and the NJCAA offer equally rich pools for women’s volleyball scholarships. In fact, these competitive arenas not only provide a possible lower barrier to entry than the NCAA, but they are some of the best-kept secrets when it comes to offering top-notch competition.
The NJCAA sponsors women’s volleyball at the D-I, D-II and D-III levels. Like the NCAA you’ll only be able to seek scholarship money for your athletic prowess through Divs I and II. Full-ride and partial scholarships are common. The NAIA offers excellent opps for volleyball scholarships: over 240 teams with 8 scholarships allotted apiece to work with.
Getting a Volleyball Scholarship
The real work involved in snagging one of the many hundreds of women’s volleyball scholarships is getting motivated to “sell” your skills to the right coaches. If you are not Div I caliber, don’t waste your energies pitching them. Instead have a candid conversation with your high school coach or seek the advice of a professional athletic recruiter. Target those schools and teams for which you ARE qualified to play. Then get your name, your video, your stats in front of their eyes. Call them on the phone and let them know you are hungry for one of spots on their team.