Do American universities hand out athletic scholarships to international students coming in for a master’s degree?

13 comments

1. Not very often. It’s the coaches of those teams and their scouts who search for players to even give out those scholarships. The school itself wouldn’t be looking for international students to give out scholarships for.

   If an international student was looking for a sports scholarship, they better be pretty damn good compared to American players and they likely would have to apply to the school and notify the team to even be on their radar.

2. Obviously the first thing I would suggest is to look at schools that offer your grad program. Look at their track team and see if your times are good enough. After you find some matches, apply and get in contact with the coaches. I see no reason why you couldn’t get some scholly $ if you meet the academic requirements and run good times

3. I don’t believe they do at the masters level but you’d have to look up NCAA rules or call the school you want to go to. Call their athletic department.

4. It’s probably possible to compete, I’m not sure about getting a graduate degree scholarship though.

   The first thing to figure out is if you’re eligible or transfer-eligible https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2017/6/14/international-student-athletes.aspx the NCAA eligibility documentation mostly focuses on high school grads, so you might wanna check them out or send an email. Then once you get that settled you could contact some athletic programs.

   Edit: Here’s the NCAA’s specific page on Dutch students https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2019/1/28/netherlands.aspx it’s mostly focused on high school grads, so your best bet might be to contact them first.

5. Unlikely — graduate students typically don’t participate in intercollegiate athletics, and therefore wouldn’t be eligible for athletic scholarships.

6. It’s incredibly rare, especially since many masters students are eligible for research or teaching grants/stipends. Most athletic scholarships are handed to undergrads, and most people who are student athletes and grad students usually had some of their NCAA eligibility unused.

7. Depends a lot on the school and the person. I know someone who had a scholarship to get their MBA while running track for their school.

8. As others have said, contact individual programs to ask.

   But make sure you also talk to your academic department about academic expectations and sports. If they’ve never had a high level athlete, they might be unwilling or unable to accommodate the practice and competition requirements to maintain your scholarship. I’m most familiar with STEM programs that need 40 hour weeks when things are slow and weeks of 80 or more hours on the busiest weeks isn’t unusual, and busy times will not take sports schedules into account. A running scholarship instead of a teaching fellowship would probably be more of a commitment, not less.

9. Typically athletic scholarships only cover a 4 year degree. At least I haven’t seen one that covered more than that, but I’m sure they exist.

10. if you’re good enough, yeah. There’s no citizenship restriction. But you have to not just be in the D1 ballpark, you have to be pretty damn good. Can’t hurt to try, though, and if you’re running D1 times you might be able to get a scholarship to a non-D1 school.

    I know someone from Germany on a track scholarship at UAB, for example. (bachelor though, I don’t know how it works for Masters)

11. There’s no standard procedure, but it would be pretty uncommon. There are often scholarships for graduate students who are coaching though

12. Contact the coaches of the schools you’re interested in. However, coaches are usually looking to build a long term winning program with feeder tentacles in good high school programs. Most grad students are done in two years.

13. There’s only like 12.6 scholarships for each mens’ team that are typically split between all members. You might want to try to get in touch with some coaches, although those scholarships might already be assigned for next year.