College Sailing
Even though college sailing is not an official NCAA sport, it is a very popular one among universities. Many of America’s most prestigious universities having varsity or club sailing teams. The sport is organized by the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association and is divided into seven different conferences. In total, there are 276 universities that offer sailing as a sport in one form or another. The sport is not considered an official NCAA sport. Hence sailing scholarships are not available in the form that they can be found in other sports such as basketball, football, golf or tennis. However, there are ways to reduce the cost of tuition for talented international sailors, especially for those with good grades and test scores.
The history of college sailing
College sailing has a very long tradition and the sport actually goes way back into the 19th century. Then, Yale was the first university to establish its own sailing club. In 1928, 47 years later, organized intercollegiate sailing was created and has since grown to where it is today. The Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association has its own national championship. Through that, teams can qualify via their respective conference races. The ICSA holds national championships in 6 different categories. Since sailing is a fall and spring sport, half of those championships take place in the Fall and the other half in the Spring.
Scholarship Opportunities in sailing
Even though sailing is not an official NCAA sport, it is basically run like one and the level of competition is very high. This can be attributed to the very long tradition of the sport at the collegiate level and to the importance it has for the repuation of some of America’s most famous universities. Although athletic scholarships are not awarded in the same way as it is the case in other sports, there are ways to reduce the cost for talented international sailors. One of the way to do that, is through an academic scholarship.
Just like it is the case for all other sports, we cannot emphasize the importance of doing well in the SAT and Toefl enough. Furthermore, this will be your chance to qualify for some very good academic scholarship. Our team of experts can help you with the necessary steps for this and knows how you can receive some sort of financial aid at universities with sailing teams or clubs.
Here are some more important facts about college sailing and sailing scholarships:
- Total Number of sailing teams (varsity & club): 276
- Total number of college sailing athletes: c. 3000
- Top ranked college sailing teams: Stanford, Georgetown, Northwestern, Yale, MIT, Washington, Charleston