More students are arriving at Cabrini for the love of their sport and not getting paid anything for it either.
The amount of students who play sports at Cabrini is 30 percent and rising. Choosing Cabrini as a college purely based on academics is not something students are doing anymore. Sports are a fundamental factor that has grasped students to enroll at Cabrini College.
Cabrini offers 17 different sports for students who are interested in trying a new sport or continuing to stick with the ones they have been with since before their college years. Cabrini does not give out athletic scholarships because every one of these sports are Division III level. Only academic scholarships based off of SAT scores and grade point averages are given to students.
Would this be a reason for prospective college students to shy away from Cabrini, or would other factors counteract this fallback altogether?
“Any athlete who is playing Division III really loves the game because you are not getting scholarships here, so you’re paying out of your pocket,” Saleem Brown, an admissions counselor, said. “The chances of going professional are very slim as compared to maybe a Division I or Division II [school], who may give scholarships.”
Brown is a 2004 alumni of Cabrini College. He played basketball for the Cabrini Cavaliers during his undergraduate years. Recalling his decision to choose what college to go to, he remembers the sports the college offered as being a relatively important factor in his choice. As an admissions counselor, he sees many students being faced with the same decision as well. “Whenever a student athlete is looking at a college, they want to make sure one: do they have my major?; and two: do they have my sport? I don’t think any student who is interested in playing is going to a school where they don’t have their favorite sport there,” Brown said.
With over 50 Pennsylvania Athletic Conference Championships, Cabrini is in the lead of the conference. “A student and an athlete would much rather go to a winning program, probably pay money to go to that school and want to come here and pay the tuition [rather] than go to another school and take a losing season for four years and never win anything.” Brown said.
It is estimated that the rise of students coming because of sports is elevating as the years progress. “For the percent of athletes who want to go here, it was 30 percent last year, I could see it going up to 35 to 37 percent this year.”
Charles Spencer, associate director of admissions, said, “I’d probably say of the people that I talk to, about 20 people could be Division II players, but they decided to go to Cabrini because they want to go to a small school, they want to play and they don’t want to sit on the bench. Some of those are real big determining factors.”
Peter Schauster, an admissions counselor and also an alumni of 2005, ran cross-country and track his junior and senior years. “Cross-country wasn’t the deciding factor on what college to go to, but being that it was a Division III level, I’m not the greatest runner. With training and whatnot, I’m a fairly decent runner. They didn’t cut anyone, so you could basically come out and you’d be on the team. Being part of a team is what I really like about any sort of sport, it’s just the companionship,” Schauster said.
Schauster said, “I think it’s something to be proud of, to be some sort of athlete at that level, regardless of what division it may be.”
Posted to the web by Brian Coary
