Sport Scholarships

mr potato head

Hi All


As Macdara Mentioned on another thread there are a lot of good schools & college archers.


Many colleges offer sports scholarships to talented athletes. While they don’t have the bells and whistles that come with American scholarships they do offer a bit of financial aid in one form or another.
You don’t have to be a current Olympian to qualify, the programmes are there to help athletes develop – Shooting at a high intervarsity level, being on the national squad or a young archer who shows potential can be enough to get a foot in the door.

I can only really speak for my experience with DIT Sports, but when we first approached them about archers on scholarships they were very supportive. There have been a number of archers who were awarded full or partial scholarships in the last few years.
So even if there are no current archers on scholarships in your college or you may not even be sure if there is a scholarship program where you study, it is worth investigating!


If you are heading off to college this year or are a current student and you think you would like to see what is available where you study, either contact your relevant sports officers directly or contact me and I’ll see what information I can get for you. (development AT archery Dot ie)
Remember, "if you don't ask, you dont get"

Don’t be afraid to send me enquiries and ideas.


Keith


Irish Independent article on Sports Scholarships

p.s. this year’s DIT program is now open - DIT Sport Scholarship Programme




Update:
I now have contact info for 22 College/University sports offices. About 20 of these offer sports scholarships.

UCD
NUIG
UCC
NUI Maynooth
RCSI
TCD
UL
DCU
DIT
IT Tallaght
IT Blanchardstown
Dun Laoghaire Institute of A,D&T (No info on Scholarships)
Cork IT
Waterford IT
IT Tralee
Dundalk IT
Athlone IT
GMIT
IT Sligo
Limerick IT
Carlow IT
Letterkenny IT

corkarcher

Im heading up to IADT this year and when I asked about scholarships they said they werent offering any at the current time.

connemara man

from what ive heard gmit only give them out for members of the national squad or if you show you are of a very high quality

mr potato head

As Connemara man says, all of the colleges would require the archer to be of a high standard.
There are some good archers at IV level , it would be good to see those who are trying to break through to senior international get more support in whatever ways possible.

Part of the challenge is that most of the colleges would have never thought of awarding scholarships to archers (Some sports officers are not supportive of minority sports)
Most recipients are competing in Athletics, Football, Hurling, Soccer, Rugby and Swimming but if an archer is good enough they should be able to get support. If they are shooting at a sufficiently high level and committed to their training I see no reason why the IAAA can’t help lend some weight to applications. (This is my personal opinion and not yet discussed at the IAAA Exec meetings)


It's no harm in asking the sports officers what's available, all they can say is nothing.
Some of the young archers moving from school into college this year may have been on Junior teams, shot at the Euronations or won national titles. The achievements might be enough to get onto these programmes perhaps a part scholarships.
It can take a bit of luck too; a supportive sports officer in a college can help an archer get a scholarship. This sets a precedent for others who apply over the next few years.


Again I can only speak from working with DIT, they were extremely helpful in developing the club and the support for individuals in the past 7 years.
There have been a number of archers who have been on scholarships over that time. One college is a good start. Hopefully over the next few years we can get a few more colleges to award scholarships when they are deserved.



Corkarcher, sorry IADT aren’t offering anything at the moment, there are plenty of clubs around Dun Laoghaire to train.
If you can get the college to support you competing in the Intervarsity league, there’s a bit of fun at them as well as a good level of shooting.
Good luck with the studies!