Students can play their favourite sport competitively at world-class training facilities while gaining a valuable college degree and possible lucrative sports scholarships. SHAlINI SAKSENA tells you how
Most students want to pursue higher studies from a foreign university. The reasons are many. But to be able to pursue a degree abroad is not easy. This is because most colleges don’t give scholarships to international students when it comes to under graduation studies. In such a scenario not all can afford to send their ward to study abroad.
But if you have set your mind on studying abroad, there is a way out. Get admission in the US through sports scholarship — in common parlance ‘sports quota’.
“It is a misnomer that only US citizens can avail of the benefit when it comes to sport scholarship. Even Indian students can take benefit. Using the word ‘quota’ is incorrect. Another point to mention here, Indians have, over the years, combined education with high-level sports and earning a lucrative scholarship.
“Mahesh Bhupathi went to University of Mississippi, Jeev Milkha Singh went to Abilene Christian University, US, Shiv Kapoor went to Purdue University and played amateur circuit in the US and Somedev Devvarman attended the University of Virginia,” says Vikram Anand, CEO of Crayons Academy for Skills Excellence, whose daughter got a $40,000 scholarship at a US university. She played tennis and was captain of school basket ball team in India.
The way to get admission is similar to what we have in India where, in order to get admission using the sport route, one should have at least played at the State level. It is the proficiency that a student needs to have in a particular sport rather than having played at the national or State level that counts abroad.
“There is no dearth of talent in India. In the recent Khelo India, national programme for development of sports, the students showed fantastic calibre at the junior level. The problem arises when they gain admission through the sport window. Sports are not run in an organised manner in any Indian university. Delhi University used to have inter-university championships in the 70s and 80s. Not anymore. Today, people who have scored 40 per cent in Class XII and gained admission via the sport quota will be told to pursue only BA Pass course,” Anand says.
In the US, when you gain admission through a sport scholarship, you play with eight-10 colleges within the region. The training and the coaching, as also the playing mores, are highly regulated. “After winning at the university level, you go to the next level — HHM — which is the national level,” Anand explains and tells you that in the 2014 Olympics, the US won eight Gold medals in swimming and all the participants were from the University of Merlin. This is something Indian universities don’t realise — that there is so much talent at this level.
He also tells you that those wanting to pursue this route need to have two essentials — a passion to play a sport and start young — Class IX. There is need to set targets and short goals and ensure that these goals are met. But all this is not at the cost of your studies. A student needs to develop his game and become a sportsperson — an athlete and gain admission.
There are two ways of doing this. One is taking the sport scholarship and the other is academic. There is no dearth of counselors who can help a student when it comes to academics. But there are probably one or two only in India when it comes to counselling for a sport scholarship.
“A student will be gaining admission in a US university to study, so there is no way that one can drop studies for the next four years since they are very focused on academics as well even if you have gained admission through sport scholarship. My job to students and parents who come to me is to guide them and develop them into players so that they can get admission in an university in the US. I tell them that if they play a certain sport, they have to be at a certain level by a certain age with certain Grades and only then wIll the student will be suitable for a specific university. So it is a well-thought out and specific plan,” says Anand who is a sportsman and played soccer in High School and tennis in college.
The student and his coach are guided by Anand on how to go about the whole process to reach a certain level by a certain age so that he can get admission so that by the time the student graduates from school he has a certain fitness and proficiency to be picked up for a team. Once a student gets athletic admission depending on whether it is a public or private, the scholarship is determined. Interestingly, students can get athletic admissions at under graduate level only. Once he has completed his UG, he can no longer play the sport after four years. If I want to join the masters, I can no longer use the athletic admission route to get scholarship, the eligibility expires at UG level.
“In order to continue playing for the college at the UG level, there is a lot of support because at the end of the day you are there to study and continue to have a spot in the team. So a student gets preference to classes, you get a tutor; the infrastructure there is built in such a way that the sportsperson excels. Though there is a chance that one can lose this athletic scholarship.
But given that Indian students are predisposed to hard work, one will have to do something horribly wrong to lose the scholarship,” Anand, who charges a fee of Rs 3 lakh, phased in stages, says. His job is to guide the student at every step till he gets admission. However, he can’t guarantee a sport scholarship since the leg work has to come from the students themselves.