colleges that compete platform

Question
QUESTION: My daughter took up diving this past Oct in high school she is a junior. She is currently with Georgia Diving Club and has found she loves tower diving. Is there a list of colleges that have tower diving available. She has only competed 2 club meets and has qualified for AAU Nationals on 3 meter and is only 5 points away on 1 meter but has yet to compete on tower. She got a 1560 on her first SAT and has a 3.65 GPA. But financially need help for college and didn't know if this is possible getting into the sport so late in the game.

ANSWER: Cheryl -

There is no list of colleges that have platforms that I know of but I can tell you how to find out which schools do have them and you can make your own customized list. There is a website that you are probably already familiar with, www.divemeets.com. Go to this site, click on Past Meets and then scroll down until you find these college meets from the most recent season:

Women's NCAA Division I Championships held March 18- 20 in West Lafayette (Purdue). Click on results and then when the events come up, click on Women's platform prelims. Look at those results and then click on each teams abbreviated school name. Another box will come up with the schools name and info. Also do the same for a meet held at Georgia Tech the weekend before called the NCAA Zone B Meet. This was the qualification meet in your area for the above championships.Do the same search to find teams with platform divers.Lots of other college meets here to look up.

Here is some other advice regarding being awarded athletic financial aid:

1. There are some schools with no platforms on campus that still compete platform. They use other schools equipment or platforms found at local city/county pools.

2. There is no platform diving at NCAA Divison II or III schools.

3. Qualifying for AAU Nationals is good, but college coaches are looking to see how divers your daughters year in school primarily do in USA Diving Club meets. Example meets are Senior level events, Age Group and Junior Nationals, Junior Zone and Regional Meets.These are more difficult events than AAU. They also look mainly at springboard results. The reason is that there are very few platform events in college where you score team point for the swim team. The only time a diver can score team points on platform are invitationals, Conference Championships and NCAA Nationals.Most team points come from springboard events in dual meets.

4. Your diver becomes a senior on July 1st of this year. It is on this date she can start being recruited. How well she does this summer in USA Diving events is how you will get the attention of college coaches. They will look at results on divemeets.com to see who the best 16-18 girl divers are and start recruiting from that list.

5. Start developing an athletic biography with her diving and academic history and especially DVD's of her meets that can be sent to schools that interest her.Her academics are going to attract coaches for sure but they want to see what she can do on springboard, especially her optional dives. There are no easy voluntary dives in any NCAA Division I event.Only 6 hard dives in all meets.College coaches look to recruit platform divers who excel at the highest level of Junior and Senior Nationals and mainly what optionals they can do on 10 meter.

Go to www.diving.about.com. This site has excellent advice on college diving and recruiting procedures. Sign up for a free newsletter.

Good luck. Hope all this helps.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Great information thank you. Her club coach said there were way more college scouts at AAU National last year then USA National. I don't really know if she will qualify for USA Nationals since she is so new at the sport. She has summer Regionals coming up in June and we are also plan on attending the senior zones in July I am hoping these will help. Of course she would love to go to UGA since this is where she practices but I believe they already have someone lined up for scholarship money for her year.

Answer
Thanks for the info on AAU Nationals. There may be a lot of college coaches at this meet, but at what division (I, II or III), which conferences, etc? If you are looking for scholarship $$, they are mainly going to come from Division I schools and major Division I coaches look at USA Diving meets more than AAU. This is because you make it to higher level meets in USA Diving by your place in a meet and in AAU it is your score (which sometimes is not that accurate). I speak from the experience of judging %26 refereeing college meets in the ACC, Big 12 and Pac 10 Conferences where high level coaches discuss recruiting.  There is not a lot of money at Division II and I think there is none at Division III. Going to as many age group and senior meets that she can without breaking your bank account will help this summer.Again, I wish you the best of luck and hope she has a successful season.