Ryan College Bound, Florence, AL (2026)

08/25/2026

R Y A N C O L L E G E B O U N D
Athletic Scholarships: A Reality Check for Families

The frenzy around youth sports is very concerning to me. When are these children supposed to ever rest much less address their academics.

Many students are playing with more than one club team. And, they are not going down the block to the local field. Generally, they are traveling and playing or practicing every day of the week even Wednesday night and Sundays. Not to mention all the costs that parents are incurring to participate.

Please ask yourself, who is the true beneficiary? It is certainly not your child. I suspect it is probably the ones who are establishing and coaching these programs. Kids bodies are not made for this! They are growing and developing at a rapid pace; please, let these children rest!

Sorry, rant is over. Following are some statistics regarding the chances that your student athlete may benefit from athletic scholarships.

An honest picture to plan around - because sports can open real doors, but athletic money is rarer and smaller than most families expect.

By the Numbers
About 2% of high school athletes receive any athletic scholarship (NCAA).

Most are partial, not full rides. Only around 1% of athletes get a true “full ride”; the rest cover the gap with other aid.

Awards are often modest - frequently a fraction of a college’s total cost, not the whole bill.

Where Athletic Money Exists
Available at NCAA Division I and II, NAIA, and junior colleges.
Division III offers no athletic scholarships - but often strong academic and need-based aid, and being a recruited athlete can still help in admissions.

What Changed in 2025
New rules (House v. NCAA settlement, July 1, 2025) replaced scholarship caps with roster limits. Schools that opt in can now fund every athlete on the roster and pay players directly through revenue sharing.

The trade-off: roster caps are cutting walk-on spots, and money is concentrating in football and men’s basketball - so non-revenue sports like tennis, swimming, and track may see fewer awards. The picture varies by sport and by whether a school opted in.

What Actually Pays for College (for Most Families)
Academic/merit aid and need-based aid usually outweigh athletic aid - and can be combined with it.
Treat any athletic scholarship as a welcome bonus, not the funding plan.

Smart Questions Before You Count on Athletic Money
Is the offer full or partial - and for how many years? (Most are one-year agreements.)
Has the school opted into the new revenue-sharing model?
How does the athletic offer compare with academic-aid packages at other schools?
Does this sport and division realistically fit my student?

Ryan College Bound • College Bound with Confidence® • [email protected] • (256) 577-6006

08/25/2026

Why not? AI interruption!

08/21/2026

POST 4 of 4
So Does the Story Matter?

I've spent three posts telling you that the grid doesn't care about your student's story. Now let me tell you where it cares enormously.
If you've been following along, you've heard me say that a research project is worth zero dollars on Alabama's automatic merit grids. That grid reads a GPA and a composite. Nothing else. I stand behind every word of it.

So a fair question: does any of the rest of it matter?
Yes! Just not where the national advice says it does.

The automatic award is the floor, not the ceiling.
Here's what most families never learn: the automatic merit scholarship is where the money starts. Sitting on top of it is another whole layer - competitive scholarships, departmental awards, prestige awards, endowed scholarships you've never heard of, with a committee attached to each one.

That money is not awarded by a grid. It's awarded by people. People who read an essay and a résumé and try to figure out who this kid is.

And when a committee reads twelve applications from twelve students with a 3.9 and a 30, the one they remember is the one they can describe in a sentence.

The Honors College is a different door.
Honors admission at most Alabama institutions is holistic. Essays. Sometimes an interview. A real evaluation of a real person. Your student's composite gets her considered. Her story gets her in, and Honors carries priority registration, better housing, smaller classes, faculty relationships, and access to research opportunities that come with the college, instead of having to manufacture them beforehand.

And the selective Southern schools play by different rules entirely -
Vanderbilt, Rice, Emory, Furman, Sewanee, Samford, and Georgia Tech, to name a few. If any of those are on your list, throw out the grid. Those are narrative schools, and everything I said about the grid stops applying at the property line.

But here's the one I care about most.
A student who knows her own thread picks the right major.
She doesn't spend three semesters in a program she chose because it sounded respectable at Thanksgiving. She doesn't transfer. She doesn't wake up junior year having spent forty thousand dollars discovering she doesn't want to be a nurse. And believe me, I have had some of those conversations with my four sons. Be prepared-students just seem to get uneasy toward the end of sophomore year.

The average student who changes direction late pays for it in semesters. Semesters are money - real money, more than most scholarships are worth.

So when I sit with a student and ask what she actually cares about, I'm not doing a soft exercise before the real work starts. I'm doing the single highest-leverage financial thing in this entire process. I just don't say it in dollars, because it would sound crass.

The honest summary of all four posts:
Your ACT score is worth money at the door.
Your story is worth money after the door - and it's worth more than the score at deciding whether the next four years are the right four years.

Both are true.

Ryan College Bound
College Bound with Confidence®

HAPPY FOOTBALL SEASON! Wishing the very best to my students who are playing football, the ones who are cheering them on, and the musicians who add so much to the event!!! They all work so hard.

08/15/2026

RYAN COLLEGE BOUND
College Bound with Confidence®
Facebook Content — PSAT / National Merit
POST 1 · Sign-Up Announcement

📌 The One Test That Could Pay for College - And Most Families Don’t Sign Up in Time

Every October, high schools across the Shoals give the PSAT/NMSQT. It’s easy to dismiss as “just a practice test.” It isn’t. For juniors, it’s the only qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship Program, and it counts exactly once.

Here’s what every 10th- and 11th-grade family needs to know right now:

➤ IF YOUR STUDENT IS AN 11th GRADER - This is the year that matters. Only a junior-year PSAT/NMSQT score qualifies for National Merit. No makeup, no alternate test, no second chance. Miss this fall and that door closes for good. For a strong tester, one October morning can open scholarships that follow them all the way through college. Thankfully, schools can now choose their test administration date during the month of October. In the past, there was a single school day in October and an alternate Saturday designated by College Board. All schools gave the test on one of those two dates. Whew!

➤ IF YOUR STUDENT IS A 10th GRADER WHO TESTS WELL - Take it this fall for practice. It won’t count toward National Merit yet, but it’s the most realistic dress rehearsal there is, a full year before the score that counts. Sophomores who sit for it walk into junior year knowing exactly what they’re up against. That head start is real.

➤ HOW TO SIGN UP - You don’t register through College Board. Your school does. The test is given during a window in October, and each school picks its own date, so now is the time to act. VERY IMPORTANT - Talk to your school counselor this Monday to confirm your school’s date and get your student on the list. They may say they have already ordered tests and it is too late. Many school systems order additional tests, so chances are your school can get a test from a neighbor.

I’ll be honest about why I care so much about this one. I watched the National Merit Program help educate my own sons. I’m not speaking from a brochure, I’m speaking from my own family. When I tell you not to skip the PSAT, it’s because I’ve seen what it can do.

Not sure whether your student should take it, or how to build a plan around it? Reach out. Helping Shoals families get exactly this kind of thing right is what I do!

Melissa Ryan
Ryan College Bound - College Bound with Confidence®
📞 (256) 577-6006 | [email protected] | ryancollegebound.com

08/14/2026

POST 3
The Number On Your Student's Report Card
Is Not the Number They Will Read

This is the one that costs Alabama families real money, and almost nobody sees it coming.

Your student has taken the ACT three times. The best English score was a 31; Their best math score was a 24. The best reading and science scores came from two different Saturdays. Add up best scores, average them, and the report says 26.

That's your student’s superscore. It's a genuine number, and most schools will happily accept it for admission.

Now here is the part I need you to sit down for.

Several Alabama institutions do not use superscores for scholarship money.

The University of Alabama states plainly that it does not superscore for automatic merit scholarships. It considers your official composite, one test, one Saturday- sent directly by ACT. UAB says essentially the same thing: no superscores for admission or scholarship purposes.

So a student holding a proud 26 superscore may be evaluated on a 24 single-sitting composite when the money is handed out.
That is not a small gap. On an automatic merit grid, that gap has a dollar figure attached, and it's a large one.

When families find out.

February. The award letter arrives, and the number is thousands lower than the family had planned around. They call me, and by then the December testing cutoff has passed, leaving no options.

I've watched this happen. It is one of the most preventable disasters in this entire process. While many, many colleges are transitioning from superscores and test optional status, it can all become very confusing. I have to double-check myself to keep it all straight!

So here is what I want you to do.

Know your student's best single-sitting composite. Not their superscore - the real one, from one test date. That is the number the grid will read. If you don't know it, go find it today.

Understand the December wall. For students entering in the fall, both UA, AU, and UAB consider scores taken through December of senior year. Not February. Not April. December. That means the December 12 test date this year is not a preference; for a senior, it's the last door.

Stop collecting partial victories. If your student is testing to build a superscore, they may be optimizing for a number the schools that matter most to them will never look at. The goal is one strong test, not four good sections spread across four Saturdays.

Verify every school on the list, individually. These policies differ by institution, and they change year to year. Auburn is not UA. UAH is not UNA. A private school is a different conversation entirely. Check the financial aid page of each school this year, in writing.

Why this is getting harder.
Alabama's flagships have spent a decade recruiting hard out of the Northeast, the Midwest, and California, and it worked. The applicant pool is deeper than it was five years ago. The score that earned an older sibling a comfortable award in 2019 does not necessarily earn the same award today.

That's not a reason to panic. It's a reason to stop guessing and start reading the actual rules, because in this state, at this moment, the points between a 26 and a 30 are not bragging rights.
THEY ARE TUITION!

Praying for a great start to the school year for all! I can't tell you how much I love sending my students off to follow their dreams!!!

Ryan College Bound
College Bound with Confidence®

07/29/2026

POST 2 in the series

What They Get Wrong About Dual Enrollment

I spent years at NWSCC implementing and developing from infancy the dual enrollment program. After a serious investment of time and energy, the program became the largest DE program in the state of Alabama. And believe me when I tell you, it was not an easy sell to anyone. The high schools were quite skeptical and the college instructors could not see themselves teaching high school students much less teaching on a television screen! Distance learning???? Are you crazy?

On the flip side, as a high school counselor, I was the developer and coordinator of the A+ College Ready AP Program where we grew our AP Program from one AP course to double digits. I truly loved the AP Program for so many reasons. But, I feel compelled to tell you what the national advice gets wrong about the discussion.
The guidance you'll hear online goes roughly like this: AP is the gold standard. It's a standardized curriculum with a standardized exam, so a 5 on AP Calculus BC means the same thing in Boston as it does in Birmingham. Dual enrollment varies too much: different colleges, different instructors, different rigor. So admissions officers discount it. If AP was available and your student took dual enrollment instead, that's a red flag. It looks like they were dodging the harder path.

Every bit of that is defensible advice for a student applying to MIT or Vanderbilt. But, for most Alabama families, it is quietly, expensively wrong.

Here's what it misses.

First: At a great many high schools in this state, dual enrollment isn't the easier option. It's the only option. A school offering three AP courses is not a school where your student is choosing convenience over rigor. Your student took the hardest course available. That's the whole standard, and they met it.

Second: Those credits are real. They transfer. A student who walks onto campus at UNA, or Alabama, or Auburn with a semester of general education already finished is a student whose family is paying for seven semesters instead of eight. Nobody in a webinar about Yale is going to mention that, because it isn't relevant to Yale. It's extremely relevant to you.

Third: This is the part I want you to hear. The schools your student is most likely to attend know exactly what that coursework is. They know the instructors. They know the community college. In many cases it is literally the same system. The “admissions officers don't know what dual credit means” problem largely dissolves when the admissions officer works forty miles from the campus where the credit was earned.

Where the advice is right.

Context still matters, and this part I agree with completely.
If your student's transcript shows dual enrollment sitting there unexplained, a reader who doesn't know your school will fill the silence with the least generous interpretation. That's not cynicism; it's just what happens when nobody supplies the story.

So supply it. The Additional Information section of the application exists for exactly this. One clear sentence: “My school's most rigorous available coursework was dual enrollment at [institution]. I pursued the most demanding curriculum available to me.”

That sentence takes ninety seconds to write and changes how a transcript is read.

And where I'd push back on myself.

If your student's school offers a full AP slate, and she chose dual enrollment because it was easier, some readers will notice, and they won't be wrong. That's a real thing, and I won't pretend otherwise.
But that's a small number of students. Far more common is the family who came to me anxious that dual enrollment “looks bad,” having been told so by someone whose advice was built for a different state, a different school, and a different set of colleges.

It doesn't look bad. It looks like what it is: a student who took the hardest road her school had, and got a head start doing it! *

Ryan College Bound
College Bound with Confidence®

*I do feel compelled to advise you that there are Very Selective, out of state schools who only award credit for dual enrollment in certain departments and some who do not accept any dual enrollment credits, or a limited number of dual enrollment credits. If you believe there is any chance your student will pursue Very Selective, out of state schools, I would have that conversation prior to the start of grade 11. Do your research and proceed with your eyes wide open.

07/20/2026

ADVICE BUILT FOR THE LIFE YOU ALREADY HAVE
Post 1

Your daughter swims twenty-five hours a week. She does not need a research project.

I watched a webinar this week aimed at parents of college-bound students. Good information, sincerely offered, by someone who knows her world well.

But it was a different world than mine.

The advice was that your student needs original research. A published paper. A founded nonprofit with documented impact. A capstone project aligned with their intended career field, started, ideally, in tenth grade.

I sat there thinking about the kids I actually work with.
The girl who leaves the house at 5:30 a.m. for morning practice and gets home at 8:00 p.m. after the evening one. The boy whose marching band schedule runs from July to November or December, starts back in January for concert season and the student picks up a shift at his uncle's shop on Saturdays. The student who is genuinely, seriously good at one thing and has been since she was nine.
And I thought: where exactly would I put this?

So I asked the question. How do we add an intense research project to a kid who is already meeting every demand a coach, an instructor, and six teachers can place on her, without breaking her?
I don't think my question was well received.
Here is what I want to say to the families in this part of the country.
That sport is not a scheduling problem to work around. That instrument is not a distraction from the real application. When a young person has spent six years getting excellent at one difficult thing - showing up in the dark, in the cold, when it hurt, when she didn't feel like it - that is the story. That's discipline nobody can fake and no summer program can manufacture. It is already documented. It is already validated. It is already hers.

She does not need a fifth thing stapled onto it. She needs somebody to help her see what she already is, and say it out loud.
And then there's the part nobody mentions.

At most of Alabama's public universities, the automatic merit scholarship is a grid. It reads your GPA. It reads your ACT composite. That is all it reads.

Your research project is worth exactly zero dollars on that grid.

Three ACT points can be worth tens of thousands of dollars across four years.

So when a student with a 28 and two-a-days asks me what to do with her scarce, precious hours, I am not going to send her to start a nonprofit. I am going to find out why she missed seven of eight algebra questions, and then I am going to fix that. Forty-five minutes, twice a week. That's the whole thing.

That's not lowering the bar. That is knowing which bar the money is actually behind.

I'd tell you the truth if it were otherwise.

If your child is a 35 with a genuine research passion and real margin in her week, I'll tell you to go build something, and I'll help. Some students have that room. Most of the ones who walk through my door do not, and they are not lesser for it. They're Alabama kids with jobs and practices and church on Wednesday and a family that needs them.

They deserve advice built for the life they actually have.
That's the only kind I know how to give.

Ryan College Bound
College Bound with Confidence®
Melissa Ryan, Independent Educational Consultant
[email protected]
ryancollegebound.com
256-577-6006

07/16/2026

It’s Not Too Late Series
Are We Raising a Generation That Can’t Read - And What Does That Mean for College?

The August cover story of The Atlantic stopped me dead in my tracks today.

Staff writer Rose Horowitch makes a stunning argument: we are living in a “postliterate world”. Fewer and fewer Americans read books of any kind - and it’s not just teenagers. The decline cuts across age groups, gender, and education levels. Even the demographics that traditionally read the most, retirees, women, and college graduates, have seen a collapse in reading. One of my greatest educational concerns was becoming a reality.

I read that and thought immediately of my own boys.

When my children were young, we didn’t always have money for many extras. But we bought books. If we didn’t get anything else, we got books. (I had to convince my husband it would pay off!)
We read to them every single night before bed. And their reward- the thing they looked forward to most - was a trip to our beloved Anderson’s Bookstore right here in the Shoals. You may know it better as Bookland, or what it eventually became: Books-A-Million, now a worldwide bookseller. Every Christmas Eve, before church, we took the boys to Bookland and let them buy books for each other as gifts.

It sounds simple. But I believe with everything in me that it changed the trajectory of their lives. All four of my boys developed a genuine, lasting love of reading that they carry with them today. They became National Merit Finalists, an achievement that, combined with their ACT scores, essentially paid for their college educations. And today, they are extraordinarily successful in their chosen professions. I attribute it all to an early love of reading.
Here’s what the Atlantic article confirms that I have seen play out in family after family for over 35 years:

Reading doesn’t just build vocabulary. It builds the capacity to think deeply, synthesize complex ideas, and communicate with precision. Universities are now watching this collapse in real time, professors frustrated that students cannot extract information from or summarize complex texts. Professors are rising up all over the country, pleading with their administrations to restore ACT and SAT Testing, because it is the only true measure of preparedness. Grade inflation is running rampant, and colleges are admitting ill prepared students for college level work. And we are in an age where it is easier to ask an AI for a quick answer than to sit with a book and actually read and think.

This is exactly why ACT Reading and English scores are so telling. It is why the college essay reveals so much about a student. It is why I talk to every family I work with about the connection between reading habits and college readiness.

If your rising senior is struggling with reading or English, or if a book hasn’t been picked up in years, this is the moment to pay attention. The skills can still be built. But it requires intention. And it starts now.

“The Age of Reading Is Over” The Atlantic, August 2026. Worth every word.

📩 [email protected]
📞 (256) 577-6006
🌐 ryancollegebound.com

07/16/2026

POST 3
The ACT Reality Check for Rising Seniors
If your rising senior took the ACT last spring and isn’t happy with the score, I want you to hear this clearly:
It is not too late. But what you do in the next 60 days matters.
Every summer I work with families who are sitting on a 23 or 24, wondering if there’s any point in trying again. My answer is always the same: yes, but only if you’re willing to do the work.

The ACT is not a measure of how smart your student is. It is a learnable test. Students who commit to focused, intentional preparation, not just taking practice tests and hoping, can and do move their scores. I’ve seen it happen over and over in 35 years of working with families.
Here’s what rising seniors need to know right now:

☑ Fall test dates are limited, and they fill up fast.
The ACT testing window that works for seniors opens in September. Register now. Don’t wait until you feel ready, because the seats won’t wait for you.

☑ Auburn superscores. Alabama does not.
This is one of the most important things families don’t know. Auburn will take your best section scores from multiple test dates and combine them into your strongest possible composite score. Alabama uses your single best test date, all sections from that one sitting. That means your testing strategy may actually need to look different depending on which school matters most to you.

☑ The scholarship numbers are real and worth chasing.
At Auburn, competitive merit scholarships begin at an ACT score of 28 and a 3.5 GPA. At Alabama, automatic merit aid starts at 24 and a 3.5 GPA or 25 ACT and a 3.0+ GPA, and increases significantly as your score climbs. Every point between now and your next test date has real dollar value attached to it.

☑ Tutoring works if you use it right.
Generic test prep gets generic results. What moves scores is targeted work on your specific weak areas, consistent practice, and someone who knows this test well enough to help you focus where it counts.

If your rising senior still has room to grow on the ACT, and most do, now is the window. September and October test dates are coming fast.

Don’t leave money on the table.

📩 [email protected]
📞 (256) 577-6006
🌐 ryancollegebound.com

07/08/2026

The Senior Year Timeline Nobody Shows You

Most families think senior year looks like this: apply in the fall, hear back in the spring, pick a school by May. Simple enough, right?
Not quite.

Here's what senior year actually looks like - and why August matters more than most families realize. I have referenced just two state universities as examples of what your calendar can begin to look like. But just imagine if your teen is applying to 4 - 8 colleges with very aggressive students exceeding these numbers. Believe me, it can become nightmarish if students are not well organized.

☑ August - Foundation Setting
This is go time. College applications open - finalize your list. Do you plan to use the Common App? Essay drafts should begin. And if your student hasn't taken the ACT yet or needs to improve their score, the clock is already ticking. Fall test dates fill up fast, and registration deadlines come about five weeks before each test date.

☑ September - The Scholarship Window Widens
This is the month families most often underestimate. Auburn's first Early Action deadline falls on September 15 - and here's the critical detail: students must be admitted through Early Action to be eligible for any Auburn scholarship at all. Auburn’s last Early Action deadline is December 1. Missing this round doesn't just delay things. It can cost your student real money. ACT test date September 19, 2026 (registration deadline August 14, 2026). National and regional scholarships are being released, and some of the first deadlines appear in September.

☑ October - FAFSA/ACT
The FAFSA opens on October 1st. Be prepared to complete as soon as possible. The ACT is given this month. This is a very important test for seniors: October 17, 2026 (registration: September 11, 2026).

☑ November - Crunch Time
UA's priority deadline falls on December 5th. It is also the deadline for ASAM (Alabama Scholarship Award Manager). After this date, students are no longer considered for competitive scholarships. Auburn's third Early Action round closes November 15. This is also when most families realize they should have started sooner. Register for the December 12 th ACT

☑ December - Last Chance for Many Opportunities
Auburn's final Early Action deadline is December 1, and UA's automatic merit scholarship deadline for admitted students is December 5th. By December, the families who planned well are comparing award letters. The ones who didn't are hoping something is still available. The December 12th ACT is the last ACT testing for scholarship consideration at Auburn and Alabama.

Here's the truth I tell every family I work with: the colleges aren't waiting for you to feel ready.

Senior year isn't one long runway. It's a series of hard deadlines - each one closing a door that won't reopen.

My job is to make sure your student is ready before those doors close. That's what College Bound with Confidence® means.

If you're looking at this timeline and feeling behind, let's talk. Now is still the right time to start.
(space is limited)

📩 [email protected]
📞 (256) 577-6006
🌐 ryancollegebound.com

Ryan College Bound

08/25/2026

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