Hundreds of thousands of student athletes are returning to their college teams this fall. Earning a spot on collegiate rosters, or athletic scholarships, takes years of work from young athletes — and thousands of dollars from their parents in fees, travel and other costs.
But the odds are long to get them there: Just 7% of high school athletes will compete on a college roster at any level, while 2% will go on to earn a National College Athletic Association, or NCAA, athletic scholarship. An even smaller fraction will go pro.
So as parents are ordering fall uniforms and planning tournament entries, CNN analyzed the odds for a high schooler to make a college roster, based on data compiled by Patrick O’Rourke on the website ScholarshipStats.com.
A more popular sport doesn’t mean longer odds, since more schools sponsor collegiate teams. Football was by far the most popular high school sport, with more than 1 million high school athletes competing in the 2022-2023 school year, and more than 96,000 going on to play in college. Nearly one-third of those athletes played at the Division I level, typically schools with the more elite and well-funded sports programs. The size of football rosters — with most teams exceeding 100 players — helped those athletes’ odds further: 11:1 to make any college roster and 33:1 to make a Division I team.
