What is the hardest sport to get a D1 scholarship?

Asked by: Salvador Doyle  |  Last update: December 25, 2025
Score: 4.1/5 (11 votes)

What is the hardest athletic scholarship to get? Wrestling is the hardest athletic scholarship for men whereas for women the hardest athletic scholarship to get is volleyball. Wrestling has only a 2.7% chance of earning a scholarship and volleyball has a 3.9% chance of earning a scholarship.

What is the easiest sport to get a D1 scholarship?

  • Basketball.
  • Golf.
  • Soccer.
  • Swimming.
  • Tennis.
  • Track and Field.
  • Volleyball.
  • Other sports.

What is the hardest sport to get a college scholarship?

Typically, the toughest sports for obtaining athletic scholarships are those very popular and extensively played sports like football, basketball, and soccer. The large pool of athletes in these sports makes competition for scholarships quite intense.

What sport is hardest to play in college?

Typically, the sports often touted as the most challenging in terms of physical intensity are wrestling and gymnastics. Wrestling requires significant strength, speed, and endurance, while gymnastics demands a high level of bodily control, flexibility, and balance.

How rare is a D1 scholarship?

The chances of receiving a division one football scholarships are very remote. There are only about 125 division one programs, and each has 85 scholarships. That means there are roughly 10,000 scholarship division one football players out there. With roughly 1.5 million high school players, the odds are less than 1%.

Hardest sport to get a scholarship for in college

30 related questions found

What is the lowest GPA to get a D1 scholarship?

For NCAA Divisions 1 and 2, the lowest you can possibly score is a 2.0 on a 4.0 scale.

How many D1 players go pro?

Do many NCAA student-athletes go on to play professionally? Fewer than 2 percent of NCAA student-athletes go on to be professional athletes. In reality, most student-athletes depend on academics to prepare them for life after college.

What percent of high school wrestlers go D1?

NCAA Division 1: One percent of high school wrestlers will go on to compete at the Division 1 level.

Which sport has the best athletes?

According to the most scientific comparative research made in that subject, boxers are the best athletes, not basketball players. The one thing that makes tennis players greater athletes than basketball players is that it's each player for himself or herself on the court.

Which sport gets the most scholarships?

For NCAA Division I colleges, head-count sports for men are football (at schools that have the Football Bowl Subdivision, which is the highest level of Division I football) and basketball, each offering up to 85 and 13 full-ride scholarships per team respectively.

Which sport is easiest to get into?

The Easiest Sports for Beginners
  • Basketball: A Beginner-Friendly Sport. ...
  • Swimming: An Excellent Choice for Beginners. ...
  • Tennis: A Fun and Accessible Sport for Beginners. ...
  • Soccer: The World's Most Popular Beginner Sport. ...
  • Golf: A Low-Impact Sport for Beginners.

What are the hardest scholarships to get?

They include the Rhodes Scholarship, the Fullbright Scholarship, the Marshall Scholarship, the Gates Cambridge Scholarship and the Truman Scholarship. Explore these and more as we introduce our compilation of some of the most prestigious scholarships..

What GPA do D1 athletes need?

NCAA Division 1 eligibility requirements
  • Complete 16 core courses using pass/fail grades: ...
  • Core Course Progression: You must complete 10 core courses by the beginning of senior year, or seventh semester. ...
  • Earn a core course GPA of 2.3 or higher.
  • Graduate high school.

Which sport is easiest to go pro?

Here's how they stack up:
  • NFL: The Best Odds. Odds of 1 in 10,243 make football the easiest sport to go pro in, thanks to its large rosters and structured pathways like college drafts.
  • MLB: Multiple Pathways to the Pros. ...
  • NBA and NHL: Where Skills Matter. ...
  • The Hardest Sports to Become a Pro Athlete.

Do D1 athletes go for free?

There are six headcount sports: football, basketball, tennis, volleyball, and gymnastics. Student-athletes awarded athletics scholarships for these D1 sports get full scholarships. All other sports may give some full-ride scholarships, but they offer more partial athletic scholarships.

What percent of kids go D1?

Overall a little over 7% of high school athletes (about 1 in 13) go on to play a varsity sport in college and less than 2% of high school athletes (1 in 57) go on to play at NCAA Division I schools. For additional information, see our page on the Odds of going Pro.

What is the most attended high school sport?

American football is by far the most popular sport among male high schoolers in the United States, with over one million boys playing 11-player football in 2023-24. The second most popular high school sport for boys was outdoor track and field, with over 625 thousand participants.

How hard is it to become a D1 athlete?

D1 stands for Division 1. It is the toughest division to get into and compete in. If you are on the roster of a Division 1 team, you are a Division 1 athlete. It's considered the most challenging division because you spend most of your time training at the gym or practicing.

What sport is hardest to go pro in?

Boxing/Mixed Martial Arts – These combat sports require a high level of skill, physical conditioning, and the ability to succeed in a highly competitive and physically demanding environment.

What is the highest paid female sport?

In one other promising sign for the growing financial viability of women's pro sports, while the list of the highest-paid female athletes remains dominated by tennis, the mix of sports is getting more balanced.

What is the most tiring sport?

Top 10 Most Physically Challenging Sports
  1. #1: Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)
  2. #2: Wrestling. ...
  3. #3: Boxing. ...
  4. #4: Rugby. ...
  5. #5: American Football. ...
  6. #6: Hockey. ...
  7. #7: Triathlon. ...
  8. #8: Soccer. ...

How often do D1 players practice?

Most Division 1 athletes practice six or seven days a week. On top of that, they have about two to three activities connected to their sport each day. This could include morning/afternoon practices, lifting, visits to the athletic trainer, team meetings, team meals, and much more.

Do all D1 athletes get scholarships?

Just 85 full ride scholarships are available to NCAA D1 universities annually. Fewer still are on offer to D2 colleges. Division 3 includes 432 schools, but these institutions do not offer college athletic scholarships.

Do D3 players go pro?

It's a common misconception that D1 is the only division with players getting drafted into the NFL. There are many D2 and D3-level players who get drafted. So how many D2 and D3 NFL players are there? On average, about 70 former D2 and D3 players compete in each NFL football season.