Grant Cairns and Romana Rossi
“Our son, Des Cairns, is studying and swimming at Colgate University, starting in September 2012. It was a long and very complicated process to enable Des to study in the States. Our first serious step was in January 2011, when we contacted Noel Greeves, at American Athletic Scholarships.
Noel provided invaluable help, guiding us through the different steps. The whole process has many aspects, and without experienced guidance, it would be very easy to stumble or miss some key step. There are thousands of universities and colleges in America, and finding the right fit, both academically and athletically, is a challenge in itself. Noel played an essential role here, by liaising on our behalf with coaches at potential universities. Choosing a good university, obtaining the coach's interest and ultimately getting a good financial offer of support from the university:
these are all complicated tasks. Your son/daughter will need to sit the SAT exam (Noel put us in contact with an excellent SAT tutor), you'll need to make formal applications to several universities, to improve your likelihood of success, and then there are the required processes through the NCAA and the NAIA. And when all that is done, there is the visa application, health insurance, etc, right down to ordering linen for your child's college room.
Noel provided us with advice on all these aspects, and kept in regular contact with our progress. The bulk of the paperwork still has to be done by the parents, but I don't think we could have done it without Noel's advice, making sure we did everything, in the right sequence, and in the right way.
We are very happy with the assistance Noel gave us, and we wouldn't hesitate to recommend him to other parents. Our son Des now has the opportunity of studying in a first rate university and swimming with a division 1 team. He is living a dream, and we couldn't be happier with the outcome.”