“I think there was this belief that if you went to America on a scholarship, they’d burn you out, they’d over-race you and you’d come back worse off, but I don’t think people think that way any more and athletes know the opportunity of the NCAA [National Collegiate Athletics Association],” she said.

“Mona [McSharry] in Tennessee for example, she has so much access to a state-of-the-art gym — it’s a big football school and everything’s right at your doorstep. It’s competitive in the sense that they’re still going to want to give a scholarship to an American athlete, so it’s hard for an Irish athlete as you have to be at a standout level here in Ireland. I do think it’s become harder now for an Irish athlete to get a scholarship to America than when I went.”

Cullen said the majority of athletes were awarded scholarships after being scouted by US coaches while at secondary school. She said: “The way it worked when I went was that college coaches from the US would come over to the Irish school camps, and if they saw potential in an athlete they’d have a couple of conversations with them and would be keeping an eye on results.

“I was in talks with Providence College and Butler University in Indiana, so you speak to the coaches and then make the decision of whether you’re going to take the opportunity to go. Nowadays, I think some athletes if they are keen will probably actively apply online and the universities will pay for you to go over and visit.”

Cost of College for Student-Athletes

The majority of US sports scholarships include fees as well as accommodation costs, food and a maintenance grant. Fees at Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Princeton and Yale can range from $57,000 (€52,000) to $66,000 annually.

“Everything was covered for me and then when we went away to race at say Stanford or Minnesota you got all your flights covered as well as an allowance each day to cover food,” ­Cullen said.

“The only thing you had to pay for was your flights to Ireland if you were coming home for Christmas. It was massive because you didn’t have any real outgoings, bar your own personal stuff.”

US Sports Scholarships Insights

Liam Barrett, Managing Director at US Sports Scholarships, a recruitment consultant firm based in the UK that also assists Irish athletes, said there were still opportunities for sports stars who were not particularly academic.

“There are two-year community colleges where there isn’t a minimum grade average that’s required and that would typically be the route for talented sports ­people who are not the most academic,” he said.

“The benefits of that system is when you start there it’s a clean slate with your grades. If you do well and bring your grades up then at the end of those two years you get an associate’s degree. At that point, if they’ve done well from an athletic and academic perspective we could then move them on to a four-year university for their final two years.

“If you are good academically with say a C grade or better on average at high school then you will be able to go straight to a four-year university from an academic perspective. If you look at some of the top colleges, such as Stanford, you’ve got to have the academic profile to match it, but coaches love to recruit international student athletes so they’ll always be a demand for it.”

Barrett, who studied in Chicago on a soccer scholarship in 2009, agreed that the scene was more competitive now, noting how social media had also played a role in this. “When I went out there, there was barely the internet so the competition I was up against would have been a lot lower,” he said.

“I think due to the popularity of social media, people see the facilities and see the lifestyle and want to follow in those footsteps. A lot of people know people or know of people that are doing it, which increases popularity. We get more and more applications every year from ­people all across the world.”

Jonathan Rudd, a high-performance director at Swim Ireland, said it was important that Ireland helped facilitate athletes that chose to study in the US.

“Of course we’d love to have all of our athletes based on the island full-time but if there is something that pushes their buttons a little bit more, the coach that seems to connect with that athlete better, or a programme that has a rich history in the event that they are swimming, we’ve got to try to facilitate that.

“For me it’s a broad and balanced menu of options. If you look at the US, some universities don’t deliver at international level, but Mona [McSharry] found one that does. Same with British universities.”

Cullen believes the facilities and resources in the US continue to be way ahead of Ireland. “My coach was Ray Tracy and his job was to be a coach at Providence College — and in Ireland you just don’t have that,” she added.

“I don’t think in Ireland there is the infrastructure and the facilities. There’s places that still don’t even have proper running tracks or a 50m pool, which you need if you want to be an Olympic medalist.”