Student-athlete Academic Eligibility Standards In The Recruiting Process

So let’s talk about academics. It’s very important that you focus on your grades. Student athletes with higher GPAs and better test scores have far more opportunities than students with lesser levels of performance. Coaches search for good students as often as they search for good athletes. So it’s very important that you work hard to keep your grades up, that you take the board prep courses, and that you take the ACT and SAT tests as often as you can. In order to be eligible to play at different collegiate athletic teams, it’s important that you understand the academic eligibility requirements that relay to each level of competition.

NCAA Division I and Division II schools require that student athletes take certain mandatory core courses in order to be eligible to play. Currently NCAA Division I schools require 16 core courses and NCAA Division II schools require 14 core courses in order to be eligible. A core course means a course that has been monitored and accepted by the NCAA as satisfying the basic academic criteria that they are looking for in collegiate athletes. Corse courses are courses in Math, English, Social Sciences and Religion. It’s very important that you understand that you have to take these courses and complete them with a certain GPA. Division I schools also mandate that you achieve certain test scores. In Division I, those test scores are related to your GPA in those core courses. It is called a sliding scale; the better your grades are, the lower your scores can be. In Division II, they just require a certain standard ACT or SAT scores in order to be eligible to play. If you don’t meet those standards, you will not be eligible to play. You will not be eligible to get financial aid from the school. You will not be eligible to compete as a freshman and you will lose a year of eligibility. At SportsWorx, we will perform a core course evaluation to let you know if you are on track to be eligible for NCAA Division I or Division II schools.

NCAA Division III schools don’t have the core course requirement placed on Division I and Division II schools. The concept behind Division III schools is that student athletes are admitted on the same basis as any other student applying for the college. Athletes receive no preferential treatment. So whatever that Division III school’s admission standards are for their general student. population applies equally to athletes seeking admission to the school

For NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) schools there is a 2 out of 3 prong test in order to be eligible to play. You have to have achieved a certain minimum over all GPA, a 2.0 GPA, certain minimum test scores or you have to be in the top half of your graduation class. You can achieve 2 out of those 3 and be eligible. Generally what that means is if you are not able to obtain the requisite test scores to be eligible for a Division I or Division II school, or to meet the admission requirements for a Division III school, but you are in the top half of your class, then you can be eligible at an NAIA institution.

At a junior college, which is a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association, you have to have a high school diploma or a general equivalency degree in order to be eligible to play.

By: Doug Ellis

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If you would like to learn more about critical factors for student-athletes to consider in navigating the recruiting process, you can download the full-length SportsWorx “Recruiting 101” webinar by going to www.sportsworx.com/recruiting101/