Academic Eligibility

Not every college has the same academic requirements for admission--most require at least 3 years of math, others may require 4

Good question, WebGemDad. DO NOT rely on your high school counselor or coach to provide you with eligibility information. It is very complicated today and my older son learned the hard way. We thought he had a DI scholarship only to find out he wasn't eligible - not because of grades (he had a 3.4 gpa), but because of course requirements that precluded him becoming a qualifer. The NCAA won't provide you with a determination until AFTER you graduate, so you are left on your own. Check out initialeligibility.com. My younger son and his entire varsity baseball team used their services (for a very nominal charge) and each player knew what was required to be a qualifier for scholarship purposes.

The NCAA provides several ways to read about the freshman eligibility standards. URLs listed in order of size-- short and concise is first, while the actual rules are last in the list.

The first link should tell you everything you need to know. All of this applies to D1 and D2. D3 allows the individual colleges to decide who is eligibile.

Freshman Eligibility Standards

Guide for the College-Bound Student Athlete

General Eligibility Page

NCAA Division manuals-- see Bylaw 14.3

I tried maneuvering through the NCAA information. We followed the worksheets, located the core courses and still didn't get it right after hours of trying. The NCAA simply doesn't have the resources to provide this information to current high school athletes.

Well, gee....

Since you've been through it two ways, would you mind doing us all a favor and look at the first link above? Then tell us what is missing in that 2 page document from the information that a player needs.

CoreCourseGPA - I think it is now Clearing House or something like that - was the site that our high school recommended:

http://www.clearinghousecalculator.org/login.php

Pretty simple in that you can plug in classes and grades for those classes and it will tell you where you stand...

3FingeredGlove - There is nothing missing in the NCAA materials. The NCAA provides very comprehensive information. You seem to be missing my point, however. The NCAA does not have the resources to provide a progress report for current high school students regarding their status towards becoming a qualifier. It's only after graduation that the NCAA makes this determination. While the NCAA materials outline how one can go about determinng the progress of a current high school student, it can be confusing and take time. In my case, both my son's coach and counselor included a course in the computation that was not a core course and our progress check was incorrect. (NCAA core courses can differ from the required core courses for admission to certain schools which makes it even more complicated). That's why I had an outside company do the eligibility check for my second son and it was well worth my time to get it right.

I feel this is not something anyone should have to pay for (except for registering for the NCAA eligability center). If this is confusing, then wait until you try to figure out what courses you need in college for your degree.

I agree that you should not rely on counselors or coaches for this, but if this is too difficult to figure out, you will likely have problems attending college.

I looked at both programs (initialeligibilty.com and clearinghousecalculator.org) and initialeligibility.com was much better. Clearinghousecalculator.org changed their name to something else recently. It might have had to do with the NCAA. They say there are no additional sales, but they will charge you after the first year if you want your high school's core courses updated. Initialeligibilty.com actually reviews your transcript and they do not throw in a bunch of other recruiting info on their site.

OK, I see your point. The NCAA doesn't provide a report of how a individual student is progressing against the core courses requirement.

Nor does it need to, nor (IMO) does anyone need to pay for such a report.

To see which courses are core, go to the NCAA Eligibility Center, navigate to the List of Approved Courses, tell it which high school the player attends, and it will provide a custom list for that high school of approved core courses.

In my opinion paying for a professional evaluation of my son's progress toward becoming a qualifier is the same as paying for batting instruction, fielding fundamentals, speed and agility training, etc. I could have gone online and followed the many hitting and fielding instructional videos myself and saved a lot of money. For $30 (or something ridiculously minimal), I had someone who does this all day long review his transcript personally. I don't have the time to go through the NCAA materials nor would I rely on my son's high school counselor to tell me he is making progress towards becoming a DI qualifier.

More people looking for the easy road---WOW----have someone do the work for me, please !!!!--AND what if they give you erroneous information--

The Clearinghouse gives you the core classes needed and you can correlate that to your sons HS-the info on the Clearinghouse site is readily available

No wonder other countries are bypassing us--our adults don't want to extend themselves when needed and thus why would the kids--why not export this servise as well as all the others we already do ?

C'mon people --let's get real here

TRhit, yes, let's get real here. Erroneous information is possible, but if you had to choose between 1) figuring it out yourself; 2) your high school coach; 3) your high school counselor; or 4) a company that does this all day long, where do you think you'd have less of a chance to receive erroneous information?

Yes, the NCAA does provide all the information one needs, but so do instructional videos. This is no more the easier way, then paying several hundred dollars or even thousands to attend camps, showcases, etc. We're talking about $30. That won't even get my son 30 minutes of batting instruction with a former major leaguer.

I understand that some things are just worth paying for, and everybody has things that they could do, but they prefer to pay for.

However, figuring out classes required is part of getting through high school, into college and through college. If you or your son aren't willing to do it now, I doubt a college degree will be the final outcome. Hopefully the baseball skills can be turned into a career.

I appreciate your comments everyone. I have a little better understanding on what to look for. You say that my son needs to track his own classes to make it through high school and college...then what are couselors for? I agree with you to a certain extent but couselors are there to make sure.

I have been able to track classes for initial eligibility, but I like knowing that I'm correct. Its too easy to make mistakes. Counselors make mistakes as well. I think I will use one of the services you mentioned.

Ballparkfranks - I'm willing to do many things. However, I'm not going to rely on myself or my 15 year old son to determine his status toward eligibility; similarily I will not rely on myself to teach my son batting techniques. The $40 or so I spent was well worth the money. Figuring out what classes to take is indeed part of the process. However, when it comes to making sure it's done right and in compliance with NCAA regs (and consequently will not effect a collegiate athletic career), I'm not going to take the chance.

This thread sounds a little like a veiled advertisement...

quote:

Originally posted by 3FingeredGlove:
The NCAA provides several ways to read about the freshman eligibility standards. URLs listed in order of size-- short and concise is first, while the actual rules are last in the list.

The first link should tell you everything you need to know. All of this applies to D1 and D2. D3 allows the individual colleges to decide who is eligibile.

Freshman Eligibility Standards

Guide for the College-Bound Student Athlete

General Eligibility Page

NCAA Division manuals-- see Bylaw 14.3

Thanks for the info 3FG, The List of Approved Courses link was particularly useful.

I made a little spread sheet based on the approved list and my son's HS transcript. It was interesting to have a number on how many core courses he has taken, as well as compute what his GPA is based on the NCAA weighting system. The GPA is just an estimate right now since I don't have the final grades yet for his senior year, but I think you can get a good idea if your son is a qualifier or if he is borderline and then maybe get some extra help if needed. Plus the NCAA has a Legal Disclaimer on the Approved Core Courses list that "Core course information included on this Web site is provided for guidance purposes only and should not be solely relied on as an indication of NCAA initial-eligibility."

One thing I saw that I didn't know, is that the NCAA says "The Eligibility Center will evaluate a student’s academic credentials once the following information has been received, and the student has had their status requested by an NCAA member institution". So I guess if no NCAA school requests the student's status the NCAA won't bother to process the student or certify their status.

This link also seemed to cover just about anything related to the prospective High School Student and the NCAA Academic Eligibility process:

High School Portal (Resources):
https://web1.ncaa.org/hsportal...bmit=ShowActiveLinks