One very confusing subject that I found out a lot of people do not understand is letter of intent and the NCAA and NAIA Clearinghouses. National Letter of Intent is primarily a progam administered by DI schools. NAIA and DII schools have players sign letters of intent but they usually only limit their respective talking to other schools or changing to another school within their conference. One thing that still confuses me is seeing kids sign letters of intent to play at the NCAA DIII level. NCAA Division III schools do not offer athletic scholarships so I always wondered why some have a player sign a letter of intent? Also, letters of intent are not honored between NCAA and NAIA organizations. If you son signs with a top NAIA program early (my experience top NAIA is equal to NCAA Divsion II) it will not prohibit him from committing to a NCAA D1 if he gets a offer he likes later.
Both NCAA and NAIA have clearinghouses where you are required to submit your high school grades and SAT and/or ACT college board scores so that you will be ruled academically eligible to play in either the NCAA D1, DII or NAIA. NAIA started their clearinghouse about 2 years ago. Both cost around $100 each.
Another thing to consider is your GPA. We talked to a lot of scouts, coaches both recruiting my son and not. The overall feeling I got was a GPA of 2.5 is kind a cutoff point were schools loose some interest in you. My son had a pitcher on his summer team that had D1 propect written all over him. But a high school GPA of 2.2 landed him at a JUCO. But if he works hard there on academics, he will get the D1 interest after a year or two.
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