NCAA APR

The method of determination, at leasst in my mind, has to be redone--- too many ways a school gets punished unfairly

BUT

This makes academics in HS all the more important--College Coaches will be looking alot more in depth at the HS academics of a player

That is great for my son who has great grades but it doesn't help if the school loses 2 scholarships. I can see wanting them to improve on the academics but schools that repeatedly send kids to the pros will be hurt. Do you think this is a subject that a parent of a junior should bring up to the coach? I want to but my son says NO!!!

bags

You cannot change anything about

Stay out of it--your son is correct

We had a coach bring it up to son in a recent conversation. Said they were having to look at their recruitment criteria differently now because of the new NCAA rule...and my son, with excellent grades, was someone they now wanted to join their roster...

So 06's, 07's, etc.....listen up.....GOOD GRADES ARE EVEN MORE IMPORTANT NOW..if you want to play college ball.

IMO this is going to effect the borderline kids that in some cases have athletics as their only option to higher education. These kids have the most to gain by the college experience and continued education, no matter whether it results in graduation or not. Though the intention of these new rules is honorable, I see this as a step to further widen the gulf between families who can afford to pay tuition and those that cannot.

RHP05Parent....why are they borderline....why did it come down to athletics being their only option come senior year of high school?

I have many mixed feelings about this one.

+ I agree its an honorable ideal created by honorable people, but...
- I think its a bit idealistic and somewhat unrealistic

+ I think its achievable even by schools that send many players to the pros, but...
- I think its mostly achievable by schools like Stanford, where many of the players come in with advanced credits and could graduate in 3 years anyways

+ I think it will force schools to be more vigilent about their athletes as students, but...
- I agree with RHP05Parent that it may squeeze out the borderline student who found athletics his/her only way to college

+ I think student athletes may become more serious about their classwork than they may be at times now, but...
- I think it will encourage coaches to encourage their players to find less challenging majors

Bottom line...I've learned this year firsthand how very, VERY difficult it is to be a student athlete in college. There's a lot of pressure on these young adults. In a lot of ways its good for them, but we are asking more and more of them all the time. The statistics are based on graduating in 5 years I believe...to be honest, I would be perfectly happy to stretch that timeframe to 7/8 even 10 years...whatever it takes.

Just some thoughts from someone whose perspective has changed a bit in the last year.

I think it would help immensely if they went to a 5 year plan for athletes with the freshman year being a non playing year

It will take effect with the number that comes after this spring.

Schools who lose players to the pros won't be hurt too much, so long as those players were academically eligible when they leave. What you might find from these schools is slightly smaller scholarships and slightly larger rosters ... they'll go out and offer books to a kid they figure is a good bet to graduate and not a threat to go pro. This raises the percentage of kids they retain and, therefore, the index number.

This will really hurt schools that lose kids to transfers and hurt schools that take chances on kids with lesser academic backgrounds.

I go with the above post. My understanding is as follows. The consensus is that the NCAA realizes that this is a big issue with baseball (leaving after third year) and exceptions will be met (not sure how) depending on the schools overall atheletic program.
The change you might see is that schools will take a bigger chance on a player with a higher GPA than BA or ERA.
My perspective has also changed this year. In a top BB program where one may leave after 3 years, the work load is immense (18 credits per semester). The demands are incredible.

I have to disagree with you a little RHP05, why does a borderline kid stand to gain more from a college experience? Granted, some kids don't have to bust their butt to get good grades, and some kids who do bust their butt still get poor grades. However, most kids who play sports and get good grades do so through hard work and good time management. Too many high school athletes (most definately not all or even the norm) spend a disportionate amount of time working on their field skills, and while others are hitting the books, they are out hitting the ball. The pros are looking for good athletes/poor students because they don't have to contend with a college education getting in the way of their perspective player. You wouldn't want an athlete who hasn't done his work on the field, why should a college want an athlete who hasn't done his work in the classroom?

quote:

My perspective has also changed this year. In a top BB program where one may leave after 3 years, the work load is immense (18 credits per semester). The demands are incredible.

TPW, this is not just with top programs. Playing a college sport like baseball involves so much more than the portion on the field we see as fans. They can have 6-12 hour bus rides while they are writing papers, studing for finals, etc. The toughest are games when your son have been up for most of the prior 48-72 hours studying for 2-3 midterms and then plays 3 games in two days or when they are away for 5 days at the conference championships and return at midnight to begin finals the next morning. Any baseball player who earns his college degree in 4 years or less is a person I would look to hire. Takes unbelieveable effort and tenacity.

Tiger Paw Mom

18 hours in the spring? Wow ... I did that once when I was in college during track season way back when and it's suicidal. That semester I was almost a full point under my average GPA.

If he pulls it off, that's an amazing season, regardless of what happens on the field.

Something else that came up with my son's team: The coach asked the players to apply for any academic scholarships they qualify for (those not administrated by financial aid). The team overall had a pretty good first semester, but their roster is on the small side for a DI program, so any casualty really hurts their index. My guess is they'd like to "find" some scholarship money and expand their roster a little bit.

OldVaman,
My bad,18 in fall and 16 this semester as he changed some things around.
I think this is average for BB players not sure. Regardless, when you have to go to school and play 5 games per week, study for tests, lab work and practice and in the gym, it's an eye opener.
I think the goal for him is to be 3/4 of the way through by end of Junior year.
Every program is different, my point and Justbaseball's, these kids have a lot to juggle as college atheletes.

Even 16 hours is a healthy load. Mine is taking 15 and he's feeling it. 18 in any semester is a tough deal. But to keep a four-year pace before "the call" is admirable.

I want to give a real-life, true example of where I think this rule could hurt an underpriveleged kid.

My mother used to tutor athletes in a perrennial top-25 college basketball program. This program would get many inner-city kids...many who barely met minimum NCAA certification requirements. She once had a basketball player who entered reading at a 2nd/3rd grade level. Pretty much straight C's through HS, but probably didn't even perform at that level...was likely passed through because of his athletic prowess (teachers may not have wanted to "kill" the dream). One might guess that this was a great athlete who didn't care much about school, maybe lazy in the classroom?

To the contrary my mother found out! He was as motivated as could be. You see, he was never challenged in the classroom to do the work, he was simply pushed on to the next grade through HS. Little/no accountability from his HS teachers. But the rubber meets the road in college and within a year, he was diagnosed as dyslexic and was put in a reading/writing skills program that brought him up to a college level. He was never late for a tutoring session or classes...he was often there ahead of my mother asking why SHE was late?!

This young man went on to graduate and become a social counselor for inner-city youth. He is a bright, energetic and good young man. He has had articles written about him in major newspapers for overcoming his disability and his underpriveleged background.

Would he be passed over by the recruiters as "too high of a risk" nowadays? I believe so. Would that be the right thing? Absolutely not.

Its good to have standards and ideals, but there has to be a human element to it too...an allowance for the exception. I worry about these rules and how they affect someone like this kid. Where would he be today without the "break" he got through his athletic skills to attend college? Hard to say...he's a good person, but I believe he's paying off big dividends from the break he caught a few years ago.

my guy took 32 in the first year when he redshirted then for the next four years it was 16 and 12

That's what I'd like to see Chris get to. But he, I think correctly, opted to take only 12 hours this fall, his first semester at the new school, try to put up a good GPA and make a good impression. And, to his credit, that's exactly what he did.

Due to the expense of college, we would like to see our kids graduate in 4 or 5 years. In general the public would like to think that student-athletes are students. Therefore, I think the new APR will be a good thing. Perhaps the marginal student athlete would be better off in a JC?

My worst fear is that schools more schools will just eliminate baseball scholarships. The APR, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't apply to walk-ons.

Graduation rates for ncaa athletes are only counted for players receiving athletic scholarship money.

Students are scored one point for being eligible and one point for returning to school each semester or 4 points per year.

If a player leaves after their junior year but was eligible, the team loses a few points which goes into a somewhat archaic calculation. The NCAA has noted that it would take several players leaving for the draft or any reason before a team had their APR score drop dramatically. In the long run, it won't be the players that leave that hurt the APR score but the players that stay that are not eligible or the players that neither get drafted but leave anyway and were not eligible as that could be a 2 to 4 point deduction.

The emphasis will have to be on recruiting student-athletes that are interested in staying at least 3 years and are interested in doing some work and being eligible.

As far as the reducution of scholarships is concerned - If you are banking on your son receiving a significant athletic scholarship for baseball, I would suggest you not hope too much. There are 285 D1 baseball programs, but many of those will not be fully funded anyway. I know plenty of programs with 1,2,3 or maybe 4 scholarships to offer for the entire team. Many of those will also be state school programs where a full scholarship might be 10 or 15 thousand dollars. Removing one of those scholarships because of a low APR might mean a 1 to 2 thousand dollar hit to a few players. Hardly chump change, but in the grand cost of some colleges, not a huge loss either.

Unless you are a top player, there is far more money available in academic scholarships and grants. I spoke at a school this week and invited a D2 coach down and he said any student applying early action to his school that has a 3.0 GPA and SAT of 1100 automatically gets $11,000 in aid, 3.0 1200 SAT gets $12,000 in aid and 3.0 1300 SAT gets $15,000 in aid. Thats before admissions has even sniffed your financial aid application or looked at your EFC. If you would like to divide 11.7 scholarships into 30+ baseball players on a team if you happen to be recruited by a program with 11.7 baseball scholarships, you are going to get a 33% scholarship perhaps, and anyone that gets 66% means another player gets 0%

What is the effect on APR of bringing in JC players?

I had a D1 coach tell me that they will no longer recruit JC players because of the effect on their APR. Is this a recruiting ploy to discourage a high school player from attending a JC or is it a true negative effect?