Eligibility

A seamless eligibility model

The Division I academic-eligibility model provides a seamless set of standards that begin when a high school student is considering becoming a Division I student-athlete and end when the student-athlete earns a degree from a Division I institution.

Before a high school student can be eligible to play Division I sports, he or she must meet academic requirements in high school. Those standards include:

• The successful completion of 16 core courses.
• A sliding-scale combination of grades in high school core courses and standardized-test scores. For example, if a student-athlete earns a 3.0 grade-point average in core courses, that individual must score at least 620 on the SAT or 52 on the ACT. As the GPA increases, the required test score decreases, and vice versa.

• The NCAA Eligibility Center uses the sum score of the four ACT tests (perfect score of 144) when determining initial eligibility, not the average of the four tests reported by ACT (perfect score 36).

Once in college, student-athletes must make steady progress toward degrees.

• Student-athletes must complete 40 percent of the coursework required for a degree by the end of their second year, 60 percent by the end of their third year and 80 percent by the end of their fourth year. Student-athletes are allowed five years to graduate while receiving athletically related financial aid.
• All student-athletes must earn a minimum of six hours each term to be eligible the next semester.

 

Last Updated: May 11, 2012