NCAA Amateur Certification

GoNavyMom

10-Year Member
5-Year Member
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Mar 17, 2009
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Hi,

I want to share a lesson learned. If your child is a SA recruited athlete, you may already know about the NCAA Clearinghouse. However, if your child is not a recruited athlete like mine but intends to try out for one of the SA varsity teams (which certain teams do have open tryouts), you may find that your child is suddenly a varsity athlete. Before he or she can compete at a SA on a DI or DII level, they must be NCAA certified.

Here is the link to the NCAA Clearinghouse which is where a student athlete becomes certified: https://web1.ncaa.org/eligibilitycenter/commmon/

The NCAA has its own process which takes time. It requires registration (fee involved), submission of SAT and/or ACT scores (fee involved) and an official high school transcript (depending on your school, a fee maybe involved). The student-athlete needs to complete an on-line NCAA questionnaire to provide information about his or her amateur status. The NCAA does certify student athletes on a rolling basis but there may be certain deadlines by competition season.

If there's any chance your child might compete at the DI or DII level in Fall 2010, then consider starting the NCAA registration/certification process sooner rather then later. Certification won't be complete until a final high school transcript is submitted. It seems better to get as much of this done while your child is still home (even if it is never used), rather than scrambling in the fall to get everything complete. If you don't want to spend the money until its actually needed, at the first mention of a varsity tryout, hit that NCAA web site.

Good luck.

GoNavyMom
 
Good advice!

Another point to keep in mind if you are, say, a Junior in HS:
Take a close look at D1 academic requirements. You can look up specific classes taught at your HS to see if they are acceptable for NCAA requirements. For example, make sure that your 4 years of English are in approved English classes. Some "Language Arts" classes do not count for NCAA Division I eligibility.

https://web1.ncaa.org/eligibilitycenter/student/index_student.html

Eligibility Quick Reference
 
There are some very specific requirements there, and I recommend that all parents read through the NCAA things on their own, and don't leave it up to the coach!!! Sometimes, the high school coaches just don't know about specific requirements, dates, fees, and in general - expectations. Sometimes, even the college coaches are not aware of all the nuiances.
 
i just got cleared by the clearinghouse a few days ago, and i started the academic process in march or april of this year. it takes awhile for them to process everything.
 
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