NCAA Qualifications For Home School Students

We have previously mentioned the many benefits of homeschooling, which you can read about in this blog post, found on the Novel Education website. 

But, it’s important to highlight an additional benefit, and one of the most popular reasons for homeschooling: Schedule flexibility.

Having a flexible schedule allows room for athletics. Some of the world’s most famous athletes like Tim Tebow, Serena and Venus Williams, and Bethany Hamilton were all homeschooled. That’s because in order to professionally compete, they, along with other student athletes all over the world, need the flexibility to train, travel, and compete, while maintaining a student-life balance. Homeschooling offers the kind of flexibility needed to balance the demands of their chosen sport while meeting academic requirements. 

It is quite popular for athlete’s to elevate their performance by being homeschooled in their early years  then moving on to play a NCAA sport at a Division I or II college. College bound athletes may refer to this NCAA informational post for the guidelines on how to transition from homeschool student to college athlete. However, navigating the eligibility steps to qualify to play a NCAA sport can be tricky to understand. So, we’ve highlighted a few of the key points from this post to summarize the steps to start the process and confirm eligibility.

Confirm Your Eligibility: Homeschooled or Nontraditional School

One of the first important things to recognize when beginning the process for eligibility, is whether your child has obtained their education through homeschooling or nontraditional schooling. Due to the popularity of online and virtual education, students often confuse learning at home through an online school with online teachers as homeschooling. 

However, because they did not learn from a parent or guardian, they would be considered a nontraditional student and therefore they do not qualify for this process. Due to this confusion and the growth of online and virtual schooling, the NCAA has created a list of questions to determine whether your student is considered a homeschool student or a nontraditional student. Going through these questions with your tutor or virtual teacher can help determine which  category your student falls under. 

“Courses that will be evaluated as home school courses are those in which a parent or tutor:

• Plans and delivers actual instructional activities such as lectures, discussions, tutorials, feedback or assistance.
• Determines the student’s comprehension of the material by grading and evaluating student performance and achievement on assignments and assessments and providing appropriate re-teaching and feedback.
• Determines the overall grade the student achieved in the course.
• Places the grade on a transcript or grade report or reports the grade to a transcription agency.”

Once it’s determined whether your student qualifies as a homeschool student or a nontraditional student, the first step is to register for an Academic and Amateurism Certification account with the NCAA Eligibility Center. 

Then, you’ll pay the registration fee and fill out and submit the necessary documentation via email to ec-processing@ncaa.org. 

Use the following checklist to keep track of your responsibilities:  

• Register with the NCAA Eligibility Center at eligibilitycenter.org.
• Pay your registration fee.
• Register to take the ACT or SAT and submit your scores directly to the NCAA with the code 9999. Test scores on transcripts or Student Score Reports are not used by the NCAA Eligibility Center.
• Submit an official transcript (PDF) for each high school or academic program you attended.
• Submit proof of high school graduation with a specific graduation date.
• Submit a signed statement (PDF) of who managed the homeschool program (e.g., who taught and evaluated the coursework, awarded grades and issued credit); and a signed statement that homeschooling was conducted in accordance with state laws.
• Submit core-course worksheets (DOCX) for English, math, natural or physical science, social science, foreign language, comparative religion or philosophy classes.

 NCAA (n.d.). Home School Students. https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2014/10/13/home-school-students.aspx

More students have opted for online, virtual, and homeschooling education due to the benefits and individualized attention. Learning from home is a great way for students to chase their goals while prioritizing their academics. This lifestyle can lend itself to competitive athletics so it is important to understand these steps to make it easier to get into your NCAA college of choice. 

If there are any questions about whether your student is eligible or not, Novel Education offers private tutoring and academic consulting to help at any stage of the process. We provide recommendations, review documentation and rules for applying to an NCAA school, and will even help filling out college applications from start to finish.