National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

March 9, 1998

Clearinghouse committee seeks access via Internet

The NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse Committee took steps during its February 11-12 meeting in Savannah, Georgia, toward providing high-school students and counselors access to the clearinghouse via the Internet.

The committee asked the clearinghouse to determine a timeline and study costs for establishing a World Wide Web site and to report its finding at the committee's May 5-6 meeting.

Committee members hope to provide students the ability to register with the clearinghouse via a Web site and also to provide access to the list of approved core courses and certification status information.

The committee also anticipates eventually permitting the electronic submission of high-school transcripts.

The clearinghouse staff will study high-school students' current Internet capabilities and also will consider any demands that may be placed on the clearinghouse by providing access through the Web site.

Committee members acknowledged that providing Internet access will have financial ramifications, but suggested that other clearinghouse costs could be cut as a result of reducing printed materials and telephone calls.

The committee also reviewed ongoing customer-service initiatives by the clearinghouse.

The clearinghouse staff reported on plans to hire customer-service agents on a full-time basis to answer telephone calls (via the "1492" telephone line) from prospective student-athletes and high schools, and to provide training to enable the agents to serve as evaluators. The clearinghouse previously has hired those customer-service agents on a part-time basis and has not provided evaluator training to those individuals.

The clearinghouse also reported that it will provide a full staff of operators to answer telephone calls during peak periods.

Committee members believe the initiatives will greatly reduce the number of busy signals that callers encounter during peak periods, and determined that it will not be necessary to extend telephone-answering times at the clearinghouse.

In a related matter, the committee agreed to conduct a survey of high-school seniors, high-school personnel and athletics administrators at NCAA institutions to obtain feedback on the quality of clearinghouse service and solicit suggestions for improvement.

Core-course listing simplified

The committee also reviewed a revised format for the list of NCAA-approved core courses (previously known as Form 48-H).

The committee believes that the revised format will be more "user-friendly" to students and high-school counselors because the presentation of the information has been simplified and "minutiae" has been eliminated.

For example, the list no longer includes courses previously categorized as "questionable."

Certification priority

In another action, the committee reviewed and reaffirmed priorities for processing student certifications.

The priorities are important to member institutions as well as students seeking certification, because they determine which certifications will be processed first by the clearinghouse.

In general, students who have been listed by an NCAA member on an Institutional Request List (IRL) are given priority in the completion of certifications over students who have not been listed.

Certifications are prioritized in the following order:

  • High-school students who appear on an IRL and students with learning disabilities who have graduated.

  • High-school students who request in writing a final certification, regardless of whether they appear on an IRL.

    Individuals who do not appear on an IRL will be processed until October 1, as time permits. After October 1, priority will be given to students who are in their senior year of high school.

    Institutions are being encouraged to place a student on the IRL as soon as that student is seriously recruited, in order to improve that student's priority status and ensure that certifications will be completed within a short period of time after the receipt of materials.

    As of February 2, only 18,000 of the estimated 70,000 to 80,000 students in the class of 1998 who will be listed on IRLs had been listed by institutions.

    Postgraduation test scores acceptable if taken before first full-time enrollment

    Divisions I institutions are being reminded that students can take the SAT or ACT test after high-school graduation and submit the scores for initial-eligibility certification purposes, provided the student takes the test before initial full-time collegiate enrollment.

    Students entering Division II institutions already were permitted to use scores from tests taken after graduation, but students from Division I institutions have been permitted to do so only since fall 1997.

    The NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse Committee approved a procedure during its February 11-12 meeting for verifying that students have taken the test before initial full-time collegiate enrollment.

    Institutions will be required to submit a letter to the clearinghouse certifying that, to the best knowledge of the institution, the student has not previously been enrolled full time at a university or college.

    When the clearinghouse receives test scores for a student who is listed on an Institutional Request List, the clearinghouse will send a letter to the institution seeking verification. The clearinghouse will not post the test scores for certification purposes until it received verification from the institution.