The NCAA News - News and Features

March 16, 1998

Academic standards guide ready this spring

The NCAA Foreign-Student Records Consultants met February 27-28 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to discuss upcoming changes for the Guide to International Academic Standards for Athletics Eligibility and review other issues related to foreign student-athlete eligibility.

The guide, applicable to students entering a collegiate institution in fall 1999, will be available late this spring. The guide will be expanded to include the Division I Initial-Eligibility Index for each country outlined in the guide. The indices initially were mailed to all Division I institutions in July 1996, but have not been distributed since then.

Due to the increasing number of student-athletes graduating from secondary schools in Zimbabwe, the consultants agreed to create a country outline for Zimbabwe for inclusion in the upcoming guide.

The consultants also reviewed documentation on the Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE) and agreed to include the certificate as an acceptable document for meeting the core-curriculum and grade-point average requirements of NCAA Bylaw 14.3 (Initial-Eligibility Requirements).

The AICE will be added to the following outlines: British-Patterned Education in Africa, British Patterned Education in the Caribbean, and the United Kingdom. The AICE previously was listed only in British-Patterned Education (Other).

In other meeting highlights, the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse reported that of 345,111 student-athletes currently registered with the clearinghouse, 6,624 are foreign student-athletes. Foreign student-athletes continue to represent approximately two percent of the registered student-athlete population. The percentage has remained constant since establishment of the clearinghouse.

The consultants will meet again October 3-4 in Kansas City, Missouri.