The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- March 15, 1999

Foreign student records group updates academic policies

The Foreign Student Records Consultants worked during its February 26-28 meeting in Savannah, Georgia, to ensure that NCAA academic policies were up to date with international educational changes.

Although only minor revisions will be made to the Guide to International Academic Standards for Athletics Eligibility before its next edition, the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) will have new academic standards for students entering in fall 2000.

The CXC scale has been converted from a five-point to a six-point scale. The test taken by students in British-pattern educational systems in countries such as the Bahamas, Virgin Islands and the Dominican Republic will bear different scores to be presented to compliance officers and coaches.

For example, the best score attainable before this year was a four. That same top score would now be rated a five. Essentially, the change does not help or hurt the prospective student-athlete; rather, it simply accommodates a new grading scale.

The consultants, composed of a panel of former heads of admissions who are considered experts in foreign student admissions, emphasized that institutional staff members must be aware of the standards published in the Guide to International Academic Standards for Athletics Eligibility to ensure that student-athletes coming to institutions from other countries meet the standards. Staff liaisons to the consultants emphasize the waiver process is not the answer to all compliance problems.

For example, a number of prospective student-athletes from South Africa are brought to NCAA institutions with the intention of being declared eligible through the waiver process. Since students in South Africa are able to choose educational tracks that may not require them to take the required number of English, math, science or social science classes and the final series of exams in those subjects, they are not necessarily going to be approved through the waiver process.

In other action, the consultants reviewed data provided by the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse and noted that currently, 2 percent of the 2,300 prospects registered are foreign students.