The report also indicates continuation of another trend, however, which is that failure to meet a required ACT or SAT test score remains the primary stumbling block for nonqualifiers.

For both years, more than 90 percent of PSAs met the minimum high-school core-course requirements and the test-score requirement, while more than 95 percent met the the high-school core-course grade-point average minimum.

While the report cited no single factor for the small increases in academic performance for both the 1997 and 1998 cohorts, it acknowledged that improvement could be due to one or more of the following:

Changes in student academic preparation;

Changes in institution recruiting patterns or IRL usage;

Changes in the way students self-select into the Clearinghouse; or

A variety of other changes in the population of college-bound student-athletes.

In 1998, the percentage of ineligible PSAs due at least in part to the test-score component was 3.2 (out of 48,888 in the cohort of PSAs on a Division I IRL). Of that percentage, the constituency most affected was the African-American cohort. In both years, in fact, most of the ineligible African-American prospects were ineligible because of the test-score component. That also was the case for the 1995 and 1996 cohorts, though the percentages have decreased. In 1996, 14.3 percent of ineligible African-American prospects failed to meet the test-score component, compared to 12.0 percent in 1998. For whites in the 1998 cohort, the percentage of ineligible PSAs due at least in part to missing the test-score component was 1.1.

Also, as in past years, ineligibility rates for PSAs on a Division I IRL are highest in football and men's basketball when the data are broken out by sport. Overall ineligibility for those two sports was 15.7 percent for the 1997 cohort and 13.2 for 1998. In 1997, 6.5 percent and in 1998, 6.3 percent were ineligible due at least in part to the test-score component. Overall ineligibility rates for female sports and male Olympic sports for the 1998 cohort of PSAs on a Division I IRL were 4.1 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively.

Overall, though, the academic performance of all prospects who applied to the Clearinghouse in 1997 and 1998 appears to be generally better than the respective national norms of college-bound students as reported by The College Board and ACT. The average SAT score of the 1997 prospective-student-athlete cohort, in fact, was 33 points higher than the national norm, and the average for the 1998 cohort was 37 points higher. Even greater differences (67 points higher in 1997 and 72 in 1998) were indicated for prospects who were recruited by Division I schools and appeared on a Division I IRL. However, the SAT scores used by the Clearinghouse are optimal scores (that is, the prospect's best score on each of the test areas from multiple test sessions) and thus are not strictly comparable to the published national averages.

Comparison of high-school grade-point averages follows a similar pattern when compared to national norms, but the high-school GPAs are optimal averages in specified core courses, while the national norms are self-reported cumulative GPAs in all high-school courses.