Previous to now, Division One hopeful athletes were able to “cheat the system” a bit and avoid core classes that would sink their GPA, making them ineligible. The National College Athletic Association (NCAA) has made this tactic impossible now, requiring ten core classes to be completed before the athlete’s senior year begins, as well as a 2.3 GPA.

“In the past, the GPA requirement was a 2.0,” Athletic Director Mike Bakker said. “Now the NCAA has changed that to a minimum of a 2.3, which adjusts the sliding scale of SAT and ACT scores that go along with those GPAs.”

The sliding scale is a metric that the NCAA uses to determine eligibility for athletes if they do not have a 2.3 or above GPA. If the student falls below the cutoff line, they must have a certain SAT or ACT score to achieve eligibility. For instance, if a student athlete was to have a 2.0 GPA, they would need a 1020 on the SAT and a score of 86 combined on the ACT.

“The GPA requirement was always based on core classes,” Bakker said. “But now that matters more than ever. Students are unable to take less than the required amount of core classes until senior year, or able to make up all those credits in summer school. The new requirement is ten core classes before the seventh semester of their high school career, or the start of senior year.”

This also makes it more difficult for a student athletes to load up on elective classes and boost their GPA, since the GPA takes into account core classes only (math, science, social studies and english classes.)

If a student is unable to make the requirements when entering college, they become a non qualifier. This means the athlete cannot receive athletic aid during the first year at an NCAA Division I college or university and cannot practice or compete during the first year at a Division I college or university. The deadline to apply for NCAA eligibility is November 1.