NCAA Eligibility Center Rule Changes: Athletes Must be Placed on an IRL List

What is an Institutional Request List

As I am sure you are aware by now, to compete at the NCAA level, all athletes must first be registered with the eligibility center of the NCAA Clearinghouse. In the past this has been as easy as going to the center’s website, entering the athlete’s name and general information and requesting that the athlete’s high school send transcripts to the NCAA. By maintaining a GPA of 2.00, the eligibility process was satisfied. Unfortunately this is no longer the case. Because the NCAA handles more than 100,000 athlete applications each year, the eligibility center was forced to institute a new policy which requires all athletes to be placed on an active Institutional Request List (IRL).

Although there are no additional forms or documents to fill out to satisfy the IRL requirement, the process is rather confusing. To be placed on an IRL list, you must first apply to the NCAA clearinghouse, the same way you did before, and request that your high school send transcripts to the NCAA. The next step is to contact the coach of a college or university that you are interested in and ask the coach to place you on his Institutional Request List. Getting into contact with coaches can be a difficult process and the skills and expertise of a recruiting service such as College Athletic Scholarships can be invaluable in helping you find programs and coaches that you may never have been able to find if trying to recruit yourself. With our comprehensive database of more than 12,000 college coaches we guarantee to put you into contact with these coaches, increasing your chances of being placed on an IRL list. Once the coach says he will place you on his IRL list, he will contact the NCAA and request that they clear your application so that he can review it. Once one coach has requested your application to be cleared, it will be available to be seen by any other coach. In short, you only have to be placed on one school’s IRL to be cleared to play at any other school.

The same guidelines for eligibility apply to the Clearinghouse’s new rule. Athletes must maintain a GPA of 2.00 and achieve a minimum score on your ACT and SAT; this is between 37 and 86 on the ACT, and between 820 and 1010 on the SAT. Be sure to remember, the higher your GPA, the lower your test scores will need to be to obtain acceptance to a university. The Clearinghouse takes up to six months to clear an athlete and college coaches are constantly filling out their recruiting boards and drawing up their rosters, if you wait too long you may miss your chance to be cleared on time. In the past, athletes have been accepted to schools and given promises of early playing time. However, because they procrastinated on their clearinghouse registration, they were denied entry into their chosen university because their clearinghouse forms had not been processed on time. Be sure to register at the NCAA Clearinghouse website as soon as possible and begin the process of contacting college coaches.

NCAA National Letter Of Intent.

NCAA Amateur Status Agent payments.

How to get a college athletic scholarship.

Baylor University Sports Recruiting

Bentley University Sports Recruiting.

Author: David Frank


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