By Pat Grecco

Why is it so important for athletes to take the SAT or ACT early and often? Simply stated, in order to receive athletic grants from Division I or Division II NCAA Schools, you must qualify academically.

The NCAA Eligibility Center governs all who will receive athletic $$ based on their academic criteria. In other words, they don’t want student athletes to fail out of college because they were recruited athletes but not capable of passing their courses. They want successful student-athletes.

The NCAA Eligibilty Center will certify the academic credentials of all college-bound student athletes who wish to compete in NCAA Division I or II athletics. The Eligibility Center can easily be reached at 877/262-1492 if you have questions or concerns.

Most all colleges accept results from the SAT, which overseen by a company called College Board, or the ACT (American College of Testing).

Athletes should take their first SAT or ACT in sophomore year. This is my opinion, not the rule. The reason for that is it will give the student-athlete a chance to realize what level they are at academically and time to improve upon their weak areas.

With the verbal commitment policy now the norm, it can only enhance the student-athlete to know their academic level early on, giving the recruiting coaches an idea of not only the players’ athletic level, but also who the student is academically. This will also impact the amount of money the coach can offer a student in the athletic package. Athletic packages consist of

* Academic money
* Athletic money
* Financial need money

So basically if you are visiting a college coach in your junior year, of course you initiated the visit since college coaches can not actively recruit you until the end of junior year. If the coach says he or she wants you for his program, and you accept this offer, it is called a verbal commitment. The key piece to this is knowing how much money you can expect. In this way, having your ACT or SAT available will enhance these negotiations.

Important things to remember when taking the SAT or ACT is to send your test results to the NCAA Eligibility Center using the code 9999. Also, many schools will mix and match, that is if you took the SAT in October and scored high in the math, and then took it again in November and the math score went down, but the English portion went up, they will take the highest section scores from both tests.

File with the NCAA Eligibility Center early in your junior year and be sure they received your information. Follow-up with them. Remember to send your final transcript upon graduation. If you don’t, you will not be cleared to participate in pre-season activities at your college.

The ACT/SAT can also help with negotiations in D-III programs. Since D-III cannot offer athletic grants, they basically are limited to financial aid and academic grants. So again, knowing your SAT and ACT early on can certainly be of benefit to you and the coach recruiting you.

I recommend you contact the NCAA Eligibility Center and request the 2010-11 Guide for the College-Bound Student Athlete. It is free, it’s important, and it’s the key to success.

Please send me questions or comments via the blog, or contact me at soccervol@aol.com.