FAQ
Even for the experts, navigating NCAA academic eligibility can be challenging. Honest Game is here to help eliminate eligibility concerns.
Honest Game is committed to bringing equal access to college sports and beyond for all. We are former college athletes who believe in the power of sport and the opportunity of a college education. We have seen what high school student-athletes can achieve when given the motivation and a clear path to academic success. We aim to bring that vision to every high school student.
We build academic roadmaps for high school student-athletes who want to play sports in college. Our College Athletic Report on Eligibility (CARE)® provides individualized guidance to students based on their high school transcript on how they can maintain and/or gain qualifier eligibility for NCAA and NAIA sports.
3 steps to get your CARE®: 1. Set up a profile through your high school, club team or on your own! 2. If your account is through your club or your own, email your counselor for a pdf of your unofficial transcript and screen shot your PSAT/SAT/ACT score from the Collegeboard or ACT website. 3. Upload your info to your Honest Game dashboard and wait for your CARE®! If your profile is through your high school, just sit back and wait for your high school to provide your transcript to Honest Game!
Freshman year is the best time to join the Honest Game team, so you can track your progress and identify eligibility issues early. The sooner you understand your status, the more time you have to take courses and get eligible. But we can help any high school aged student-athlete with academic eligibility planning!
We help High school counselors, athletic directors, coaches, clubs teams, parents and individual high school student-athletes!
The Honest Game CARE® is a College Athletic Report on Eligibility. CARE® provides a step-by-step academic roadmap to college access, including strategic guidance and short-term goals that align every student-athlete’s passion for sport with their motivation for academic success.
Honest Game is an access tool designed to support all student athletes, not merely the student athletes who hope to play in college. Honest Game’s short-term strategic guidance drives participation in sport and Student Learning Outcomes (SLO’s), generating a multitude of college access opportunities for all high school student-athletes (i.e., academic scholarships, recruited walk on offers and admission to highly academic colleges).
The NCAA Eligibility Center is a clearinghouse. All student athletes must be academically cleared by the NCAA to be able to play at an NCAA sanctioned college/university. Honest Game is not a clearinghouse, but a guide to ensure all student athletes have a step-by-step roadmap to navigate the complex academic eligibility requirements to be cleared to play college sports.
Honest Game is committed to keeping your student data private and secure. At Honest Game, our mission is to provide every student athlete a fair and equitable opportunity to access college. At the center of this mission is protecting the privacy and security of our customers’ data. We understand that customers in the education sector are subject to specific compliance obligations, including those under the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). Honest Game's privacy practices, technical controls, and security measures are designed to protect the data its customers submit to Honest Game. If you would like to learn more about Honest Game's plans and features and/or discuss more about how Honest Game supports your FERPA and COPPA compliance obligations, please contact us.
Honest Game is a public benefit corporation with an equal access mission. Pricing is geared towards affordable access for all.
Check your Honest Game report to see if you’re on track! There are special rules due to COVID-19. If you do not meet the minimum academic requirements set out by the NCAA, NAIA, you cannot take an athletic scholarship, compete or practice.
Check your Honest Game report to see if you’re on track! There are special rules due to COVID-19. If you do not meet the minimum academic requirements set out by the NCAA, NAIA, you cannot take an athletic scholarship, compete or practice.
The minimum core GPA for an NCAA DI qualifier is a 2.3. Your core GPA is based on only the NCAA approved courses that you take. A minimum 980 SAT or 75 ACT sum score is required to match a 2.3. The minimum core GPA for a NCAA DII qualifier is a 2.2. A minimum 920 SAT or 70 ACT sum score is required to match the 2.2 core GPA. Check your Honest Game report to see if you’re on track! NCAA College Bound Student Athlete Guide: There are special exceptions due to COVID-19, e.g. waived test scores for students enrolling in college for the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school year.
Your high school has a list of NCAA core courses online. If the course names on your transcript don’t match up with the NCAA’s current list of courses for your school, it could cause a delay in your certification. Each school has a different list of NCAA core courses. Honest Game can help with all of this! Check your Honest Game report to see if you’re on track!
When you register with the NCAA Eligibility Center, they assign you a number. This number is how the NCAA EC tracks your eligibility status and certification. College coaches will ask for your number to confirm you’ve submitted your transcript and test scores. Log into your NCAA Eligibility Center account to find your number.
High School student-athletes who want to compete at the NCAA DI or DII level must register with the NCAA Eligibility Center. In order to take an official visit, high school students must have registered and also had a copy of their school transcript submitted by a counselor. In order to compete and earn a scholarship, you must be first certified by the NCAA Eligibility Center. Registering with the NCAA EC will not trigger academic review. You will want your Honest Game report now to ensure you’re on track.
The NCAA recommends you register sophomore year. Registering with the NCAA EC will not trigger academic review. You will want your Honest Game report now to ensure you’re on track.
Get recruited: to get an athletic scholarship you have to make yourself known to college coaches as an athlete who will impact their team. This will be through getting seen in competition, sending your highlight reel, filling out recruiting questionnaires, going to camps and showcases, reaching out to college coaches and visiting college campuses. Be academically eligible to compete: college coaches want to recruit students who can compete under the NCAA rules and who will be academically successful at their college - academic redshirts are allowed on the DI and DII sliding scales, but each coach will decide if he/she/they want to take the penalty of you not competing your first year. Be academically admissible: College coaches can’t recruit students whose academic record is not strong enough to pass admission standards. In the end, you still have to apply to the college and be accepted. Each college has a different set of admissions standards. NCAA DI, DII, NAIA and NJCAA all can give some form of athletic financial aid. NCAA DIII does not give athletic financial aid, however, they are able to give other forms of financial assistance. Money is money! The NCAA has a great infographic on scholarship statistics. We find it most interesting that the average NCAA DIII student-athlete receives $17,000 in financial aid.
Go to ACT.org or collegeboard.org, log in and select “send scores”. NCAA’s code is 9999 and NAIA’s code is 9876 or type in NCAA or NAIA in the recipient field.
Fill out a transcript request form in your counselor’s office or email your counselor and ask for the transcript to be submitted. They can upload your transcript to the NCAA EC’s portal virtually.
IF you graduate high school in the first 4 years, you may take up to 1 unit (two semesters or three trimesters) of NCAA approved core courses after high school graduation before enrolling as a college student. If you have a documented Education-Impacting Disability that is approved by the NCAA, you may take up to 3 units (6 semesters or nine trimesters) of NCAA approved core courses after high school graduation. See more details in the NCAA College Bound Student Athlete Guide. If you don’t graduate in the first 4 years of high school, the NCAA DI will not count any courses taken after the end of the 4th year. NCAA DII will allow you to take any number of courses before enrolling in college.
First, you must register with the NCAA Eligibility Center. Second, fill out NCAA EID application.
The Application requires you to provide the following documentation: current, signed documentation of your EID by the treating professional; copy of your most recent IEP or 504 plan, or private school’s summary of accommodations; signed Buckley statement if a parent/guardian would like to discuss your EID with the NCAA, their name must be on the Buckley statement.
If you graduate high school in 4 years, NCAA DI allows you to take 1 unit (2 semesters or 3 trimesters) of NCAA approved core courses after high school graduation (4th year of HS) and before enrolling full-time as a college student. These units cannot replace grades that are locked in by the 10/7 rule (DI). NCAA DII allows you to take unlimited NCAA approved core courses before enrolling as a full-time college student.
The NCAA EC has a registration fee of $90. If you qualify for free/reduced lunch or an ACT or SAT fee waiver, you will qualify for a fee waiver. A school staff member must log in to the NCAA EC portal and approve your fee waiver request.
Go to https://web3.ncaa.org/ecwr3/. The registration process will take around 30 minutes depending on the student. Questions are as simple as where do you attend high school, what club teams have you played for and amateurism type questions. Registering with the NCAA EC will not trigger academic review. You will want your Honest Game report now to ensure you’re on track.
The NCAA EC recommends high school students register sophomore year. Some students choose to wait to pay the $90 fee until they are sure they are going to compete in NCAA DI or DII. You can register with the NCAA Eligibility Center with a “free” account if you are unsure you will go DI or DII and transfer that account to a paid account later.
No. DIII doesn’t require specific academic requirements other than being admitted into the college or university. You can register with the NCAA Eligibility Center with a “free” account if you are unsure you will go DI or DII.
No. NCAA DIII only requires that you be admitted to the college in order to compete.
Choose courses in core subject areas that are NCAA approved. Choose credit recovery courses that are NCAA approved. Prepare for the SAT/ACT test; Know what score you need; Use your PSAT as a predictor. Take the SAT/ACT more than once, and don’t wait until the last minute. Some students take the SAT/ACT four or five times until they get the score they need. Know that your grades count starting DAY 1 freshman year. Tell your counselor about your dreams to play college sports. The higher your grades and test scores, the more financial and athletic opportunities you will have at the college level.
Spend the same amount of time and effort on academics as you do on your sport. You would never go into a game without doing drills, workouts, practices, scrimmages, etc. Think of your daily/weekly assignments as drills, workouts and practices and the midterm or final like the championship. If you don’t achieve academically, you have fewer options to get to the next level of college athletics.
If you are “recruited” to a college team, it means the college coach identified you as a student-athlete who is possibly/likely admissible to the college based on your academic record and that coach believes you will make an impact on the team’s performance.
Getting recruited is a trial and error process for many student-athletes. It is up to you to be proactive in reaching out to college coaches and to be realistic about your academic and athletic potential. Don’t be afraid to send your video and statistics out by email. Do research about college teams, their team roster, schedule and evaluate their statistics against your own to find the right fit. The ideal fit would be a great academic fit where you are one of the top recruits. If you are at the bottom of the roster, you will be unlikely to get recruited.
The NCAA DI and II have a recruiting calendar for specific sports. Generally, coaches may start contacting students the summer after sophomore year. DIII allows students to contact coaches at any time. You should reach out to coaches directly. Don’t wait for them to come to you!
Yes, for NCAA DI and DII, test scores are still required for certification. NCAA DIII does not require students to be certified in order to compete.
DIII colleges cannot guarantee financial aid until after you apply and are admitted. However, if you are admitted, but cannot afford the financial package offered, you may be able to withdraw your ED application.
If you are on an athletic scholarship, you are considered a “counter”. A counter’s additional non-athletic financial aid could be counted towards the athletic scholarship amount the college team is allotted. You will need to check with your college financial aid office to confirm what type of merit or grant-based aid you may receive. NCAA DIII does not give athletic scholarships, so you have more flexibility to piece together different forms of financial aid together.