Experiences with NCAA?

[Mibellesmom]

My son hopes to play baseball in college. NCAA evaluates homeschool course-work on a case by case to determine eligibility. They do not give a list of approved curriculum and they do not pre-approve courses ahead of time for homeschoolers. They’ll evaluate his coursework at 11th grade. We’re happy with Heart of Dakota! I am worried that they won’t approve our curriculum for any reason. The only specific guidelines, besides recommended 4 years English, 3 of math.... is that the books have author and publisher, be at High School/college prep level ( Algebra 1 and beyond, English, History, Science,) Has anyone here has had any experience with NCAA while using Heart of Dakota in HS? Thanks!

[Mibellesmom]

No one here has athletes?

[Nealewill]

My guess as to why no one has replied to your questions is because HOD is still young and there are a lot more people on here with younger kids than with older kids. So it very well may be that no one on here has tested the waters you are in yet.

As to whether or not HOD would cut it with the NCAA, I don't see why they wouldn't. While I don't have kids that are in high school yet, I do remember my own experiences in High School and I went to one of the top 100 high schools in the nation. HOD is every bit as rigorous as that high school. When I look at graduation requirements for my state, HOD will have my kids graduating with more than is required. I actually compared graduation requirements from my alma mater with HOD and HOD will have just as many credits awarded if not a couple more. Plus, I actually think I will cover more information for most of the subjects with HOD than I did in high school. When I compare HOD with places like Bob Jones, Abeka or PACE (since those programs are used in actual schools), HOD is every bit as good as those programs.....well better and more interesting IMHO LOL. As long as you are completing every subject with HOD and not skipping things or dropping things, I would have to think you would be fine and would easily meet their requirements.

Are you concerned about certain subjects? Have you pulled up the college entrance requirements or at a minimum high school graduation requirements and compared them with HOD? I know many students who go onto to college don't necessarily have a rigorous high school education. And I can only assume that many students who play NCAA Basketball would fit that same trend overall when looking at all students entering college and assessing their level of challenge for high school.

[Mibellesmom]

I think you are right! I’ve always thought HOD to be very rigorous and matches what most selective colleges want. We are seeing a few problems ahead, though. When I listed all his subjects by grade, NCAA may not approve his history, world geography, world religion, etc because it doesn’t have a textbook. Science may also come into question. They don’t pre-approve materials for homeschoolers. They evaluate a student coursework in 11th grade, which at that point is too late to make any corrections. On top of that, I am in California and none of the UC's universities will accept curriculum that is not in their approved list for A-G requirements (what is used in public schools, common core, etc) They can be eligible through entrance exams, if they do very well. Another way, is to take a SAT subject test for each subject. This could change, but my son is not an excellent test taker. He will take the PSAt in 9th grade, so we’ll see how he does.

We don’t have our hearts set at any specific college, but I do have a kid who’s only aspiration so far is to play college baseball. My husband and I have talked and we want to do our best so he’s eligible to play sports without compromising his Christian education which is the most important to us. He already takes a long time to finish MtMM’s, I can’t imagine adding anything else to World Geography, but I am thinking about picking up a textbook to be used as a secondary resource and give him a few chapter tests throughout the year.

[MelInKansas]

My question is: how is qualifying to be a college athlete different than applying to the university? If your child wants to be a college athlete does their application to the college undergo more scrutiny than any other person applying? If you have fulfilled the requirements of your state for High School graduation and your child has a transcript with all requirements met, great, I would think you are fine then. You have to know what your state requires. Now, again, depending on your college, I suppose they may have other requirements for entrance and that's part of what you need to know, based on the college they want to go to. Again, I don't think this is different for an athlete as compared to any other person applying to be a student there. If anything, if your child is at all talented at the sport, I would think the admissions officers would be trying to make sure he CAN be accepted.

[Mibellesmom]

Yes,it should be no different, but the competition is fierce. If wasn’t for HSLDA interfering, most homeschooled students would not have a chance to play sports at the college level. Since 2008, the NCAA has a homeschool department. Athletes go under more scrutiny because in addition of meeting the requirements of a particular college, they must be cleared by one of the sports organizations, depending what division they want to play. Without clearance, the student may not practice or try out for a team, or receive any contact from a coach, so they’re not even allowed to be recruited or receive scholarships. Coaches do not look at students who are not cleared to play. There are lots of rules about recruitment, contact, etc

You have to worry about different requirements for athletics and colleges separately. Since HOD goes above and beyond the athletic requirements, I didn't think much about it at first. For kids who go to traditional school, courses are pre-approved and not generally questioned.However, for homeschoolers, the NCAA requires me to give not just his transcripts, but also a list of textbooks with ISBN numbers, course descriptions, how it was graded, and they evaluate each homeschooler on a case by case depending what was used. For example, I keep hearing that Teaching Textbooks and Rosetta Stone have consistently not been approved. The public California Universities have similar requirements, but if you come from a homeschool or unaccredited HS, entrance by examination is the only option. University of California now accepts homeschooled students with a portfolio, and they recommend a SAT subject test to validate the transcript.

The only guidelines the NCAA has given me: Must have author and publisher, materials must be at the High School level and college preparatory. They don’t consider CLEP testing.

[MelInKansas]

That makes sense, and if you are in California then I can see where the competition would be fierce and there would be more scrutiny. It's not easy to be an NCAA (especially Division 1) athlete around here either, and I don't know of many homeschooled students who have tried it but I do know of a few.

It sounds like you have to do a lot of extra legwork to re-prove that yes, your child completed a more-than-adequate high school education. But again it seems similar to what you would do for H.S. transcript anyway, just providing all those records to the college or athletic department or NCAA as well. Sorry I can't help you with what to do (obviously) just agree with the others that HOD is rigorous enough to qualify, you'll just have to prove it to them.

[MomtoJGJE]

My oldest is only 7th grade, and I've only asked people at one school this question, but their answer was basically that if the kids are recruited to play (not just walk-ons) then the rest of it doesn't really matter. So I would ask if you have him playing somewhere where he's being seen. Travel ball, elite teams, going to camps at the colleges he's interested in, etc.

[Mibellesmom]

Yes, that is part of it, but it’s not entirely accurate. He’s been a part of travel teams before. We’ve found elite teams sometimes aren’t worth the cost and/or hype. We’ve had to exercise some wisdom about it. It’s easy for parents to go broke trying to make it happen, so we’ve had to drawn the line with super pricey travel ball teams. He didn’t take a break and has played year around since 6th grade and we will do a few baseball camps/showcases next summer. However, if they don’t get clearance from one of the sports organizations, they are not eligible to play in college. Now, if they are drafted to go pro straight out of High School, I guess it wouldn’t matter.

[Little Women]

I have some friends who have done NCAA with other homeschool programs. They won't have the specifics of HOD, but they can talk to you about what they did with NCAA and what issues they ran into. If you will give me your email, I will see if I can get them to talk to you.

[Little Women]

Ok, I figured out which 2 friends of mine have done this, and have 1 email for you. (Will probably have another in a couple of days. ) If you want to pm me with your email address, I will put you in touch. They both used Sonlight, mostly, but have successfully been through the process with a fair percentage of non-traditional resources.

[Tidbits of Learning]

I have an athlete here and we researched our options for state sanctioned high school sports before we made the decision for our student to return for high school. We were using World Geography for several months and looked into our options for competitive sports that would increase the likelihood of playing later in college. Before she went back, we did look into a private school that would allow play as a homeschooler(very pricey) and she would have had to have set out a year b/c we live out of their district which would have meant losing a year of playing time. You had to be eligible academically as well though and their was a process. I am guessing it is a similar process to the NCAA. Part of that process is listing all courses and descriptions and such on their forms for the state high school sports overseeing organization. Here were the tricky areas--any subject taken at a lower than normal pace was deemed remedial (Spanish in less than 1 credit in 1 yr was deemed remedial), any subject that was listed by the publisher as lower than 9th grade was deemed remedial (R&S English would have been deemed remedial English no matter how difficult the content as the publisher lists it as 7th and 8th grade level), and any subject that did not have a grade level based textbook needed tangible evidence of grades from content such as a mid-term and final (adding a textbook and using their tests was a workaround discussed at the time). In our state to get credit in certain courses for your transcript, you have to take the EOC's for the course. Our EOC's required are Algebra, Biology, English 2 and 3, and US Govt (end of course tests) and they are written to state standards (common core) and must be passed in order for the credit to be listed on transcript.
So those are the things that I would tell you to look at and compare with HOD's high school guides and transcripts to make sure you are covering what you need to cover. 1. Courses taken in typical time frame compared to peers (1 credit in 1 yr) 2. Texts must be at high school level by publisher or they will be considered remedial 3. Make sure any state required testing could be passed if peers are required to pass such testing for credits to be awarded.

[ResasPieces]

I realize this is an old thread, but the original post (quoted below) is exactly my question! I'm hoping since a couple years have passed maybe someone else using HOD has gained some NCAA eligibility process experience. We are starting with WG in the fall for my 9th grade daughter and I'm starting to fill out the core-course worksheets using the course descriptions in the front of the WG guide as reference. If you have any insight, please let me know! Thanks! ~Resa

My son hopes to play baseball in college. NCAA evaluates homeschool course-work on a case by case to determine eligibility. They do not give a list of approved curriculum and they do not pre-approve courses ahead of time for homeschoolers. They’ll evaluate his coursework at 11th grade. We’re happy with Heart of Dakota! I am worried that they won’t approve our curriculum for any reason. The only specific guidelines, besides recommended 4 years English, 3 of math.... is that the books have author and publisher, be at High School/college prep level ( Algebra 1 and beyond, English, History, Science,) Has anyone here has had any experience with NCAA while using Heart of Dakota in HS? Thanks!

[ninipelley]

I too am interested in this.... We are hs a 9th grader in fall & I have already checked out the NCAA paperwork & state high school requirements but I have completely missed the part about textbooks, I was looking for at class content, as in subjects. Geez...

[Carrie]

Ladies,

I only have a moment to respond to this thread, but I wanted to briefly share the story of a family that emailed us in April about a similar topic.

The family of more than 10 children has been using HOD with their two oldest sons since they were in the third grade. The boys are graduating after using the final US2 HOD guide this year. The second oldest son was a heavily recruited football player who received many academic scholarships and football offers this year. The family shared that they received nothing but praise from the numerous colleges he was accepted into (over 25) for the quality of his education and how it was reflected in his test scores, transcripts, and essays. After being accepted into numerous NCAA universities, he signed with the NCAA college of his choice in February on National Signing Day. He will be a pre-med student. The family emailed us to share how thankful they were for HOD, and its part in where their sons are now.

I share this to encourage you that schooling with HOD through high school with thoughts of college sports and NCAA requirements in mind is possible. What the Lord desires for our students will come to pass, as nothing can circumvent the Lord's plan!!

Blessings,
Carrie