Eligibility Regulations and Requirements 

To be eligible to compete and receive expenses associated with competition, a student-athlete must be both academically eligible and be certified as an amateur by the NCAA. NCAA Bylaw 14 governs Academics and General Requirements Eligibility. NCAA Bylaw 12 governs Amateurism. In addition, some transfer student-athletes may not be eligible for competition upon transferring and may have to sit a year in residence.

Independent of academic eligibility and status, student-athletes can render themselves ineligible in other ways; for example, a student-athlete may render themselves ineligible by accepting extra benefits or competing in outside competitions and accepting non-approved expenses or by failing a drug test. If a student-athlete is rendered ineligible in these circumstances, the student-athlete will have to go through the NCAA reinstatement process before they will be eligible to compete again and may lose all or a portion of their season of competition. Competition while ineligible will result in the student-athlete having to sit at least a 2-for-1 penalty and will void any team victories in which the student-athlete participated.

NCAA Academic Eligibility Requirements

• High School Graduates:

• To be academically eligible to compete during the first year of college following high school graduation, a student-athlete must be deemed a Final-Qualifier by the NCAA Eligibility Center.

• Domestic:

• An incoming freshman’s eligibility is determined using a combination of the individual’s recalculated GPA under NCAA standards using acceptable core courses and the individual’s SAT or ACT test scores.The individual must graduate from high school.

• For more information, please visit these resources:
• http://www.ncaa.org/student-athletes/future/division-i-initial-eligibility-toolkit
• http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/eligibility_center/Student_Resources/DI_ReqsFactSheet.pdf
• https://web3.ncaa.org/ecwr3/
• http://www.ncaa.org/guide-college-bound-student-athlete

• International:
• Please review the NCAA standards based on your home country: http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/eligibility_center/International_Information/International_Guide.pdf

• Individuals who are designated by the NCAA eligibility center as an Academic Redshirt may practice with the team during the first semester of full-time college enrollment and receive an athletics scholarship during the first year of full-time college enrollment, but cannot compete during the first year of full-time college enrollment.

• Individuals who are designated by the NCAA eligibility center as Non-Qualifiers are prohibited from:
• practicing,
• competing,
• receiving benefits incidental to practice or competition,
• traveling with a team; and
• from receiving an athletics scholarship during the individua’s first year of full-time college enrollment.

• Transfers:
• The decision to transfer to another school is an important and often difficult one in your college career. Below please find resources that will help you in this decision, as well as provide you with information regarding what you will need to do to be eligible upon transferring. Additionally, transfer student-athletes must have been academically eligible at their previous school to use the one-time transfer exception and be eligible for athletically related financial aid at the school to which they are transferring. Please note, even if a student-athlete transfers and is academically eligible, you may still have to sit a year in residence under NCAA regulations.
• NCAA Two-Year Transfer Guide
• NCAA Four-Year Transfer Guide

• CurrentStudent-Athletes
• Each semester, student-athletes must meet certain NCAA academic benchmarks to be eligible to compete. Progress-toward-degree requirements are designed to guide student-athletes toward graduation. The standards help student-athletes take the appropriate steps toward earning their degree. Standards include minimum grade-point average, term-by-term and annual credit hour requirements, and percentage-of-degree requirements. Student-athletes who do not meet the requirements are not eligible for competition; however, a progress-toward-degree waiver may be filed to possibly regain eligibility 

NCAA Amateurism Eligibility Requirements

All incoming student-athletes must be certified as an amateur student-athlete. With global recruiting becoming more common, determining the amateur status of college-bound student-athletes can be challenging. All college-bound student-athletes, including international students, need to adhere to NCAA amateurism requirements in order to preserve their eligibility for NCAA intercollegiate athletics.

For the staff at the NCAA Eligibility Center to certify amateur status, college-bound student-athletes must answer a questionnaire during registration.

The questionnaire covers the following precollegiate enrollment activities:

• Contracts with professional teams
• Salary for participating in athletics
• Prize money
• Play with professionals
• Tryouts, practice or competition with a professional team
• Benefits from an agent or prospective agent
• Agreement to be represented by an agent
• Delayed initial full-time collegiate enrollment to participate in organized sports competition

Eligibility Clock

Division I student-athletes have five calendar years from the first enrollment at a two- or four-year school to compete four seasons of competition. In limited circumstances a waiver may be filed with the NCAA to extend a student-athletes clock if there are extraordinary circumstances; this decision is made solely by the NCAA.

Required NCAA and ETSU Compliance Forms

Before a student-athlete may practice, the individual must complete all NCAA required forms via ARMS and pass a medical physical. Your ARMS log-in is your ETSU email address including the @etsu.edu.

Before a student-athlete may compete, the individual must complete all NCAA and institutional forms on ARMS and must be cleared by the Sports Medicine Department. 

Questions

If you have any questions regarding eligibility, please don’t hesitate to contact a member of our Compliance Department.