Request NCAA final amateurism certification

NCAA final amateurism certification

From April 1

If you are enrolling in the autumn, you can request final amateurism certification in your NCAA Eligibility Center account from April 1. Do it in the first week.

Final certification is separate from your academic certification and from anything a coach has told you. Without it you cannot compete, cannot practise with the team in many cases, and cannot receive athletics aid — regardless of a signed National Letter of Intent.

Before you request

• Your account must be a certification account, not the free Profile Page. If you have been using a Profile Page while being recruited, upgrade it now — this catches people out every year.
• The Sports Participation section must be complete and accurate: every team, club, league and event, with dates. Omissions found later are far more damaging than anything disclosed up front.
• Fees paid, or a fee waiver applied through your counselor.

Also due this spring

• Final transcript sent by your high school to the Eligibility Center after graduation, with proof of graduation. Certification is not complete without it.
• Final test scores, if your division and cohort require them, sent directly from the testing agency using code 9999.

If you are enrolling mid-year

Students graduating early and enrolling in winter or spring request final certification from October 1 instead.

Division III

Division III schools certify athletes themselves and do not require the Eligibility Center. If your list is entirely Division III, confirm with each school's compliance office what it does need — it will not be nothing.

Keep checking the account

Certification status changes without notification. Log in every couple of weeks through the summer, and resolve any task that appears the same week. A file that stalls in July is discovered in August, when nobody is available to fix it.