Can anyone explain the NCAA Certification Account? I understand this is needed if you want to play at a DI or DII school, however, when during high school should you switch to a Certification Account, and should you do so on your own, or do you wait to see if any DI or DII schools are actively interested in you? As there is an $80 cost involved, I’d like to undestand what is needed and when. My son will be a Junior in the Fall of 2018, he’s had several DIII coaches reach out to him (he’s a soccer goalkeeper) already, and a few DII’s just started contacting him (as they were unable to until June 15 of this year). Many thanks!
You need to set up the account (and pay the $80) before you can take an official visit. The Clearinghouse won’t complete the account until they have an official transcript from each high school attended, and a final transcript with graduation indicated. Plus one qualifying ACT/SAT score.
I think if you never take an OV, you don’t have to set it up until you are ready to play for a D1/D2 school. My daughter did set it up before an OV but then never completed it. We were scrambling for transcripts to be sent during her first week of school.
Thanks @twoinanddone! Will schools not offer an OV if the athlete doesn’t have a Certification Account? I guess my question is, can we wait to see if he gets any invites, and then set up the account, or should we do it now so he already has one if he does receive an invite? And for the transcripts, are they required after every year, or only their senior year? Thanks so much
It only takes a few minutes (and a credit card) to set up the Clearinghouse account. I think all a coach would ask is if you have an account (and for the number) when offering an OV, and if you don’t have one the coach would ask that you set one up. No danger in not setting it up early. You can’t go on the OV until you have a number.
They need a transcript, not official, when you set up account. They need an official transcript from each school, and the final transcript with graduation confirmation, from the final high school, but they don’t need it after every year. My daughter went to 3 high schools, so even though her final school’s transcript included all the other transcripts, that’s not good enough for the NCAA. Good enough for college admissions, not good enough for the NCAA. They also need the ACT/SAT and my daughter put the NCAA code (I think it is 9999) on one of her early sittings. Once you test at the ACT minimum, they don’t care if you send every testing.
Even though it costs $80 doesn’t mean the NCAA will treat your paperwork with care. They didn’t get our final graduation transcript. I contacted the high school athletic dept secretary and she had sent it with about 30 other transcripts. She told me every year even though she sends 20-30 transcripts at the same time in the same envelope, somehow the NCAA loses half of them. When I called the NCAA, the woman said “Do you know how much mail we get?” Well, I do but we paid $70 for you to process it. Some schools send the transcripts by Parchment or another service, and those seem to find the way to the file.
You can set up a Profile Account and get an NCAA # without having to pay the fee, then convert it to a Certification Account if you get an OV invite. NCAA will not even review a student’s file until the student is put on a D1/D2 coach’s Institutional Request List — the vast majority of students who register with NCAA and pay the $80 fee are never even reviewed, so I think waiting until you have an interested D1/D2 coach makes sense.
ETA: NCAA will do preliminary certification based on the 9th-11th grade transcript; they need a final transcript after graduation for final certification.