<p>We went through the process three years ago--it's been streamlined a bit, but still going to be cumbersome. We were informed by the NCAA that they will not accept a NARS transcript--I imagine this is probably true for most "umbrella" type schools now.</p>
<p>We went through the process this last fall. It wasn't that bad -- once we figured out what was required! We used an umbrella school and weren't sure if that would be enough or not (would she be considered homeschooled or private schooled?) Well, my daughter was considered homeschooled, so those were the regs to follow. The clearinghouse took the transcript, but needed all the other homeschool things.</p>
<p>So keep track of textbooks and their publishers ... I had to go back and look up the latter. I had all the former for the course descriptions I did for the umbrella and then for college apps. For those courses lacking one particular text, I listed what we used.</p>
<p>The only problem we had was that I hadn't graded and the regs ask for grades (and the clearinghouse insisted that this was mandatory, not "report any grades you have.") Our umbrella wouldn't even accept parent-generated grades. I called the clearinghouse and asked to talk to the man who deals with homeschooler applications. We worked it out that I would fax him with my assurance that my daughter passed everything on her transcript. Kinda silly, but it got dd eligible to compete.</p>
<p>Start early -- once your child graduates high school. I assumed that dd's college would know how to do the eligibility thing and we thought this was confirmed when she and others of the team filled out NCAA forms one night at practice. But the night before the first competition, she and a number of others found out that they weren't eligible. We had to really push to get eligibility by the next competition two weeks later. (It helped that I called, the school called, and there was that competition guideline -- I've heard of kids, traditionally-schooled kids mind you, who've had eligibility take months to get.)</p>
<p>Be sure to specify the NCAA Clearinghouse to get SAT I and ACT scores. We had done that at the time and I think this speeded things up.</p>
<p>Yes, start early for the NCAA. When you are shopping for courses- ask if they are approved for "college prep" ahead of time. That makes things go faster. The only other thing to add was that they required an original, sealed transcript for each school. So if the graduating school accepted your courses, then posted them on the transcript, that wouldn't be good enough. We shopped around for different courses using the university based distance learning --not everything was available at every school. I also liked essay tests, not MC when possible. So she had 3 different schools represented. (3 sealed transcripts) Make sure you have PLENTY of the approved core courses. (and I've heard that CC courses aren't always approved.) This is so interesting because you're being compared with and have to document alongside of the ones with the "submarine" test scores, to put it kindly.
Good to know about NARS and the NCAA. More people should be aware of that.</p>
<p>You only have to worry about course approval if you get outside courses to do the core requirements. If you do it through homeschooling, all you have to tell them is what you used. My daughter only had a few outside courses and none of these would have counted for the core anyway. We didn't even bother sending an official transcript from that. We had an umbrella school transcript but it itself doesn't offer courses. So we had to go in like pure homeschoolers.</p>
<p>If you are going outside for the core, I believe the NCAA Clearinghouse does have a online data base showing which courses have been approved for which schools.</p>