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Changes To Prop 48/16 On Course

In the past 24 hours, RivalsHoops.com has written about players at the top of their class who have excellent SAT scores (e.g., Ryan Pettinella); players who need to get both their grades and standardized test scores raised (e.g., Greg Brown); and, players with a pretty good SAT score who need to make sure their GPA stays on course (e.g., Ryan Lambert).
There is at least one other group of players; those with good grades but lower SAT/ACT scores. The NCAA is moving legislation along that would change the academic eligibility rules for the current crop of seniors/rising seniors - the class of 2003.
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As we reported earlier this month (click here for story), the NCAA is looking to address concerns that many have long argued: that the standardized tests have been misused because the exams discriminate against athletes from lower socioeconomic levels, especially African Americans and the exams are an inaccurate indicator of academic potential.
The NCAA Board of Directors, in their August 8th meeting, recommended that a slightly different proposal be adopted from the one described in our earlier report. The chart in that story was from legislative proposal 02-22A; the Board recommended that 02-22B be used instead. The difference is that 22B changes the required test scores for those with GPAs up to 3.550 rather than stopping at 3.00.
The next step is for the NCAA's Division I Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet to review the Board's proposal. Then it could be forwarded to the Men's Basketball Issues Committee and/or the Division I Management Council. The Management Council meeting is scheduled for October 21-22, 2002. Then the Board of Directors would act on the proposal at their October 31st session.
All proposals would add a 14th course to the core curriculum requirement and would eliminate the partial qualification category.
Here is the chart from proposal 02-22B. (new provisions in bold)
And here is the NCAA's rationale for making this change:
This proposal is one in a package of academic reform proposals developed by the Division I Academic Consultants. The consultants were appointed by the Division I Board of Directors and charged with recommending ways to maximize graduation rates while minimizing the adverse impact on minority students. Research indicates that a key means of minimizing adverse impact is by eliminating the overweighting of test scores used in determining initial-eligibility. The current NCAA cut-score on the test is twice as stringent as that on the high-school grade-point average. Data indicate that the grade-point average is a better predictor of college success and should be weighted at least equally, if not higher than the test score when using these variables to predict success in college. This proposal would eliminate the test score cut of 820 SAT, but retain the high school grade-point average cut of 2.0. This proposal maintains the sliding scale minimums that currently are in place, so that a prospective student-athlete with a low test score would have to have a high core grade-point average to be eligible. Additionally, the proposal increases from 13 to 14 the number of required core courses. Data indicate that the number of core units is a small, but significant predictor of graduation. Finally, this proposal will eliminate all references to partial qualifiers inasmuch as this category is eliminated by adoption of this proposal. (emphasis added)
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