The rules surrounding NCAA official visits are very strict. You should familiarize yourself with the rules before making any visiting commitments. You can go crazy trying to understand all the legal ins and outs, but it's not really worth your time. Here are the key points that you need to know.

• Recruits are limited to five official visits
• Only 1 official visit may be made at any given college
• Official visits may only occur during a recruit's senior year of high school

For high schools from the NCAA Elibility Center:

The core-course submission process used by the NCAA Eligibility Center - or, the NCAA Clearinghouse - consists of high schools submitting core-course updates online through our Web site. When your core-course updates are submitted online, our review is performed without requesting paperwork from you at that time. Certain course titles, such as AP Calculus or Honors U.S. History, are pretty universal and can be reviewed without seeing the course descriptions or outlines. This saves your high school the time and expense of mailing materials that are not needed for our review.

After we review your online submission, you will receive an automatic e-mail and the e-mail will list the decision for each course submitted. In cases where a clear decision cannot be made, we will flag the course title with the "RC8" code, which means the course is not actually denied, but is "on hold" until course information is submitted (via mail, facsimile or e-mail) for our review.

When you wish to make future updates to your list of NCAA core courses, the directions below should help you with the process.

1. Step One: Check your list. Go to the Eligibility Center Web site at www.ncaaclearinghouse.net. From the home page, click on "High School Administration" then on "List of Approved Core Courses." Enter your six-digit school code and click "Submit."


2. Step Two: Log in to update your contact information. Click on “Administrator Login.” Use your six-digit CEEB code and five-digit numeric PIN to log in. If you have forgotten your high school’s PIN, please follow the directions on that page to establish your new PIN. Please make sure your contact person’s name, phone number and e-mail are updated. Having current information helps us serve you better.


3. Step Three: Update your list. After you log in, click on “Submit Core-Course Modifications.” From the submission page, you may ADD courses, DELETE courses no longer taught and CHANGE the titles of courses as needed. Keeping your list updated prevents your student-athletes from encountering problems as they go through the NCAA initial-eligibility certification process. When courses on a student-athlete’s transcript do not match the courses on the high school’s list, the process cannot proceed until the discrepancies are resolved.

Important Tips

• Deleted courses are still in the Eligibility Center system, even though the course titles are not visible on the Web site, and will be usable for students who took them in the past.


• Core courses are academic, four-year college preparatory courses in the following areas: English, math, science, social studies, foreign language, world religion and philosophy. More information about what constitutes a core-course is listed on our Web site. Please review it and make sure you submit only courses that meet the definition as outlined on the site.


• Course titles on your list of NCAA core courses should match the titles that appear on your high school transcripts. However, this does not mean they have to be exact copies of one another. They simply have to represent the same course. For example, we would consider “English Lit 4 AP” and “AP Eng Lit IV” to be the same course. However, we would not consider the titles “Economics” and “Modern Economics” to represent the same course.


• Please review your list on an annual basis to ensure it reflects your current course offerings. This enables student-athletes to know if they are registering for courses that are approved for NCAA academic certification or if they need to select a different course that would count toward their NCAA eligibility.


• Keep your contact information updated, including your primary contact’s e-mail address. After your courses are reviewed, we will send you an e-mail of those decisions, unless we do not have your e-mail address or the one listed is not operational.


• Our Web site contains general information you may find helpful. A good resource found on our Web site is a PDF of the “NCAA Guide for the College-Bound Student-Athlete.” It was just recently updated for the current academic year.

Before your senior year, all visits are unofficial. You must pay all of your expenses, including travel, meals, and admissions to athletic events. These visits are great to do during the spring of your junior year to get a feel for a campus.

You may make as many NCAA unofficial visits to a campus as you like. If a coach doesn't offer you an official visit as a senior, you should evaluate your prospects with that school. It may be an indication that you are not high on the coach's priority list.

Nonetheless, if you're deeply interested in that school, consider visiting unofficially. Though the visit may be unofficial, you should still try to coordinate it with the coach. He may assist you with arranging transportation from the airport and organizing an overnight stay.

You should simultaneously coordinate your unofficial visit through the college admissions department, which can provide you with meals and housing without violating NCAA rules.