Will low SAT scores continue to keep college athletes on the bench? Perhaps not. Today, the NCAA Board of Directors will decide whether standardized test scores will continue to be used to determine academic eligibility for intercollegiate sports participation. Proposition 48 began this practice in 1983, but there's a new proposal that includes a sliding scale:
In the future, those in [potential college athlete] Brooks's position might not face the same fate. Currently, the SAT minimum score is 820 for a student with a core GPA of 2.5 and above. The new proposal would adjust the sliding scale under which a student with a 2.55 core GPA would need an 800 on the SAT to qualify. Students with a 2.75 core GPA would need a 720 under the proposal. Students with a 3.55 core GPA would need the minimum score of 400 under the proposal.
The new standards would affect less than 1 percent of all recruits who would enter college next fall, said Kevin Lennon, NCAA vice president of membership services. Of that 1 percent, 75 percent are minority students and 60 percent are black...In previous years, the 1 percent affected by Proposition 48, the 1983 policy that set minimum standards of first-year eligibility, might have spent at least a semester at a prep school or two years at a junior college working to qualify.
Interesting. So if a student comes from a high school with rampant grade inflation, the required SAT score slides down to truly miserable levels (the requirement is not a 400 on each section - that 400 is a combined score out of 1600). Perhaps less than 1 percent of those expected to enter college next fall will be affected, but this new proposal basically removes any need to do well on the SAT for those with promising collegiate athletic ability, so I would expect the numbers to rise. And what's going to happen to graduation rates for college athletes after this rule takes effect? Isn't the real point of going to college to get an education and graduate? Will students with combined scores of 400 on the SAT have a good chance of doing so?