June 5, 2018

By Jason Lauren
ScoutU

I remember talking to a father of an athlete, and he was telling me that his son would almost have enough credits to graduate after his junior year, so he was going to take a bunch of easy classes his senior year to pump up his GPA. I immediately replied with, “No, no, no.” I may have said “no” several more times. He said, “Really?”

This is a common misperception athletes’ parents have. They think that only the GPA, and not their classes, is what matters when colleges are considering recruiting their son/daughter. Colleges also consider what classes they are taking — the tougher, the better.

Parents oftentimes will ask me how many credits are required in each subject to play in college. My response is always, “I don’t have that memorized, because you shouldn’t be worried about taking the bare minimum. Take the core courses (math, English, science, history) every year and take the highest level classes you can do well in.”

Most parents understand that colleges will consider GPA and test scores (ACT/SAT) when looking at an athlete’s academic profile, but some don’t realize how important what classes they take is in recruiting. A high GPA doesn’t matter if the classes an athlete takes isn’t good enough for a school’s academic standards.