If you're a high school athlete planning to compete at an NCAA Division I school, there's a rule that can permanently determine your eligibility before you even start your senior year. It's called the 10/7 rule, and most families don't learn about it until it's too late to fix the damage.
How the 10/7 rule works
The NCAA requires Division I athletes to complete 16 core courses during high school. The 10/7 rule adds a critical timing requirement on top of that:
- 10 of those 16 core courses must be completed before the start of your seventh semester (senior year)
- 7 of those 10 must be in English, math, or science
Here's the part that catches families off guard: the grades you earn in those 10 courses are permanently locked in. You cannot retake them, replace them, or improve them during senior year. Your core GPA for those 10 courses is final.
This means a freshman who earns a C in Algebra I has that grade locked into their eligibility calculation forever, even if they retake the class and earn an A later. The A doesn't replace the C in the NCAA's eyes.
Why this matters more than your overall GPA
Your high school transcript shows a cumulative GPA that includes every class you've taken. The NCAA doesn't use that number.
Instead, the NCAA calculates a separate core GPA using only your 16 designated core courses. This core GPA is often significantly lower than your cumulative GPA because it strips out electives, non-core classes, and anything the NCAA doesn't recognize.
A student with a 3.2 cumulative GPA might discover their NCAA core GPA is a 2.4 once non-core courses are removed from the calculation. That gap blindsides families every year.
The 10/7 rule makes this worse by locking in the grades from your first three years. If your core GPA is low heading into senior year, you have very limited ability to raise it — you only have 6 remaining core courses to work with, and the 10 locked courses carry the most weight.
Who needs to worry about this
The 10/7 rule applies specifically to NCAA Division I. If you're targeting D1 programs, this rule is non-negotiable.
Division II has its own academic requirements but does not have the same lock-in mechanism. Division III does not require NCAA Eligibility Center certification for academic purposes (though individual schools have their own admissions standards). NAIA uses a completely different system.
If you're unsure which division you're targeting, assume D1 rules apply and plan accordingly. You can always relax the requirements later — you can't retroactively fix grades that have been locked in.
What to do right now
If your athlete is a freshman or sophomore: You have time, but you need to use it. Identify which courses at your high school count as NCAA core courses (your school should have a list called the 48-H form on the NCAA website). Make sure your student is enrolled in and prioritizing those courses. Every grade counts from day one.
If your athlete is a junior: Check where you stand immediately. Count how many core courses have been completed. Count how many are in English, math, and science. Calculate the GPA using only those courses. If the numbers are tight, this is the semester to prioritize grades in core classes above everything else.
If your athlete is a senior: The 10 courses are already locked. Your leverage is limited to the remaining 6 core courses. If your core GPA is below the threshold you need, talk to the specific college programs you're targeting — some may be flexible, others won't be. Be honest about the numbers.
The bottom line
The 10/7 rule is one of the most consequential and least understood requirements in college recruiting. It's not a guideline — it's a hard cutoff that permanently locks in grades after junior year. The families who know about it early plan around it. The families who discover it late have no remedy.
If you take one thing from this article: your athlete's core course grades in freshman, sophomore, and junior year are the most important academic factor in D1 eligibility, and they cannot be changed once they're recorded.