What’s the difference between the NCAA and NAIA in college sports?
If you are a top high school athlete on the sports scholarship track to college, chances are you’ve already memorized the distinctions between each of the four college sports divisions. But for those of us who play for fun or simply want to know if our campus teams will get to play their games on national television, here’s a helpful little breakdown of the NCAA and NAIA divisions:
The NCAA is the National Collegiate Athletic Association and contains three of the four college sports divisions:
Division I is home to many of the nation’s biggest and best colleges, including University of Michigan, Boston College, and UCLA. Full scholarships abound in Division I and the competition is fierce. If you follow professional sports, you’ll know that many of the rookies come from Division I schools.
Division II’s membership includes many smaller colleges and universities, like San Francisco State University, Adelphi University, and Morehouse College. Unlike Division I, there is no age limit for players in Division II, although there is a limit to how many semesters you can stay. The highest-ranking NCAA II teams are often of a higher caliber than the lowest-ranking teams of Division I, so it’s safe to say that there’s a lot of talent in Division II as well. This division also offers scholarships for top college athletes.
Division III does not offer scholarships, so its recruiting tactics are limited and the level of play varies greatly from team to team. Schools in this division include Franklin & Marshall College, Emerson College, and Catholic University.
The NAIA is the National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics. It offers fewer sports and recruiting restrictions than the NCAA, but its level of play is similiar to that of the NCAA II division. There are close to 300 schools in the NAIA, including Azusa Pacific University, Fisher College, and Eastern Oregon University. Schools that are part of the NAIA tend to be smaller in campus size and student enrollment, making this division a good choice for students looking for a supportive environment both on and off the playing field.
Want to know your chances of scoring an acceptance letter to a big-time sports school? CampusCompare will soon debut its new tool, What Are My Chances?, which allows you to enter information about your GPA, test scores, etc. in order to get an idea of where you stand with your dream school.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 11:39 am and is filed under Athletic Associations, Athletics and Admissions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:50 pm
[…] What’s the difference between the NCAA and NAIA in college sports? […]