The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II, and Division III. The main reason for Division II and Division III schools to compete in Division I is that certain sports have either only a single division or only Divisions I and III. As a result of this, there are some D-II and III conferences with a conference championship in a sport that has only one or two NCAA divisions (e.g. bowling, men's volleyball).
Some schools, however, have opted to compete in a sport at a higher level and are allowed to do so by the NCAA under certain circumstances. First, schools in Divisions II and III are allowed to classify one men's sport and one women's sport as Division I (except for football and basketball), provided that they were sponsoring said sports at Division I level prior to 2011. In addition to this, a lower-division school may compete as a Division I member in a given sport if the NCAA does not sponsor a championship in that sport for the school's own division. Division II schools may award scholarships and operate under Division I rules in their Division I sports. Division III schools cannot award scholarships in their Division I sports (except as noted below), but can operate under most Division I rules in those sports.
While many of the lower division schools playing with the "big schools" are frequently heavily outclassed, others not only compete successfully, but are among the elite programs in their sport (e.g. Alaska-Fairbanks in rifle, Johns Hopkins in men's lacrosse, Minnesota Duluth in both men's and women's ice hockey).
Five Division III members are allowed to award athletic scholarships in their Division I sports—a practice otherwise not allowed for Division III schools. All of these schools sponsored a men's sport in the NCAA University Division, the predecessor to today's Division I, before the NCAA adopted its current three-division setup in 1974–75. At that time, the NCAA did not sponsor championships in women's sports. Today, these schools, sometimes called "grandfathered", are allowed to award scholarships in the one originally grandfathered sport, plus one women's sport.[ citation needed ]
The following table is a list of Division II schools competing in Division I. [1]
Conference affiliations reflect those for the specific sports in which each school competes alongside D-I schools, and do not necessarily match their primary affiliations. Years for conference moves or the addition of sports reflect calendar years. For spring sports, this is the year before the start of competition.
Legend: Pink = Leaving division. Green = Future.
The following table is a list of Division III schools competing in Division I, including those which play in sports that have only one national championship event open to members of all NCAA divisions. [1] Grandfathered schools, with their scholarship sports, are indicated in bold type.
Conference affiliations reflect those for the specific sports in which each school competes alongside D-I schools, and do not necessarily match their primary affiliations.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and one in Canada. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and helps over 500,000 college student athletes who compete annually in college sports. The organization is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Conference USA (CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose member institutions are located within the Southern United States and Western United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. CUSA's offices are located in Dallas, Texas.
The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision. Member institutions are located in the states of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
The Northeast Conference (NEC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Teams in the NEC compete in Division I for all sports; football competes in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Participating schools are located principally in the Northeastern United States, from which the conference derives its name.
The NCAA Division II men's basketball tournament is an annual championship tournament for colleges and universities that are members of NCAA Division II, a grouping of schools in the United States that are generally smaller than the higher-profile institutions grouped in Division I. The tournament, originally known as the NCAA College Division Basketball Championship, was established in 1957, immediately after the NCAA subdivided its member schools into the University Division and College Division. It became the Division II championship in 1974, when the NCAA split the College Division into the limited-scholarship Division II and the non-scholarship Division III, and added the "Men's" designation in 1982 when the NCAA began sponsoring a Division II women's championship.
The NCAA Rifle Championship is an annual co-educational rifle national collegiate championship sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The tournament includes an individual and team championships consisting of the two-day aggregate scoring of the smallbore competition and air rifle competition. The national championship rounds are contested annually in mid-March. West Virginia (19) and Alaska (11) have combined to win 30 of the 43 team championships. Unlike many NCAA sports, only one National Collegiate championship is held each season with teams from Division I, Division II, and Division III competing together.
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic powers, with large budgets, more elaborate and nicer facilities and a few more athletic scholarships than Divisions II and III as well as many smaller schools committed to the highest level of intercollegiate competition.
NCAA Division III (D-III) is a division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that choose not to offer athletic scholarships to their student-athletes.
NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environment offered in Division III.
NCAA Division I independent schools are four-year institutions that compete in college athletics at the NCAA Division I level, but do not belong to an established athletic conference for a particular sport. These schools may however still compete as members of an athletic conference in other sports. A school may also be fully independent, and not belong to any athletic conference for any sport at all. The reason for independent status varies among institutions, but it is frequently because the school's primary athletic conference does not sponsor a particular sport.
College lacrosse is played by student-athletes at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. In both countries, men's field lacrosse and women's lacrosse are played at both the varsity and club levels. College lacrosse in Canada is sponsored by the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA) and Maritime University Field Lacrosse League (MUFLL), while in the United States, varsity men's and women's lacrosse is governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). There are also university lacrosse programs in the United Kingdom sponsored by British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) and programs in Japan.
Conference Carolinas, formerly known as the Carolinas-Virginia Athletic Conference (CVAC) or the Carolinas Conference, is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) primarily at the Division II level. It is also considered as one of the seven Division I conferences for men's volleyball. Originally formed in 1930, the league reached its modern incarnation in 1994. Member institutions are located in the southeastern United States in the states of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The Conference Carolinas membership currently consists of 15 small colleges or universities, 13 private and two public.
The Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. It was named the 24th NCAA Division II conference and operates in the Great Lakes and East South Central States regions of the United States. The G-MAC began conference play in the 2012–13 academic year hosting 12 championships and continued to work through the educational assessment program. The conference received approval and became an active Division II conference in 2013–14, hosting 17 championships.
NCAA Emerging Sports for Women are intercollegiate women's sports that are recognized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, but do not have sanctioned NCAA Championships.