He enrolled in Lexington and the school announced Tuesday that he was eligible this season because of the miscalculation, renewing the Wildcats' hopes for a run at the Final Four. But Parker's seemingly implausible scenario begs the question of how often coaches, compliance officers and administrators get burned by high schools over a student's GPA not being correct. North Carolina, one of the top academic-athletic institutions in the nation, may have made a mistake on this one case, but like most schools, probably reviews transcripts closely. As Sutton said, more schools may review the process even more thoroughly because of Parker. I'm calculating a GPA right now.
Most schools naturally trust the high school transcript or guidance counselor.
Part of the reason is they simply don't have time to go over every course and check if a student was given the proper credit for an accelerated course or not. South Florida coach Seth Greenberg said he flatly doesn't trust the numbers until he and his staff have gone over the GPA to see if a player is eligible. But that's not always true. Sometimes, as UCLA coach Steve Lavin said, a student thinks his GPA is higher than the high school. Double-checking the work can backfire on the school.