Athletics: Probability of competing beyond high school

There are more than 450,000 NCAA student-athletes, and fewer than two percent will go pro in their sports. The chart below shows the probability of competing in athletics beyond high school – both college and professionally. These percentages are based on estimated data.

Student-Athletes Men’s Basketball Women’s Basketball Football Baseball Men’s Ice Hockey Men’s Soccer
High School Student-Athletes 538,676 433,120 1,086,627 474,791 35,198 410,982
High School Senior Student-Athletes 153,907 123,749 310,465 135,655 10,057 117,423
NCAA Student-Athletes 17,984 16,186 70,147 32,450 3,964 23,365
NCAA Freshman Roster Positions 5,138 4,625 20,042 9,271 1,133 6,676
NCAA Senior Student-Athletes 3,996 3,597 15,588 7,211 881 5,192
NCAA Student-Athletes Drafted 46 32 254 678 7 101
Percent High School to NCAA 3.3% 3.7% 6.5% 6.8% 11.3% 5.7%
Percent NCAA to Professional 1.2% 0.9% 1.6% 9.4% 0.8% 1.9%
Percent High School to Professional 0.03% 0.03% 0.08% 0.50% 0.07% 0.09%