This study examined participation in high school and intercollegiate varsity athletics by following a cohort of 8th-graders through high school and the first 2 years of college. Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 were used to track all 1988 8th-graders through 2 years after scheduled high school graduation, all 1988 8th-graders who completed high school, and all 1988 8th-graders who attended 4-year colleges by 1994. For the approximately 3 million students enrolled in 8th-grade in 1988, only 5.2 percent reported participation in intercollegiate athletics at 4-year colleges in 1994, only 2.2 percent if participation at National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I schools is examined separately. Among students attending 4-year colleges, 14.8 percent reported participation in intercollegiate athletics. Males were almost twice as likely as females to report participation in intercollegiate sports at NCAA Division I schools, while high socioeconomic status (SES) students were 10 times as likely as low SES students to report such participation. Black and white students were twice as likely as Hispanic students to report participation in intercollegiate sports at NCAA Division I schools. Also, while 90 percent of participants in intercollegiate athletics met previous NCAA academic standards, only 68 percent would have met the new requirements which went into effect in August 1996. (MDM)