Enrolling full-time in the spring at an “interim” college if the student-athlete is not sure where they are going to attend in the Fall will impact their opportunity to use the one-time transfer exception.
If you’re a college athlete (or parent of one) considering a transfer, but are uncertain about what you’re going to do for the Spring term or quarter (attend another college full-time, part-time, or not at all?), we highly recommend you contact us for a fee-based consultation to discuss your options and how part-time vs full-time enrollment could impact your future eligibility and potential opportunity to use the one-time transfer exception.
In one of our confidential phone consultations, we’ll guide you through all the steps in a transfer and inform you of the rules and academic requirements to give you the best opportunity to be immediately eligible at the next college. We’ll also inform you of your rights if your coach tries to block your transfer or places limits on the other universities that you can contact.
To schedule a confidential consult online click here, call 913-766-1235 or send an email to rick@informedathlete.com.
As the Fall semester winds down, we are being contacted by a large number of student-athletes who are trying to decide whether to transfer now or at the end of the Spring semester.
For those sports that cross over both the fall and spring semester – such as basketball, swimming, diving, indoor track, or wrestling – an athlete who competed in that sport during the fall semester, will most likely not be able to be immediately eligible if they transfer to another college for the spring semester.
Transfers are not one-size fits all. Many times a student-athlete has more than one option to accomplish their goals and retain or possibly extend their eligibility. In that case, we recommend at Transfer Assessment Summary.
- A Transfer Assessment Summary lays out all the options available and includes “what if” scenarios so that the athlete and their family can review and make the decision that’s in their best interest going forward. If you’re interested in this services, please call our office at 913-766-1235.
If you don’t feel you need a Transfer Assessment Summary but would like to discuss your particular situation confidentially, we recommend a phone consult with Rick:
- Confidential Transfer Phone Consult where we discuss your particular situation and guide you through the required steps in a transfer to another college with the least amount of stress. Schedule your consult online or call us at 913-766-1235 or send an email to rick@informedathlete.com.
Last week, an NCAA Division I football athlete called our office and wanted to confirm what “somebody” had told that if his coach was fired at the end of the season, then he could transfer and be immediately eligible at another Division I program next year.
I’m glad he called as this athlete was given bad information.
A coaching change (whether the coach is fired, or leaves of their own choosing to retire or take a new job) doesn’t change anything about the steps to follow in a transfer or about whether an athlete can be immediately eligible at their next college upon transfer.
A coaching change at an NCAA Division I school CAN possibly change some things about an athlete’s scholarship, but nothing about the transfer rules.
If you’d like to have a detailed discussion about your personal situation and the steps involved in transferring to another college including whether you can be immediately eligible, schedule a confidential phone consult online, or by calling 913-766-1235 or sending an email to rick@informedathlete.com
More changes to the NCAA Division I transfer rules were proposed just last week by the NCAA Division I Council at their meeting in Indianapolis. These additional changes are not scheduled for a vote until April so likely won’t take effect until Fall 2019.
I will outline these key changes below, but for NCAA Division I athletes who are on an athletic scholarship, nothing will be changing about the rules that determine whether a student-athlete can be immediately eligible if they transfer to another Division I program.
The first proposed rule change will impact new incoming student-athletes to a Division I program (freshmen or transfers) who are attending summer school classes on an athletic scholarship (thereby triggering their status as a “student-athlete” at that university). Those athletes will be allowed to transfer and be immediately eligible IF their team has a head coaching change before Fall classes begin.
The second proposed rule change will allow more opportunities for walk-on athletes who have not received an athletic scholarship to transfer and be immediately eligible at another Division I university. There are current transfer exceptions that already allow that to happen, but those exceptions have conditions that restrict the number of athletes who can benefit from the exception. This proposed change will remove some of those restricting conditions.
The third proposed change should slow down the number of athletes in football and in men’s and women’s basketball who are transferring to Division I programs as graduate students. There has been a sense among many in NCAA leadership positions that some of these athletes (and the universities that bring them in) aren’t focused on the completion of their graduate degree, but are simply transferring to play for a different coach in their final year of eligibility.
As a potential consequence, football and basketball graduate transfers with just one season of eligibility remaining will be counted against their team’s scholarship limits for TWO years, unless the transferring athlete completes their graduate degree before the next academic year begins.
Here are a couple of points to keep in mind regarding these proposed rule changes:
First, these proposed changes will be reviewed by Division I universities and conferences which may result in amendments being proposed for these proposals. The impact of these changes on Division I athletes could be revised by the time the proposals are brought up for a vote in April.
Second, these proposed changes don’t address whether scholarship athletes who are transferring as undergraduates will still need the permission or agreement of the program they are leaving in order to be immediately eligible at their new university. Therefore, scholarship athletes should remember that their current coach and athletic department will probably still have the option to object to their immediate eligibility at a new university and might need to seek an appeal of such an objection.
To discuss these new, proposed NCAA transfer rules and how they could impact you or your student-athlete, schedule a confidential phone consult or email consult online, send an e-mail directly to rick@informedathlete.com or call us at 913-766-1235.
The NCAA transfer rules at this time require that student-athletes must request and obtain “permission to contact” from their current college before coaches at other NCAA colleges can speak with them about a possible transfer.
If you are thinking about requesting this “permission to contact” in the middle of your Fall sport season, we strongly encourage you to contact us for a transfer consultation so we can explain the steps in the process and inform you what to say, and NOT say, to your coach and athletic department.
Effective October 15, the NCAA transfer process will change and those changes will be somewhat different depending upon whether you are attending an NCAA Division I, II, or III institution. The transfer procedures will change for NCAA Division I and II (but not in the same way), but won’t change at all for Division III athletes.
NCAA Division I athletes will no longer need to request “permission” to contact coaches at other colleges, but instead will simply inform their current university that they want to speak with other colleges about a transfer. Their college will then add the athlete’s name and contact info to a “transfer database” being established by the NCAA.
Once a Division I athlete informs their university of their plan to transfer, the university has the right to cancel the athlete’s sport scholarship at the end of the semester. It’s also possible that the coach will immediately remove the athlete from their team.
NCAA Division II athletes will still need to request and receive permission from their current college to speak with coaches at other schools about a transfer. If/when that permission is granted, athletes at Division II colleges will have their name added to the same “transfer database” mentioned above.
When a student-athlete’s name is added to the transfer database, their contact info will be visible by any other NCAA college. Athletes who know specifically what college they plan to transfer to (or have a very short list) can ask their college to indicate in the new transfer database that they don’t want to be contacted by other colleges.
The compliance office at an athlete’s college will then complete a Transfer Tracer Form (or Transfer Questionnaire) and will upload it to the Transfer Database where it will be visible to other institutions, even those that an athlete has no interest in transferring to or ones to which their transfer has been denied.
It’s important to note that the rules regarding whether an athlete can be immediately eligible for competition at their new university have NOT changed.
To discuss a potential transfer and the steps to follow, as well as the academic requirements for eligibility, schedule a confidential phone consult or email consult online, send an email to rick@informedathlete.com or call us at 913-766-1235.
We recently consulted with a student-athlete who was planning to transfer to an NCAA Division II college and learned that she won’t be eligible this Fall even though she earned her Associates Degree at her junior college in May.
This student-athlete had not been informed that there are multiple NCAA academic requirements that must be satisfied to be eligible when transferring from one college to another and thought the Associates Degree was all that was needed.
Unfortunately, she was also required to earn at least 9 credit hours of transferable degree credit this past Spring at her junior college.
In fact, any NCAA Division II athlete – even one continuing at their same university – must have earned at least 9 credit hours (or 8 if their college was on the quarter system) in the Spring term to be eligible for competition this Fall. For a transfer athlete, those credit hours must be acceptable for transfer credit at the college to which the athlete is transferring.
If you’d like more information about your athlete’s specific situation regarding the continuing or transfer eligibility requirements, schedule a confidential Eligibility Consult online or contact us 913-766-1235.
As college athletes are heading back to campus, here is an important reminder to Fall Sport student-athletes:
Participating in organized practices before classes start, even if you leave and withdraw from the school before classes start, will make you a transfer athlete under the NCAA rules and you will be subject to transfer requirements.
If you are having second thoughts about whether you want to attend the university you’ve chosen and want to know your options, call us at 913-766-1235 or send an email to rick@informedathlete.com
JUCO Student-athletes transferring to NCAA Division I or II programs should keep in mind that there are specific academic requirements that must be achieved to be immediately eligible at an NCAA Division I or II university.
The NCAA academic requirements are different for Division I compared to Division II, and can also depend upon the student-athlete’s status as a “Qualifier” as well as how many semesters they have attended at their JUCO.
There are, however, two NCAA rules/requirements that apply to a junior college transfer regardless of whether they are transferring to a Division I or II university:
-The first is that a JUCO transfer can only use 2 credit hours of Physical Education Activity courses toward the required transferable degree credits, unless the athlete is going to major in Physical Education or another major which calls for additional credit hours in those types of courses.
-The second consistent requirement is that remedial-level courses taken at a junior college can’t be used to satisfy the academic requirements for immediate eligibility when transferring from a junior college to an NCAA university.
If you have questions about the NCAA academic requirements that JUCO student-athletes must meet to be immediately eligible at an NCAA university, click Transfer Consult Options to learn how we can help.
If you’d prefer to schedule a consult directly with our office, call Informed Athlete at 913-766-1235 or send an email to rick@informedathlete.com
Here are 3 scenarios that I frequently hear then I’m contacted by student-athletes or their families regarding the transfer process. In each of these cases, the NCAA Division I student-athlete was planning to transfer and was ready to, or already had, resigned from their team, and in one case, the student-athlete had already withdrawn from classes at his current college.
Read further to learn what happened:
Case A:
The student-athlete made up his mind to transfer, and requested permission from his coach to contact other schools. He informed the coach that he was going to finish out the semester in school, but wasn’t going to continue as a team member in team practice.
Result: He called me the next day to ask about the rules when he found out that his athletic scholarship was being cancelled immediately, potentially costing him and his family thousands of dollars. At that point, it was too late to help him.
Case B:
The student-athlete learned through a friend of an opportunity at another college, and withdrew from his classes to pursue this other opportunity. Unfortunately, he had already begun attending classes for this semester at his current school.
Result: The family contacted me to confirm that if he didn’t complete this semester where he was, that he wouldn’t be eligible next Fall at the new college. He did indeed have to get re-admitted to classes for this semester at his current school and complete this semester.
Case C:
The father of a student-athlete sent this e-mail:
“He is still there, enrolled for the Spring semester, but called me tonight and plans to resign from the team tomorrow and request permission to transfer. If he resigns from the team, is the school still obligated to pay his room and board payments after his resignation through the end of the semester? He thinks they would since he signed a one year scholarship.”
Result: Because this father contacted me prior to his son’s conversation with the coach to fully understand the consequences of his son’s plan and discuss how to properly handle this situation, he saved nearly $5000 in room and board benefits that his son would have lost had he resigned from his team.
It’s always better and less expensive to understand the rules and how they apply to your situation BEFORE costly mistakes are made!
In 2 of the above cases, if the parent or student-athlete had contacted me BEFORE they took action, I could have advised them on how to handle the situation and helped save them potentially thousands of dollars and/or alot of stress that resulted.
In the 3rd case, I was able to head off a negative outcome by alerting the parent and student-athlete to what would happen if the student-athlete quit the team in the middle of the semester. We then discussed how to navigate through the rest of the semester to result in the student-athlete’s ultimate desired outcome.
I have worked on both sides of the cases related above. In my 26+ years of working on major DI college campuses as the Director of Compliance, I’ve had to inform many student-athletes that their scholarships were cancelled after they quit the team.
One of the reasons we started Informed Athlete was to help student-athletes and their families avoid situations like this.
In my 10+ years of advising student-athletes and their families through Informed Athlete, I’ve helped hundreds of student-athletes avoid situations where this type of thing happens, saving them thousands of dollars and all kinds of stress.
In order to help you understand the rules and how they apply to your unique situation, I recommend a private phone consultation.
We’ll discuss your situation, answer any questions, and we’ll review the rules that apply and what is/isn’t permissible. I’ll also give you options as to the opportunities that might be available to your athlete. Many times both the parent(s) and the student-athlete are on the call and I coach the student-athlete on how to approach and what to say to the coach.
To schedule a CONFIDENTIAL phone consult, you can schedule online, call us directly at 913-766-1235 or send an email to rick@informedathlete.com
