NCAA, NAIA, and NJCAA Letter of Intent Signing Dates and Info

NCAA National Letter of Intent:

November 11 is the initial signing date for an NCAA National Letter of Intent in all sports other than football.

• An athlete can only sign one NLI with one NCAA Division I or II university.

• An NCAA National Letter of Intent must be accompanied by an official athletic scholarship agreement from the university your athlete is signing with.

• When the athlete signs the NLI, they are committing to attend that university for at least one full academic year in exchange for receiving the athletic scholarship.

• It is not a requirement that the prospective student-athlete sign the NLI, but not doing so could cause the coaching staff recruiting the athlete to question the athlete’s commitment to their team.

See our article for reasons why an athlete may not want to sign the NLI, especially this year if they’ve been recruited during an NCAA Dead Period. https://informedathlete.com/should-your-recruited-athlete-sign-an-ncaa-national-letter-of-intent/

NAIA Letter of Intent:

There actually is no Letter of Intent that is recognized or acknowledged by the NAIA. In other words, there are no NAIA rules or requirements that apply to a Letter of Intent that an NAIA college offers to an athlete. Each college acts on their own regarding scholarships.

There is no NAIA signing date or deadline, and an athlete can sign with more than one NAIA college if they choose to do so. They could sign multiple offers from NAIA schools and then choose to wait until later on to decide which NAIA college they will actually attend.

One downside to the NAIA having no standard Letter of Intent or scholarship rules is that if an NAIA athlete loses their scholarship, there are no NAIA rules that require that an appeal opportunity be made available to them.

NJCAA Letter of Intent:

November 1st was the initial signing date for an NJCAA Letter of Intent in all sports other than football. An athlete can only sign one LOI with one NJCAA program.

• An NJCAA LOI can be issued to a prospective student-athlete even if no athletic scholarship is being offered to the athlete.

• Each NJCAA team has a limit on the number of LOI’s that can be signed in any given year, including those for which no scholarship is provided to the athlete.

• Similar to the NAIA above, there are no NJCAA rules that require that an appeal opportunity be made available to an athlete who loses their scholarship while attending an NJCAA college. Any opportunity to appeal would depend on the policies of that particular college.

Do you have questions or need guidance?

If you have questions about any of this information, schedule a confidential Scholarship Strategies consult online. Or you can send an email to rick@informedathlete.com or call 913-766-1235 to schedule a session.