Division I Transfer Portal Windows are closing soon for the 2023 Spring sports listed below:
To learn and understand how all the steps and rules involved in a transfer will impact your student-athlete, schedule a confidentialTransfer Consult online.
4-4 Transfers hoping to transfer to an NCAA D2 program:
For athletes currently at an NCAA school and who want to be eligible this Fall upon transfer to an NCAA D2 program:
For 4-year college athletes who don’t have access to the NCAA Transfer Portal (such as current NAIA athletes):
NJCAA Letter of Intent signees:
For athletes who attended an NJCAA two-year college during the 2022-23 academic year as a Letter of Intent signee:
NCAA Division I
June 15th is the first date when most coaches at NCAA Division I programs can place recruiting phone calls and send emails/messages to athletes who have just completed their sophomore year of high school.
The following Division I sports are the only ones that have a date other than June 15 as the earliest date for placing recruiting calls and sending emails/messages to prospects:
Football has an exception to the above date regarding emails sent to prospects. Those can be sent to prospects beginning September 1 of a prospect’s junior year in high school.
NCAA Division II
June 15th is the date when NCAA DII coaches in ALL sports can start to contact recruits who have completed their sophomore year of HS via phone, email, or direct messaging.
Division II coaches in all sports can also accept incoming calls and talk to prospects who call them at any time.
NOTE about the June 15 recruiting date: For any of you who may have requested and viewed our recruiting calendars for June and July, you’ll see change from June 14 to June 15 as to the classes of high school recruits who will be able to receive recruiting phone calls from NCAA Division I and Division II coaches.
For specific questions about the NCAA transfer or recruiting rules, or scholarship agreements and letters of intent, contact us by calling 913-766-1235 or send an email to rick@informedathlete.com.
With Winter sports approaching the end of the regular season, here are the opening and closing Transfer Portal dates for NCAA Division I Winter sport athletes:
Schedule a confidential consultation online for an explanation of the steps, rules and academic requirements to be eligible as a transferring student-athlete, or by calling us at 913-766-1235 or writing to rick@informedathlete.com
The NCAA Division I is no longer accepting the argument of “No Participation Opportunity” as the basis for waiver relief. This means an athlete will be required to sit out their first year at a new university if they can’t benefit from a Transfer Exception.
Limited waiver opportunities may still be available. However, robust documentation of the circumstances will be required.
Schedule a Waivers and Appeals Consult online if you have questions and want to discuss your athlete’s situation and possible opportunities for a transfer exception.
It’s the time of year when the NCAA is starting to publicize proposed rule changes that will be voted on at the annual NCAA Convention in January. I’ll highlight those that will likely be of most interest to student-athletes and families.
The Division I Council has introduced a proposal to reduce the number of official visits a men’s basketball recruit can take to a Division I university from five to three during each of three periods:
The proposal would also reduce the length of official visits in men’s basketball to 36 hours from 48. Members of the Council believe many student-athletes are taking official visits simply because they can and not because they intend to attend a school.
If approved, the Division II transfer rules will be revised to more closely align with the Division I transfer rules. Perhaps the most important revision would be that a Division II coach or athletic department would not be able to object to a student-athlete’s opportunity to be eligible in their first year at their new university.
The Division II transfer rules would be revised to:
The Division III Presidents Council is supporting a proposal that would change the current “season of participation” rule to specify that only actual competition against another institution would trigger the use of a season.
In the meantime, if you have questions about any of these proposals, contact us at rick@informedathlete.com or by calling 913-766-1235.
The Atlantic Coast Conference recently announced that they are eliminating the league’s intra-conference transfer rule.
This means that while the standard NCAA DI transfer rules still apply to athletes who transfer to a Division I university, ACC athletes who transfer to another ACC school are no longer bound by additional conference restrictions.
Those Conference restrictions previously mandated that student-athletes who transferred from one ACC school to another must serve a year in residence at the new university. The “year in residence” rule applied to student-athletes who were on an athletic scholarship at the first university as well as student-athletes who were recruited to the first university even if they weren’t on an athletic scholarship.
The above action obviously has a direct impact only on student-athletes who transfer within the ACC.
However, I believe this decision has a more wide-ranging impact and sets the stage for all student-athletes to have immediate eligibility one time upon transfer to a Division I program from another four-year university (as long as they satisfy academic requirements).
My belief is based on the statement issued by ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips regarding the action taken by the ACC Board of Directors:
“The time has come for all student-athletes to have the opportunity to transfer and be permitted to compete immediately. This decision is in the best interest of our student-athletes as it allows greater flexibility during their collegiate career.”
Commissioner Phillips is an influential voice as the leader of one of the Power Five conferences. He also has served as a past chairperson of the NCAA Division I Council and the first athletic director to serve on the NCAA’s restructured Board of Directors in 2015.
I’m confident that Division I presidents and athletic directors across the country have taken note of Commissioner Phillips’ statement.
To arrange a discussion of the NCAA Division I transfer rules, schedule a confidential Transfer Consult to review the rules that will apply to your student-athlete. You can also contact us by sending an email to rick@informedathlete.com or by calling 913-766-1235.
We’ve recently written to inform you about the new Transfer Rule being proposed by NCAA Division I, as well as the Name, Image, and Likeness proposals in all three NCAA divisions.
https://informedathlete.com/proposed-new-ncaa-di-transfer-rule/
https://informedathlete.com/ncaa-name-image-and-likeness-legislation-update-overview/
These proposals were originally going to be voted on at the annual NCAA Convention.
However, NCAA President Mark Emmert urged the governing bodies of Division I, II, and III to postpone the votes on these proposals.
There are various factors that have contributed to this delay including:
If your athlete is considering a transfer and you would like to review and discuss the Transfer rules, you can schedule a confidential Transfer Consult online. You can also send an email to rick@informedathlete.com or call us at 913-766-1235.
I recently saw a post from a college football writer that 190 football players have entered the NCAA Transfer Portal in the past 12 days!
Some of these players may leave behind a scholarship at their current school and end up having nowhere to transfer to! It also wouldn’t be surprising to see a similar proportion of athletes in other sports.
When you consider these NCAA athletes who are being granted an additional year of eligibility taking up roster spots that in a normal time would possibly be going to junior college transfers or incoming high school recruits, there will be potential roster “log jams” in many sports across college athletics.
In a confidential Transfer Consultation, we will:
Schedule a confidential Transfer Consult online, call our office at 913-766-1235 or send an email to rick@informedathlete.com.
Most of you by now have probably heard about the NCAA “Transfer Portal” that is utilized by NCAA Division I programs to let other NCAA colleges know of an athlete’s intent to transfer.
For NCAA Division II and III programs, however, the use of the Transfer Portal is optional. Also, athletes at those programs will need to request permission from their current coaching staff and athletic department to contact other colleges about a possible transfer.
If your athletic department wants you to sign a “voluntary withdrawal form” as a condition of being granted permission to contact other colleges, our strong recommendation is DON’T sign it!
Signing such a form would give your college the right to immediately cancel your scholarship if they chose to do so.
If you have questions about transferring from one college to another, schedule a confidential Transfer Consult online, call us 913-766-1235 or send an email to rick@informedathlete.com
When an NCAA DI athlete is considering a transfer to another DI university, there are 2 basic steps in the process.
Submit a written request to be entered into the Transfer Portal.
Prior to the establishment of the NCAA DI Transfer Portal last year, a student-athlete was required to get the permission of his/her coach for a request to speak to other schools. The coach could deny an athlete’s request for permission to speak with all other schools. The coach could also restrict an athlete from talking to particular schools.
This changed in October 2018. Now a student-athlete is required to submit a written request to their compliance office asking to be entered into the Transfer Portal. However, they should inform their coach before contacting the compliance office.
The school the athlete is leaving may be able to object to the student-athlete being immediately eligible at their next school. The student-athlete will then need to sit out a year of competition unless an appeal or a waiver is approved.
There are several reasons that the original school can object. One of the reasons is when the student-athlete’s GPA is under 2.60.
When a transferring athlete has a GPA of 2.60 or higher, their team can receive an APR (Academic Progress Rate) “adjustment” so that they won’t lose the retention point for that athlete. As a result, that team’s APR won’t be negatively impacted by the athlete’s transfer.
To learn more about how the APR can affect an athlete’s transfer, here’s a link to an article on our website: https://informedathlete.com/how-the-academic-progress-rate-apr-can-affect-an-athletes-ncaa-transfer/
If the school to which the athlete is transferring agrees to file for a NCAA waiver, they have the potential to be ruled immediately eligible depending on whether the NCAA approves it.
If your athlete is considering a transfer and their GPA is a concern or you have other questions, we can discuss your specific situation and help you develop a plan to navigate through the process. Schedule a confidential consult online or call our office at 913-766-1235.
