For most NCAA Division I sports, Wednesday, June 15, 2022, marks the opening day of athletic recruiting for rising high school juniors in the class of 2024. (American football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s ice hockey, lacrosse, softball, and baseball have their own recruiting calendars which you can find here.)
That means student-athletes can both initiate and receive communications –including email, text messages, social media messages, phone calls, and video calls– with college coaches. They can also visit college campuses, meet with the athletic staff, and make verbal commitments.
In April 2018, the NCAA changed the recruiting rules for Division I to allow official visits beginning September 1st of a student’s junior year of high school. Previously, students weren’t allowed to take official visits until after the first day of classes of their senior year. This move by the NCAA put recruited student-athletes on the same footing as non-recruited students, allowing them more time to make their decisions and taking a great deal of pressure off the fall of their senior year. At the same time, it moved up the verbal commitment calendar, as more and more student-athletes were making their decisions during their junior years.
In 2019, the NCAA adopted new rules allowing communication between coaches and recruits to begin on June 15 after the athlete’s sophomore year of high school. Off-campus visits, official visits, and unofficial visits are permitted beginning six weeks later, on August 1. In years past, coaches had to wait until July 1 after a student-athlete’s junior year to initiate communication. Coaches could accept calls from student-athletes at any time, but they couldn’t initiate any contact themselves. The 2019 rule restricted coaches from accepting phone calls from recruits until June 15 after their sophomore year.
While COVID has thrown a wrench into the works, with fewer spots available at some schools because of the NCAA’s allowance of a fifth year of eligibility for those affected by the pandemic in the 2020-21 season, the rules haven’t changed since 2019.
If you are interested in playing your sport at the collegiate level, fill out our Initial Assessment so we can evaluate your chances of being recruited.
