The NCAA announced Thursday that it has created new rules for official and unofficial recruiting visits, ending the restriction on the number of schools a prospective student-athlete is eligible to visit.
Recruits will no longer be restricted to five official visits, but will be limited to one visit per school unless there is a head coaching change after the initial visit.
The institution will be permitted to cover costs of travel, transportation, meals and “reasonable entertainment” for up to two family members in addition to the prospective student-athlete.
Previously, recruits and their families would have to pay their own way for an unofficial visit if they wanted to visit more than five schools.
“For young people considering where to go to college, visits to campus — both official and unofficial — are an integral part of the decision-making process,” said Lynda Tealer, executive associate athletics director at Florida and chair of the Division I council.
“This was an opportunity to modernize NCAA rules in a way that provides greater and more meaningful opportunities for prospects going through the recruitment process.”
The new rules will come into effect on July 1.
The Division I council also made an update to the rules related to the one-year grace period student-athletes have after graduating high school. Once their grace period ends, student-athletes will be required to enroll full-time in a regular academic term immediately, by October 1 or March 1, to avoid delayed enrollment penalties.
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA amended its rules regarding the grace period to allow student-athletes increased flexibility.
5 officials seemed like a good number to me. If you need to take more than that, you haven’t done your homework on the schools you’re looking at and just want more opportunities to travel on someone else’s dime.
That was sort of my thought too. While philosophically, I can’t justify limiting it, pragmatically, I can only think of a few rare scenarios where an athlete should need more than 5, like if you have to re-enter the process after committing, for example.
I would love a scenario where the athletes had to register all of their visits, so coaches could get a sense of whether they’re being hustled for a free trip. Everyone’s going to want to visit UCLA and Columbia and Vanderbilt.
So coaches can’t already see where official visits have been made?
Not officially. They can find out if they want to, and it’s especially easy on the big recruits.
There’s some pearl clutching around athletes posting photos on their visits, but most college coaches I speak to don’t care.
Agree. This seems like a dumb decision that will just prompt schools to spend even more money on recruiting–and the majors already spend a huge amount. The world of college athletics–by which I mean the NCAA, conferences and schools–seems to have adopted this bizarre “anything goes” mentality, which is absurd. And there also seems this notion that ‘we don’t want to impose anything on student-athletes or prospects, we have to indulge them in every way.” Ridiculous.
While this is great in theory to provide as many opportunities for swimmers to visit school, there is a very negative impact on swimmers when taking numerous visits on their performance. If they are going to change rules, they should allow swimmers and other athletes to participate in workouts while on their visit to see how they stack up to the team in the water. Athletes in other sports would benefit from this as well. All it takes is a physical and a waiver. It’s better for them to do that than not swim for 2-3 days a week every visit.
They can already be provided open pool time to swim on their own. Just can’t workout with the team or have a coach observe the open workout. I think for bigger schools it would be a detriment for staffs to have to figure out how to get 8 kids on a recruiting weekend through a workout with their team. Deciding appropriate group placement for each one, having to explain terminology, etc.
But do the athletes actually swim? Also, how hard is it to explain what it done in a workout? Not very. When swimmers from visiting teams get in with us while on vacation, they pick things up quickly. It would really help them in the recruiting process. They never really have the opportunity to find out how they mesh with the team in the water. DII schools allow this provided it’s not during the kids’ HS season.
Another big change is the school can now pay for the parents to travel on a visit. Recruits are going to have to ask the coaches what an official visit might cost instead of assuming everything is paid for. The schools with big budgets will really benefit.
Will be interesting to see if schools will actually pay for parents. Could as much as triple the school budget. So many coaches don’t want parents around anyway. Not sure if this will be on a sport-by-sport / or individual-athlete dependent / or all-or-none basis…
I know I would not have wanted my parents hanging around the keg on my recruiting trips!
I agree. You would be surprised how many parents go on official visits with their kids.. A lot of college coaches have had to adjust their visits to include parents.
So nice they acknowledge the importance of campus visits. Makes what happened during the COVID lockdown so awful for kids going through the recruiting process then. I get that some campuses were not open. However, not being able to meet up with D1 coaches, swimmers, ect for those that were open, was just over the top. All it did was accomplish alot of transfers. The class of 2021 got dealt a really bad hand.
So true! I have a class of 2021 swimmer, who had no official visits. We took her to campuses and walked around by ourselves, and coaches zoomed her after the visit, or during our self-guided tour…. we had no pool during senior year etc. everything was a mess for them. especially if you lived in the northeast where lockdowns were long and over the top.
I might have to reclassify to go through recruiting again