The recruiting season for rising high school juniors in the class of 2022 officially opens on Monday, June 15, 2020. It wasn’t that long ago that student-athletes looked forward to receiving their first phone calls from coaches on July 1st between junior and senior years. But because of changes to the recruiting schedule instituted by the NCAA over the last two years, coaches are now able to initiate communication beginning June 15th after sophomore year.
In April 2018, the NCAA changed the recruiting rules for Division I to allow official visits beginning September 1st of a swimmer’s junior year of high school. Previously, swimmers weren’t allowed to take official visits until after the first day of classes of their senior year. The following year, the NCAA adopted new rules allowing communication between coaches and recruits to begin on June 15, and official visits to begin on August 1, after the athlete’s sophomore year of high school.
| Rules for Class of 2018 and Earlier HS Classes | April 2018 Rule Changes | April 2019 Rule Changes | |
| Recruiting communication opens | July 1 after junior year | July 1 after junior year | June 15 after sophomore year |
| Official visits allowed | First day of classes during senior year | Sept. 1 of junior year | August 1 after sophomore year |
The high school classes of 2021 and 2022 have an extra variable in the recruiting equation, though, as the COVID-19 pandemic has led the NCAA to ban most in-person recruiting for Division I and Division II schools through the end of July.
Division I schools are in an extended “dead period” through July 31. While coaches are still allowed to recruit via texting, phone calls, and email as in a regularly scheduled dead period*, they cannot have any in-person recruiting meetings with high school athletes. That includes campus visits and off-campus visits.
Division II schools are in an extended “quiet period” for all sports through July 31. During a quiet period, college coaches may not meet with a recruit or their family face-to-face off-campus. However, coaches are allowed to contact recruits over the phone, via email, or on the school’s campus.
As a reminder, here are our “way too early” lists of top recruits from the high school class of 2022:
- Way Too Early Recruit Ranks: Boys High School Class of 2022
- Way Too Early Recruit Ranks: Girls High School Class of 2022
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*For swimming & diving, there is typically just one dead period in a calendar year: Monday to Thursday of the first week of the signing period in November. That fell from November 11-14 of 2019 this past season.
(NOTE: If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected]. Do not leave it in the comments below.)
To editor: Interesting list. What do the codes in the ranking column mean? such as B-botr, B-hm, B-19? thanks
They’re based on our class rankings.
B-19 means Boys – 19th ranked
B-hm means Boys – Honorable Mention
B-botr – means Boys – Best of the Rest
We’re working on moving to a new system that will allow us to spell these things out more clearly!
thank you, love to see the depth in each school… a legend for the codes give a much better perspective. Thank you
If anyone commits tomorrow I’ll pay them $20
People pay MUCH more to get certain commitments!
But you will wait to pay them until after they exhaust their eligibility, correct?
WhOa WhOa NoT sO fAsT
To be clear, this was not an invitation to commit to any school in particular, I just don’t think a swimmer has ever committed on the first day of recruiting and it would be crazy to see that happen.
Actually, they’ve committed BEFORE the first day of recruiting. Ledecky comes to mind, but I’m sure there have been others.
Way back in old-lady Ledecky’s day you could do un-official campus visits at any point and meet with coaching staffs and you could always talk to coaches as long as you called them (wink-wink, after they called your club coach and told them they’d be at their phone at a certain time). Now, these swimmers theoretically can’t have exchanged more than just personal greetings with these coaches outside of group settings. It is at least a more balanced playing field in that respect. And it seems like Stanford is generally the main beneficiary of ‘I’ve wanted to go there since birth’ type talk and they are about the last to actually take a commitment with their post-junior year transcript review… Read more »