Recruiting Has Begun for the High School Class of 2027

It’s Opening Day for recruiting for the high school class of 2027! (I don’t want to make you feel old but we’re talking about the college class of 2031.)

June 15, 2025, otherwise known as the first day of allowable athletic recruiting for rising high school juniors by NCAA Division I and Division II coaches, is finally here. Today, student-athletes in the class of 2027 can both initiate and receive communications –including email, text messages, social media messages, phone calls, and video calls– with college coaches. They can also make verbal commitments for the 2027-28 school year. (NCAA Division III coaches are not constrained by this rule; they can make contact and recruit year-round.)

Contact between coaches and prospective student-athletes, whether off-campus or on-campus (on-campus visits include both official and unofficial visits) may not begin until August 1st.

In the past, the NCAA has published separate recruiting calendars of allowable events for Division I baseball, women’s basketball, men’s basketball, football, men’s golf, women’s lacrosse, men’s lacrosse, softball, women’s volleyball, beach volleyball, and cross country/track and field. Recruiting timelines for all other Division I sports, including swimming and diving, are spelled out in a separate recruiting calendar.

As of today, the NCAA has only published the recruiting 2025-26 calendars for women’s and men’s basketball.

Each of the calendars lists the allowable and non-allowable contact periods for their respective sports. Over the last several years, the NCAA has sought to make the lives of prospective student-athletes and college coaches less stressful by curbing early recruiting (gone are the days when coaches were getting verbal commitments from 8th-graders) and giving coaches a break from year-round recruiting.

Contact Periods Defined

• Recruiting Period: Authorized athletics department staff may make in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts and evaluations.
• Quiet Period: A quiet period is that period of time when it is permissible to make in-person recruiting contacts only on the member institution’s campus. No in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts or evaluations may be made during the quiet period.
• Dead Period: A dead period is that period of time when it is not permissible to make in-person recruiting contacts or evaluations on or off the member institution’s campus or to permit official or unofficial visits by prospective student-athletes to the institution’s campus.
• Recruiting Shutdown: A recruiting shutdown is a period of time when no form of recruiting (e.g., contacts, evaluations, official or unofficial visits, correspondence or making or receiving telephone calls) is permissible.

Following the House vs NCAA settlement, the swimming and diving recruiting landscape will change in significant ways. To begin with, those schools that have opted into the agreement will have roster limits for 2025-26 and beyond. In most cases, this will mean fewer recruiting spots for the 2027-28 school year. On the other hand, the NCAA’s scholarship limits (14.1 per women’s team and 9.9 per men’s team) are no longer in effect and these schools will now be allowed –but not required– to offer full scholarships to every member of the team.

Class of 2027

The phones were likely ringing off the hook this morning for some of the biggest names in the high school class of 2027. Those include Luke Mijatovic, who has been named to Team USA for the upcoming World Aquatics Championships, and prospective members of the World Junior Championships squad: Audrey Derivaux, Brayden Capen, Collin Holgerson, Daisy Collins, Luke Vatev, Rylee Erisman, Shareef Elaydi, Thomas McMillan. In addition, the youngest members of the 2024-25 National Junior team will be on many coaches’ lists: Anthony Dornoff, Colin Jacobs, and Mia Su.

Other top recruits from the cohort include Davis Jackson, Ellis Crisci, Griffin Oehler, Hayden Vicknair, Joey Campagnola, Juan Vallmitjana, and Trent Allen; as well as Abby Chan, Adalynn Biegler, Alyssa Ton, Bianca Nwaizu, Blakely Hammel, Carly Afanasewicz, Chloe Teger, Emily Wolf, Nikki Nixon, Sadie Buckley, Sarah Paisley Owen, and Vivienne Zangaro.

Top 2027 boys, alphabetically:

Top 2027 girls, alphabetically:

In past years, there was a recruiting dead period during “signing week,” which began on the second Wednesday in November. But with the dissolution of the National Letter of Intent program following the House settlement, it is unclear if there will still be a dead period in November. We can assume the following shutdown periods will remain in place:

Swimming and Diving Recruiting Shutdown Periods

• One week in August
• The final 14 days of December
• The first week of January
• The third and fourth weeks in February during the most popular period for conference championships

(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.