Why can't college scout talk to freshmen in high school?

Question

Why can't college scout talk to freshmen in high school and can you get an offer while you are a 9th grader

Answer 1

Favorite Answer

Because when an athlete is in the 9th grade, no one has any idea of what that athlete will be capable of when he/she gets to senior year in high school.

Answer 2

The NCAA forbids it to avoid pressure on kids who are too young to make those decisions and their families. After all, a student-athlete is supposed to be primarily a student, and when someone is a freshman in high school it is impossible to know what their senior GPA will be, what their SAT scores will look like, and what kind of college would be right for them. Keep in mind that a freshman still has several years in which s/he can become injured, lose interest in the sport, or fail to develop into the type of player someone hoped s/he would be, and the schools are bound by their offers, so it wouldn't be in their best interests to approach students that early either.

Answer 3

I don't know about the regulatory side of this (NCAA rules), but from a practical view, it doesn't make much sense to recruit that early. A 9th grader has a lot of physical maturing to do, so his or her skills now may be very different in three years. His or her GPA may also be very different in three years, so being a good candidate as a 9th grader does not mean s/he will be a good recruit as a senior in H.S. Also, what the team needs in year 2012 may be very different from what the team needs in 2014 or 2015. If you recruit students too early, you may find yourself with too many people at one position and not enough in another.