How difficult is it to transfer between universities?

Transferring between universities has gotten a lot easier and also more common over the past few years. Back in the early 2000s, college coaches could literally block transfer requests by any of their athletes. This is no longer allowed so that you are no longer “stuck” at a school if things are not going as planned.

However, there are some procedures to follow and it is very important to not break any transfer rules, so that you do not jeopardize any of your eligibility. Each governing body will have slightly different rules to follow, but in general the first step will always be to notify your coach or the athletic department of your school that you are planning to transfer. Before that happens, you are not allowed to contact any coaches, so make sure to keep that in mind.

Once you have told your school that you would like to transfer, you can then start talking with other schools. Typically, at that point, coaches will start looking for other athletes to replace you, so chances are that your scholarship for the following year will be given to someone else. So make sure that you are 100% certain whenever you make that decision, as very often there is no way back to your current school once you ask to transfer. This does not have to be the case and coaches might very well still keep your spot for you, but most of the time this will not be the case. 

It also helps that transferring has become a lot more common, as coaches are not as reluctant to recruit transfers anymore like they used to be. Some coaches even focus most of their recruiting on transfer students (both junior college and 4-year school transfers), as typically those athletes will be a bit more experienced and will have one or two years of college experience under their belt. 

So keep those little pieces of advice in mind and always remember that wherever you start your college career, is not as important as where you finish. Very often going somewhere for a year or two to start might actually increase your chances of ending up at your dream school. And as always, if you have any questions about this topic or about anything else, feel free to reach out to us anytime and one of our team members will answer any questions that you might have.

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