When do high school athletes commit to a university?

[madteaparty]

I'm totally being a busybody because I don't have a high school athlete. But someone told me this and I ran over here to do a sanity check as it sounds off. Apparently this freshman i high school (so, they have not finished the first semester of high school yet) already committed to a college. Can this be true? The sport is baseball, if that matters.

[LisaKinVA]

One can commit verbally at any time, but actual timelines do vary from sport to sport, with other guidelines varying from division to division (D1/2/3).  A verbal commitment is not binding on either the school or the student.  Considering in my family's sport coaches cannot reach out to prospects until they are Juniors (they can respond to emails, but can't call/speak with the students or do official visits until Junior year), I find it difficult to really believe that it's any kind of formal commitment (national letter of intent) -- especially since there are a whole host of NCAA hoops (grades, transcripts, course descriptions, test scores) and a certain number of core courses that must be completed and approved before an athlete is even considered eligible for college athletics. 

[MamaSprout]

Because they cannot reach out to high schoolers until they are juniors, some sports have scouts talking to stand out 8th graders. I know of it happening specifically in volleyball, but I'm sure it happens elsewhere.

[teachermom2834]

My son plays D3 baseball and played growing up with some of the best players (some even made National teams) so I’ve been around this. 

The top kids, the ones who are very large physically and way ahead of the curve committed in sophomore year. So they probably started having some discussions with coaches freshman year. The only kid I ever heard that committed (to our state flagship SEC school) as a 9th grader didn’t pan out and the school backed out. They can’t actually sign anything official until junior year I think. The schools can make a verbal offer to a kid but back out.

So, it is possible the kid has been talking to some coaches and has verbally agreed to go somewhere. It is also possible the parents are blowing some conversation they have had out of proportion. We saw a lot of that too. Another thing is that there are very few baseball scholarships to go around and extremely rare for anyone to get a full one. Lots of parents talk about their kids getting big money for baseball and it just isn’t true. The most anyone gets in our region is half. But lots of parents tout the full ride scholarship. Baseball is not a sport with many full rides.

So it is possible but you are right to be skeptical. We knew some D1 player and but most of my son’s peers ended up at D2, D3 or junior college level and most of that happened senior year. 

[alewife]

15 hours ago, madteaparty said:

I'm totally being a busybody because I don't have a high school athlete. But someone told me this and I ran over here to do a sanity check as it sounds off. Apparently this freshman i high school (so, they have not finished the first semester of high school yet) already committed to a college. Can this be true? The sport is baseball, if that matters.

In my experience, it can be true.  However, as others have stated, it is a verbal agreement between the two parties at that point.  A lot can happen between freshman year and when the student signs the National Letter of Intent (in senior year) or gets an official notification of admission to the college: the player may suffer a serious injury, the coach may leave the school, the player may not obtain the necessary test scores, etc.  

The NCAA is also trying to crack down on the sports that typically recruit at the beginning of the high school years and has implemented some new guidelines that the schools must follow.  However, one can usually find loopholes...

[...................]

My niece is a NCAA BiG Ten Div 1 athlete, and she committed in late April in an official signing ceremony which came to her high school.  They set up a table, with colorful college motto behind, gave her tee shirts and stuff to wear, and then the high school was allowed to put it's logo in the picture and she officially signed.  So she got all her recruiting mostly end of junior and senior year.  Then end of junior year she visited a few colleges, and talked with coaches.  Then sent in her regular applications, then recieved regular applications along with formal recruitment letters, which was like March/beginning of April. Then she signed some time in April.