I would agree with MCSA, math is math, english is english, history is history. The degree at the end of your 4-5 years only states you went to the school you graduated from.
There are clubs starting to offer U20 so you can train year round and be ready to step up.
You only really miss out on your parents dropping you off at a dorm with a meal plan you will blow through in 2 months.
Objectively the average student qualifications and outcomes at a CC are much lower than at almost any 4 year, let alone a UC.
CC is a gamble - it’s cheap but the instruction quality can be very uneven and the peer group is way less likely to finish a 4y degree than at a 4y university.
Speaking from experience, I went to CC for 2y and saw a lot of smart people get lost and never get a 4y degree. Frankly not a path anyone should choose for sports if they are academically ready for 4y.
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I assume that timeline was impacted by Covid. Is that still allowed?
Rational: That is a unique situation, but IMHO, I do not think that 25-year-old two-time Olympians should still be competing in the NCAAs. Maybe they should be subject to the 5 years to play 4 rule?
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BYU has taken advantage of that for decades. It’s nothing new, just more prevalent.
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ok, here’s a non-covid case:
Maud Megens - USC
graduated HS 2014 (born Feb '96)
Trained with Dutch Senior Team 2013-2016
2017 - Freshman
2018 - Soph
2019 - Junior
2020 - Olympic deferment
2021 - Senior at age 25
I’m more familiar with the women’s side, but this “super-duper senior” has been an issue with National team players for a while - the biggest issue being only 3 schools benefit from this rule carve-out.
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So she played at home in Europe for years before coming to the US for college? Thats a separate issue. Again, she missed the Covid/Olympic year. People redshirt. It happens.
Just making sure I understand this right…male players have up until the end of December to enter the portal, however, there is no deadline for them to commit to a school after that. Now practically, they will likely commit by June so they can train with the team.
Now, with the new club rules can a player train and compete with a college “club” team while attending another school Jan - June assuming they are geographically close to each other?
No. I think end of December the portal window closes. By Jan 1st we ought to know where everyone went.
Seth Fischer and Ryan Smith - UOP
Matan Friedenberg - Wagner College
Some portal numbers from football.
No polo is not football. But seeing more kids in the portal made me want to look into some of the weirdness goings on in college football portal land.
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The total number of players among FBS scholarship transfers rose from 1,946 in 2021-22 to 2,303 in 2022-23, and then up to 2,707 in 2023-24.
In 2023-24, the total number of NCAA football players across all divisions who entered the the portal exceeded 11,000.
In the 2024 spring semester, nearly 25% of the more than 1,200 FBS transfers were multi-time transfers.
Only 1.6% of college football players go on to play in the NFL.
There is not enough data yet, but something tells me we will have a pretty big decline in graduation rates and a cohort of kids not ready for the real world post their 6 years of eligibility.
Interesting indeed. This year’s dramatic increase is no doubt due to the HOUSE V NCAA ruling; the avg d1 FBS roster had 128 men and will have to be a max of 105 next year. Additionally, there is now the ability for schools to pay athletes directly also causing a lot of movement. That’s not to say guys aren’t chasing that NFL dream, but this year’s spike is primarily driven by those two factors.
Kind of quiet here…
I assumed it was just the holidays… But I’ve got nothing to report. 
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Wonder how many are deferring to Spring portal also.
Is that true at–to cherry pick some examples–Stanford, Cal, Harvard, or Princeton? How about Navy and Brown?
I wouldn’t say that most GE classes at a 4 year like a UC is taught by graduate assistants. There are full time professors who teach GE courses and lecturers hired to teach larger courses. I would say that grad students are likely teaching more so in the summer.
It would be interesting if some schools start partnering with CCs to use as extensions of their program. West Valley Community College isn’t that far down the road from Stanford. A year’s tuition at WVCC is loads cheaper than a redshirt year at Stanford, wouldn’t count against Stanford’s roster limit, and now apparently doesn’t burn eligibility.
That makes sense. Coaches would push the kids they would have tried to develop to the feeder school and work with those programs to develop them…
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