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Mar 16, 2026
4 Things To Know About Post-Grad Years
4 Things To Know About Post-Grad Years
00:00
06:29
Transcript
0:00
Welcome to another episode of the High Academic Recruiting Podcast with your host, Brendan Cahill. Today's topic is all about postgraduate years.
0:09
So what is a postgraduate year, and when does it make sense to check them out?
0:13
A postgraduate year is an extra year of high school football that does not count against your NCAA eligibility after you finish your senior year of high school.
0:21
They're really competitive in the boarding prep school leagues in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic areas.
0:27
There's some other programs too that have them, but typically the highest concentration of schools where you'll see prep schools-- or where you'll see a postgraduate year is gonna be in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic prep schools.
0:38
They only carry a handful of postgraduate spots, maybe five, six, seven, depending on the year.
0:44
So right off the bat, they're really, really competitive, and it makes-- If you do wanna go to a boarding prep school, it makes a lot more sense, and it's a lot easier to get through admissions if you try to do it as a reclass.
0:57
You repeat your junior year, your sophomore year, or your freshman year, so you get that extra year of high school without needing to be a postgraduate. But that's probably a topic for another time.
1:06
So they're really limited, and it makes sense if you had a significant injury in high school that caused you to miss a lot of playing time. That's probably the, the, the typical, uh, scenario.
1:18
The other scenario is, let's say you are a football talent. These high academic schools really wanna take you, but they just can't get you academically through the admissions process. So what do they suggest?
1:29
They suggest you check out a postgraduate year to try to boost your grades up at a really rigorous boarding prep school.
1:35
And what ends up, what ends up happening at the end of your postgraduate year is, uh, you'll get what's called a blended transcript, where they'll take your high school transcript and your postgraduate transcript and put them together, and that's-- that'll be your combined, uh, transcript that gets sent to colleges from the boarding prep school.
1:52
But this, this scenario where high academic schools will refer guys to postgraduate programs to kinda park them there for a year to get their grades up is pretty common.
2:02
So the academic side of things, that's the s- that's the second reason.
2:05
The third, uh, reason would be that you're playing at a high level, but you're playing in a league that's more obscure with less recruiting attention maybe. There's maybe weaker competition you're playing against.
2:19
You might physically be an Ivy League or Division I talent, but the only game tape coaches are watching of you is of you destroying kids who might not even play at a, at a bad D-III school in some cases.
2:32
So it's hard to tell exactly how good you are, even if your measurables are exactly what coaches are looking for.
2:38
There might be a question mark over, okay, how will Johnny do when he's finally going up against a fellow potential, you know, Division I recruit?
2:47
So coming from a, a more obscure league where there's less notoriety and less of a reputation for being recruited with good competition, that's a- another scenario.
2:57
The fourth one might just be that you're coming from a program where there isn't a lot of recruiting infrastructure.
3:04
The, the way you're coached might be more along the lines of, "I'm, I'm hired just to coach football, not to do college placement."
3:12
The de facto job of a lot of the head coaches in the boarding prep school league that have postgraduate spots is recruiting and college placement. They're constantly pitching their guys.
3:23
They're constantly trying to figure out what a good fit for a player is.
3:27
And so, you know, what you're getting when you come to one of these leagues is a m- pro-- a much more robust recruiting tradition or infrastructure where that's really, you know, a-actively managed by the coaching staffs of these programs.
3:41
A postgraduate program or a postgraduate year will not be a cure-all. It's not going to make you taller. It's not necessarily gonna make you faster. It is hard. You still are gonna be away from home.
3:52
In a way, it's kind of like a mini freshman year of college experience. And just because you go to one of these PG years doesn't mean you're gonna be a Division I kid overnight.
4:01
And so I think when you zoom out, the, the, the value proposition of postgraduate year will be most helpful to kids that have experienced significant injury or need, need to get their academics up or are coming from programs where there just isn't much recruiting traffic.
4:18
When you're being looked at as a postgraduate, you need to be a stud. You need to be basically a day one starter at that pr- at that boarding prep school.
4:28
Because these spots are so limited, the competition to get one of them is much higher than trying to come to a boarding prep school when you're an underclassman, and so you gotta be a stud.
4:40
Coaching staffs do not want to miss on postgraduate spots because you only get a handful of them. And for the right player, it makes a lot of sense, but it will not by itself make you an FBS guy.
4:50
It's not a golden ticket, but it is another option you might wanna check out. So let's say you are a twenty twenty-six kid. I guess I'll speak to, to two scenarios.
4:59
If you're a twenty twenty-six kid, the window for postgraduates has kind of passed. All the applications are in.
5:06
Occasionally, there's, you know, there, there might be one or two schools that don't get the postgraduate they want, and so there might be some schools that still need to fill a postgraduate spot late.
5:15
So that might be something, uh, to circle back on. If you're a twenty twenty-seven kid, I would, I would do this.
5:20
I would pursue trying to play in college as a, as a regular recruit in parallel with checking out playing in college as a-- or sorry, playing at a boarding prep school as a postgraduate.
5:33
The-- Because the application process and the way that works for the boarding prep schools, you won't know until March of your s-senior year if you got one of those postgraduate spots.
5:44
And if it doesn't come through, if things don't pan out, you don't wanna to have let all your current college options slide.
5:50
So most of the boarding prep schools will restart their recruiting efforts probably like mid-fall, then they'll get more serious as the season ends around Thanksgiving, and then, you know, they'll have you on campus for tours and talking to coaches November, December, January, and then applications are due in January.
6:06
So, um, all right. So hopefully that was helpful and a quick overview of postgraduate years, pros and cons to it, and then yeah, hopefully this was helpful.
6:15
And if you have any comments or would like to leave a review, that's really helpful. It pushes the podcast out to more people. Love interacting with people. Please send me a DM or shoot me an email.
6:23
I'm on Twitter @brendancahill_. That's where I'm most active and always glad to talk and, and trade ideas. Thanks.
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