Since the NCAA transfer portal was digitized in 2018, the process of athletes transferring schools has become shorthand for chaos within the media and general public. Athletes hopping to schools on a whim, coaches seeking out the next best transfer and academics seemingly taking a back seat.
But inside Michigan State Athletics, and all universities, “the portal” continues to remain a technical, academic process at its core. Behind every transfer portal entry there is a scramble for far more than NIL deals and starting positions. There’s a scramble for credits, degree paths and graduation timelines.
Transfers aren’t easy. They aren’t guaranteed, and they certainly aren’t simple. What they depend on is the expediency and meticulousness of small teams of staff members at each institution. What they do is integral to the inner workings of the transfer portal.
At Michigan State, Dan Scheid is the quarterback of the operation. Scheid is the Executive Director of Compliance/Eligibility for Michigan State Athletics, and outside of coaching/recruiting staffs, he is the first person made aware of either an outgoing or incoming transfer.
“ Coaches will point them [athletes planning to transfer] in my direction,” Scheid said. “They will either email me, most typically, sometimes they'll text me, sometimes they'll call me. Sometimes they'll pop in here physically. We'll have the conversation about the transfer portal window.”
Scheid provides them with two forms during that conversation, a Notification of Transfer and release of authorization information, and ensures they complete the required NCAA transfer module. This process can be completed at any time, but Scheid can only enter their name into the portal during their sport’s designated transfer window.
Graduate students, or students that are not currently athletes but have interest in transferring somewhere for athletics, can transfer at any time. This is with the exception of football, which received adjustments to the sport’s transfer window in early October. Starting in 2026, there will only be a singular transfer window: Jan. 2-16, for all football players, including graduate students.
“When football’s window opens on Jan. 2, I’m going to get super busy,” Scheid said. “From Jan. 2 until the end of our first week of classes, I will be non-stop here.”
For Associate Registrar Traci Gulick and the team of four individuals that evaluate course transferability, they will be coming in while the university is closed for holiday break. The role that the registrar’s office has in the transfer process is vital, and expediency is critical. Missing the first three days of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) window would mean losing out on possible athletes in the portal.
“ Students want to make a decision,” Gulick said. “They want to know where they're going, they want to know what their future is. It's really important for them to understand what's going to transfer as quickly as possible so that they can make the best decision.”
Before Gulick and her team have the opportunity to review an athlete’s transcripts, a coach or member of the recruiting staff has to identify them as an athlete of interest. The staff will alert Scheid of their interest—and the scramble begins.
Scheid compiles basic information about the athlete, normally an unofficial transcript or a list of courses they took at previous schools. He sends this information over to Gulick to evaluate course transferability and to the team at MSU’s Student Athlete Support Services (SASS) to look over major feasibility and create a degree timeline. Daniel Sager, the Athletic Certification Coordinator, will also ensure that the athlete has remaining eligibility.
“Transfers are like snowflakes,” Scheid said. “They're all individuals. You have to look at every single transcript. You have to look at every single credit. You have to know every individual. You have to look at them all in depth and make sure that you understand the situation to determine if they're going to be eligible or not eligible.”
The team at Michigan State reviewed incoming transcripts for 77 athletes, 66 of them football players, to possibly transfer to MSU for the winter 2025 semester. 20 of the 77 potential transfers signed with Michigan State. Between January and August, the team reviewed 113 transcripts, with 44 athletes making the move to MSU for the start of the 2025-26 academic year.
This is an intensive step for Gulick and her team, as they are comparing each course from an athlete’s previous institution to MSU equivalents. Each course will fall into one of three options:
- The course has recently been evaluated and the office already knows the MSU equivalent. This is common for other universities within Michigan, as lots of non-athlete transfers come from in-state schools.
- The course has recently been evaluated and the corresponding department at Michigan State has determined that there is not a course equivalent. In this case, the class would transfer as a set amount of elective credits.
- The course has not been evaluated before or hasn’t been evaluated within the allotted time frame (time frames differ between departments).
In the case of option three, Gulick will oftentimes need to request the syllabus for the course, or for some departments, all they require is a class description. Certain colleges with stricter accreditation requirements, such as the College of Engineering or the Eli Broad College of Business, will almost always ask to see syllabi. A course description is usually sufficient for the Department of Mathematics.
Each individual academic department has the final decision on course equivalencies. Gulick’s office tries to get an initial or “rough” review back to Scheid within 24 hours while transfer windows are open. However, the expediency of reviewing syllabi depends on departments’ responsiveness.
Once credits have been evaluated, SASS looks at major feasibility for the athlete of interest. Todd Edwards, the Executive Director of Student-Athlete Support Services, refers to this process as “major shopping”.
“Mo st of the time there's a variety of majors they fit into, depending on how old the student is,” Edwards said. “For a younger student there's usually more flexibility. If it's an older student and they're in a particular major at their current school, we try to match them if that's what they're still interested in. And if not, we'll see what we can match them up in that's the most closely related. There are eligibility components involved and one of the biggest ones, especially when it comes to transfers, is meeting their percentage-of-degree requirements.”
Percentage-of-degree requirements are strictly followed for all athletes competing within the NCAA. For athletes attempting to transfer, if not enough credits would transfer between institutions to keep them on track with their percentage-of-degree requirements, it could jeopardize their ability to transfer to that particular school.
Divisions I, II, and III have different requirements to remain eligible, but the Division I requirements are as follows, as stated by the NCAA:
- 40 percent of required coursework for a degree must be completed by the end of the second year, 60 percent by the end of the third year and 80 percent by the end of their fourth year.
- Student-athletes are allowed five years of eligibility and athletically related financial aid.
- All Division I student-athletes must earn at least six credit hours each term to be eligible for the following term and must meet minimum grade-point average requirements related to the school’s GPA standards for graduation.
If a possible transfer would not meet the percentage benchmarks due to credit equivalences, there are options. Depending on how serious a coaching staff is about a particular athlete, there is a possibility to load up on coursework over the summer and fall semesters to meet a particular benchmark by the start of a season. For example, if a baseball player transfers to MSU before the start of his third year, but only 35% of his credits transferred, he would be able to transfer to MSU and compete in the spring as long as he met his 40% benchmark by the start of baseball season.
SASS will also meet the athlete of interest to discuss where MSU is at in terms of the evaluation, if there are still courses that require additional information and if they can, talk about what majors would be the best fit for the athlete. This meeting occurs with close to 75% of the athletes that have their transcripts evaluated.
On top of the credit evaluation, Sager is also performing an eligibility audit on the athlete of interest. He reviews credit minimums, percentage-of-degree requirements, remaining seasons of eligibility and other metrics provided by the NCAA and the Big Ten Conference. Sager does this for incoming transfer athletes, but also consistently audits all athletes at Michigan State.
“ There's a lot of work that goes into it behind the scenes to the checks and balances on eligibility,” Sager said. “Evaluating their credits, making sure they have enough credits coming in, determining a graduation timeline for them and what they want to do. People don't really see that, they just see the kid going from Michigan State to Ohio State.”
Once the registrar, SASS and Sager have reported back to Scheid, who will inform the coaching/recruiting staff if transferring this athlete to MSU would be academically feasible. Any risks or concerns will be highlighted, and the staff will then decide whether to officially pursue the athlete.
If an athlete decides to commit to MSU they will apply to the university. Barring any complications, the Registrar will perform the official transfer credit evaluation and SASS will set up academic advising. All transfer athletes and freshmen are required to meet with their academic advisors at least once a week. Some athletes continue to meet with their advisors weekly after the first year, while others space out the meetings.
“ At the core, they're still students and they still have to meet the obligations of students and they're still working to graduate,” Edwards said. “These four or five years, they're still going to have an effect on their next 40 years.”
Once an athlete has transferred, they are officially able to participate in practices, team activities and competitions.
This transfer process has existed in some capacity for decades. If an athlete wanted to transfer before the portal existed, it was often done through informal networks, such as a former high school or club coach helping a college athlete find a new school.
Once found, the new university would ask the old institution via email to fill out a form with information needed for eligibility, compliance and the registrar. Every school had a slightly different form, some universities took longer to respond and the entire process was messy and disorganized. The creation of the transfer portal, in Oct. 2018, made the process uniform.
A landmark decision that changed the makeup of the portal was the expansion of the one-time transfer exception rule to all sports. This April 2021 decision allowed athletes playing baseball, football, men’s and women’s basketball and men’s ice hockey to transfer and be immediately eligible at their new institution the first time they transferred, a privilege previously available to athletes playing all other NCAA sports.
This one-time transfer exception rule was then changed completely in April 2024, with the NCAA Division I council unanimously voting on a new package of rules regarding the transfer portal. The one with the most effect was allowing transfers to be immediately eligible at their new institutions, regardless how many times they have previously transferred, as long as they meet academic eligibility requirements.
“ Basically the NCAA just said: ‘you all ought to transfer,’” Scheid said. “‘We're just going to get rid of the underlying rule. Transfer as much as you want. Go for it. Have fun. You still have to meet all the benchmarks and the transfer eligibility and all that stuff. You still have to meet those rules. But if you can do it, go for it’ And then those numbers just continue to climb.’”
The transfer portal, seemingly shorthand for chaos, is often misunderstood as the reason for the changing landscape of the college athletes. Scheid emphasized that “It's not the transfer portal, it's the underlying NCAA rules surrounding transfers that's completely changed how college athletics looks.”
Whether these rules have shifted the culture of college athletics or the loyalty aspect of playing for a single school is a different conversation. But academics and obtaining a degree has never left the conversation.
“ I think that student athletes are benefiting from it, especially if they wanna go further,” Gulick said. “You never know if they want to go to the pros. So I do think it's an avenue for them. I hope it's an avenue for them where they can get a degree and then be able to go on, because what happens if they don't make it in the pros? At least they have a degree to fall back on.”