Academic All-America® information and deadlines for 2026-27

The Academic All-District® and Academic All-America® Important Dates Calendar and updated nominating and voting criteria is now available. 

Download the important dates calendar here

Make sure to share the important dates calendar with all members of your communications staff responsible for nominating and voting in 2026-27. Follow these links for more information about the program.

• Program Member Information Page
• Nomination Criteria and Limits
• Voting Criteria & Awards Distribution

• Download program logos

All dates will be added soon to the CSC events calendar at CollegeSportsCommunicators.com/events.

You must be a current 2026-27 CSC member to nominate or vote in the Academic All-America program. To learn more about membership, click here. Make sure to renew by September 30 to take advantage of the lowest Early Bird rates.

Who can nominate? To nominate, you must be employed at a member NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA, 3C2A, NWAC, USCAA or NCCAA college or university. 

Who can vote? All members who are employed at a member college or university, conference office, college sports governing body, or bowl game are eligible. Lifetime members are also eligible to vote. The only members not eligible to vote are Advocate members, Undergraduate Student member types, and members from Canadian institutions.

New! Late policy for Academic All-District nominations for 2026-27

A process is being developed to allow members grace to submit late nominations for Academic All-District only.

Approved this summer by the Executive Board of Directors with support from the Advisory Council, CSC will adopt a new late policy for Academic All-District nominations.

To be eligible for Academic All-America consideration, there is no change. All nominators must meet all deadlines as outlined in the important dates calendar. There will be no exceptions for Academic All-America consideration.

However, for Academic All-District we are making a change. After the regular deadline has passed, members will have a limited opportunity to submit late nominations with a late fee of $100 per sport contest. 

For standalone sports like volleyball, football, softball and baseball the late fee is $100 per sport contest. For sports with gendered contests like soccer, basketball, etc., the fee is $100 for each contest — if you needed to submit late nominations for both men’s soccer and women’s soccer it would be a total of $200.

For the flat fee in each sport contest, members will be able to maximize their nominations to the full limit for that contest.

A new process to accept these late submissions is being developed and will be available later this fall.

The deadline for all late Academic All-District nominations for the 2026-27 academic year will be July 31, 2027. No additions will be accepted after that date. This late policy will not be retroactive or apply to past years. 

“We’ve heard from our members that there’s a desire for an option when an honest mistake happens—a deadline gets missed, a submission doesn’t get completed, or something simply slips through the cracks,” CSC President Matt Panto said. “We want to be clear: this is not meant to be a revenue driver for CSC. After much discussion we looked for a fee that would both provide opportunity for when mistakes happen, but would also not feel like an invitation for more excessive late nominations. We still strongly encourage every member to submit nominations by the regular deadline, and we hope the late option is rarely needed.”

Criteria changes for 2026-27

View the full nomination criteria here. A summary of what’s different in 2026-27 is below:

Classification

To be eligible, all student-athletes must be at least in their sophomore (second) season BOTH academically AND athletically.

• Academic classification criteria will be So., Jr., Sr. Gr.

• Athletic classification criteria will be So., Jr., Sr. 5th

Academic eligibility criteria remains the same for all sports

• Academic eligibility minimums: An undergraduate student-athlete must have at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale). Cumulative means the student-athletes combined GPA across all institutions attended.

• A graduate student-athlete must have at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) as both an undergraduate and a grad student unless they are in their first semester as a graduate student and don't have an established graduate GPA.

• The cumulative grade point average may not be rounded up to 3.50.

New! Athletic criteria changes for selected sports in 2026-27

• Baseball updated criteria: Student-athletes must compete in 90 percent of the institution's games played OR must start in at least 66 percent of the institution's games. For pitchers, a student-athlete must have made at least 14 appearances OR pitched 35 innings.

• Swimming & Diving updated criteria: Student-athletes must compete in 75 percent of competitions OR finish top-eight in an individual event at a conference meet OR participate in an individual event at a national championship.

• Track & Field updated criteria: NAIA institutions: Top-25 in conference TFFRs rankings in single individual event (indoor or outdoor)

• Women’s Wrestling updated criteria: Eligible nominees must be in the lineup for at least 75 percent of TEAM SCORING events (open tournaments, duals) OR compete in their weight class at a conference OR regional meet. 

• Tennis updated criteria: Eligible nominees must be in the lineup for 75 percent of an institution's days of competition (regional competition such as ITAs and non-team scored events do not count).

• Water polo updated criteria: Eligible nominees must compete in 90 percent of the institution's games played OR must start in at least 66 percent of the institution's games. For goalies, a student-athlete must have started at least 50 percent of an institution's games.

Awards Distribution

Awards distribution will be the same as recent years as follows. CSC will automatically pull the shipping address entered for your institution in your Member Compass. Primary Contacts for each institution should make sure your shipping address is updated using the Company tab. 

All awards are shipped directly to nominating communications professionals by awards vendor Levy Recognition, and should be provided to the student-athlete. Institutions who would like to purchase additional copies of awards can do so at aaa.levyrecognition.com. 

See more about awards for each honor here.

CSC responds to requests from Canadian Cabinet related to membership and Academic All-America

Following extensive conversations with representatives from the CSC Canadian Cabinet and CAN CSC, Canadian institutions will no longer be eligible to nominate or vote in the Academic All-America program.

The Cabinet indicated that Canadian member institutions have other national academic recognition within Canada. The vast majority of Canadian members join for the opportunities for professional development, leadership, networking and recognition.

Questions? Contact:

Katie Gonzales, AAA Core Committee Chair

Brett Marhanka, AAA Core Committee Vice Chair

Beau White, CSC staff liaison

Or use the Contact Us button on CollegeSportsCommunicators.com

Special thanks to the 150-plus CSC member volunteers dedicated to running the many facets of this program.