He's still on the roster as a senior on his college website, and they are publishing news articles about his ITF wins as if he is still one of their students.  However, his name has been removed from the list of main draw entrants for the NCAA All American Championships.  This is a major, prestigious event for colleges, and I cannot see a college letting one of their stars skip it in favour of pro events.

I guess there's a number of possibilities.  Am not fully up to speed with current regulations, but I believe that although an athlete on scholarship can only play for their team for 4 years, they are given up to 5 years to complete the academics, so I guess a top player could get permission from their coach to take an autumn season off to compete.  Also, given the flexible nature of US degrees, it is possible to 'get ahead' with classes allowing more time at the end of a player's college stint to focus on the sport.

Regarding the other college entrants to the challenger, they may have been there with their colleges. The autumn season is largely taken up with 'invites' or friendlies where coaches get the chance to assess their squads in action before the real business gets underway in January.  Sometimes, rather than playing their top players in these events, coaches will take them to US ITF events instead.

Thing is, US degrees are structured entirely differently to UK ones.  Anyone signing up to study a subject here will, each year, be given a timetable of lectures, tutorials and assignments and the individual has little flexibility within this (obviously can choose certain modules depending on course).  In the US, degrees are broken down into smaller chunks and students will need to take and pass classes in each mandatory chunk and level plus a certain number of optional classes depending on the degree, viewed over the whole of their time at university.  This gives the students greater flexibility on tailoring a course to their own interests and in building a timetable to suit their needs.  This is a great simplification of course and obviously there is still a lot of work for a student to get through.  I can, however, see how a student could timetable a heavier than usual workload one year, take a term off and then timetable a slightly heavier workload the following term.  Not the easiest way of doing things but if what you really want is a season 'in the pros' maybe worth the effort.

Of course, we don't actually know if this is what Mr Gosea has done but it's a possibility.  Jennifer Brady a US UCLA student is taking this autumn off from college at the suggestion of the USTA to compete as an amateur in professional events as part of her tennis development.

The Optimist wrote:

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Bob in Spain wrote:

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Interesting to see Farris Gosea still putting his name down, even though I thought he would be into his college season by this time. Is it possible he is determined to make Top 500 before fully committing to his studies.

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 Mystery solved.  Zoo Tennis explain that he is a missing seed in the college NCAA championships as he has taken the fall off to compete in ITF professional events (as an amateur).

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Thanks.  Hopefully that's enough time for him to sneak into the Top 500.