Early registration - is this "preferential treatment"?

Here's an article explaining how it is done and justified at one D3 school.

Thank you Swampboy, that article is very helpful.  It sounds as though early registration is allowed by the NCAA but it's up to the school as to whether or not they want to support it.  Looks like another question to add to the list...

It's necessary preferential treatment due to practice games and road trips.

Smitty, your comment, based on the article that Swampboy provided, is right on target.  Early registration is permissible, but is left to the discretion of the college. 

Some colleges will only offer it to athletes if it is offered to other non-athlete student groups at the college - such as honors college students, marching band members, etc.

Schools can be fairly creative about how they avoid "preferential treatment."

At the D3 where I played football, we were given free meals in the dorm cafeterias during two-a-days. It wasn't preferential treatment because ALL students enrolled for the fall term were given free meals during those two weeks.

ALL students, you say? Well, sort of. Technically, the benefit was available to all students, but it certainly wasn't advertised, and the only students actually on campus to enjoy it when it was offered between the end of summer school and the beginning of the fall term were a few sports teams and maybe some RA's. Once the non-athlete students arrived on campus, the free meals stopped.

This may be folklore, but that's how it was explained to us. (Granted, 20-year-old men don't ask too many questions when offered free food, but we believed it.)