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You leave them in there and let them promote themselves at 18 and you roll the dice on whether they accept.

Seems I'm not quitting after all.

So promote them a couple of days before their 18 birthday?

Best way to look at it is this.

You have a 17yo with 20 days left until he turns 18. He currently (after all the hidden variables taken into account) has a 65% chance of accepting promotion right now (as an example). But for every day he is in the Academy, it goes up by 0.5%
Depending on whether you need the player now or not or if you think he can get better or not, do you risk offering him his promotion now with a 65% chance or leave him 20 days and he gets an auto offer at 75%?

For all we know, there could be a 5% penalty waiting until they turn 18 so it becomes 70% so you offer the day before at 74.5%

We dont know exactly how it works, this is just a rough guide on how it works. All we can suggest is keeping them in there for as long as possible increases your odds of a successful promotion.

What I am trying to figure out is if it is worth extending a max out players contract when they are 17 and promoting them before their 18 birthday or to promote them 2 days before their contract runs out when they are 17.

If the player has already been in your academy for 4 seasons then it probably won't make a big difference. If he's been in your academy for just 2 seasons then I'd think it's definitely better to extend for however many extra days. This is where knowing roughly when their birthday is, can also be useful.

As Kane said, and as PS agreed, I also follow the strategy of getting younger youths in so they'll always have been with you for 3-4 seasons before you have to make these choices. If you do that, it really minimises the risk of rejections.

I also go for exclusively youth intakes aged 13-14, so they always get at the absolute minimum 3 seasons in the academy. However I also always let them turn 18. I have not had a single youth turn me down yet. I don't know if there's a lower chance by 5% if you let them turn 18, but if there is, I've had a lot of good luck. Given that I don't usually get a lot of good luck I'm more inclined to believe that there is no penalty for letting them turn 18, 5% or otherwise.

The simplest answer is just don't take risks on youths aged over 15 when you sign them if you want a high success rate.

Very happy with D Olamina, who promoted from the YA this evening.

I'm not quite sure what to do with him, I could be open to offers on him or Conroy?

Lovely when a youth reaches 100?..hope he promotes when he gets to 18.

I have a 15 year old rated 99! (99/99/99)

don't think I'll be patient enough to wait for 18!

Nice! How long have you had him in the Academy?

2 years and 10 days of so... birthday in 1 week. But 42 days on his contract. So if i want to risk it I can try to promote and 16 1/2 with 3 years in the academy.

Started at 34/34/34

Just found a 14-year old rated a perfectly balanced 85

Time to promote someone, quick!

Wow

I wonder if he'll eventually become a great player.

Hopefully a better one than Pringle. who was 93/93/96 but came out with a bunch of 80s FAs