<p>Actually, there are D-3 schools that are more intense than D-1 schools. Not all D-1 sports take up an enormous amount of time, though swimming is the most time intensive of all sports as the season starts the instant the student steps onto the campus until February or March, and the coaches usually want the kids to do some workout during the summer as well. The way you can tell is to see what place the teams come in for the NCAA championships in each division. The top D-3 teams like Kenyon, JHU and CMU, Emory are much more time intensive and have faster swimmers usually than schools like, say Duquesne. Having lived in Pittsburgh, I can tell you that Pitt being D-1 had National Swimmers, CMU, even though it is a D-3 school could take Duquesne a D-1 school in swimming. And it will show in the NCAA championship rankings. You can see from the times of the swimmers in those events and how many swimmers teams have going. If you see a school dominating the NCAA championships, you know that they are not going to just be sitting there with excused absences for swim practice.</p>