@AlwaysMoving
That would seem to support what I was saying and I think is common for many of the Ivy teams as not all players on an Ivy team are recruited LL athletes. The coaches only get so many LLs. I am not sure how many LLs there are for swimming vs. the size of the swim team roster.
The swimmers you mentioned that were good enough to be on the team, but not fast enough to be a top swimmers so the coach was willing to “chance it” sound like they were also not the top swim recruit(s). The very top recruits, even the outstanding academic students, probably got LLs and did not go thru “unprotected” as @Ohiodad51 said.