Hi everyone!
I’m a swimmer interested in going to a school that is really strong academically, but I don’t think my times are good enough to go D1, so I want to go D3. My issue is that I don’t know what combination of swimming speed and grades is good to get in to my top choices? Can anyone help me out? PLEASE? My top choices for D3’s and Low D1’s are as follows:
Johns Hopkins
MIT
University of Chicago
UC
CalTech
If ANYONE has ANY information on ANY of these places in regards to swimming recruitment, or experiences, please reply and thanks!
collegeswimming.com is your friend. Click on “Teams”, then find the team you are interested in, click on times, and compare to your current times. To be recruited at these schools, you would need to be able to place in A or maybe B finals at their respective Conference Championships. So, look up last year’s championship results.
As far as the “combination of swimming speed and grades”, I don’t know how much swimming can help you get into these schools if your academic numbers are not quite there.
I suggest you fill out the recruiting form which is on every school’s swimming website. Also, send an email to the coaches introducing yourself, highlight your best times and your academic stats, and see how they respond.
My son just visited MIT last week. As best I remember (from his visit – I wasn’t there) they have a new swim coach who’s not yet arrived at the school. As @VMT wrote, you should fill out a recruiting form, but you should also look up their team’s top times on collegeswimming.com
I’m typing quickly before work. If you like, you can write a note with your times in your best events and you’ll get help here, but again, you should really look up the teams’ times yourself.
Right now the coaches are in the heart of the recruitment cycle/process for current seniors. After that the college swim season will start.
Do your homework on collegeswimming.com and websites that give you a feel for the times and GPA’s/SAT’s necessary for admission these schools. Per @VMT’s note, if you can score in the conference final (or will get there by the end of your junior year) and you have the academics you can contact the coaches through the recruiting form or through an email, but unless your times are truly exceptional don’t be concerned if you get put on the back burner for now. Repeat the process after your peak meet next spring. If your times and academics are in range you’ll hear back from the coaches.
The MIT coach is new and I would not expect her to be responding to 2017 recruits much at this time. Too many things to do- getting to know the new team and trying to get up to speed with the 2016 recruits for example.
On collegeswimming.com I would also compare you times to the top times for each team for your best events. If your times are within the top three times then the coach will probably be interested. I would also see how your recruitment index and national rank compares to the recruits for a team for the last 2 years. If your recruitment index is in mid range then a coach will be interested.