<p>There’s a lot of information on this site on swimming recruiting, you can read through old threads and pick up a lot of information on the timetable. Here’s a few “food for thought” items for your sister and your parent:</p>
<p>1) There is really nothing recruiting wise to do until mid-sophomore year, at which point, you might want to look at colleges on collegeswimming.com, compare her end of season (SCY) tapered times with the end of season times for that year (or the previous year) for each time. Don’t compare her times mid-season with mid-season college swim times, as college swimming is fully pointed to conference championships and NCAAs, and there are few, if any other taper meets during the season. If you find a few colleges that “fit” swim wise, start looking at academics for them, and geography.
2) Financially, swimming in college is not the way to pay for college in its entirety. Very rarely do swimmers have a full ride to college–except for the top 10-15 swimmers in the US each year, most are getting partial athletic scholarships, with financial aid or merit aid with it–or their parents are paying the difference. This is really important to note–swimming in college is a HUGE commitment–and there are a lot of swimmers’ parents paying at least half of the cost for their swimmer to attend the university.
3) Frankly, as much as I hate to say it, grades and swim times are all that matters. Guidance counselors are all for the “well rounded student athlete” that has been President of this club or participated in that community service effort, but when recruiting comes around, your sister will be asked three questions: a) swim times b) grades c) SAT/ACT scores and possibly how many APs she has taken if looking at academically elite schools. If she really wants to swim in college, studying and swimming are the way to spend her time.
4) Swim a wide variety of events. At 13, the swimmer in my family was a flyer/backstroker, she is a distance freestyler in college. At 13 she was 5’4; at 17 she was 6’0. You never know what happens when puberty ends–she could get faster, could get slower, could gain muscle, could be very skinny, could suddenly be a breaststroker. Swimming the variety of events will give her the best chance to get personal best times in something as she grows.<br>
5) College coaches know heavy yardage distance programs that create distance freestylers. Some college coaches shy away from recruiting from those programs because there is no “opportunity for improvement” for those swimmers in the college coaching restricted world (there are restrictions on numbers of hours in the pool, weight room, etc.)
6) At 13, your sister hasn’t even experienced high school swimming. She may love it, may hate it. Some coaches prefer their top athletes stay in USA Swimming year round, rather than high school.<br>
7) As a parent, I would heavily recommend minimizing the amount of doubles the swimmer commits to in high school. Our philosophy was 1 double in 9th grade, 2 in 10th, and 3 in 11/12th. This gave some natural trajectory to the improving times. It also let the swimmer sleep more–very important to get good grades.</p>
<p>And finally, I would give two pieces of advice:</p>
<p>1) don’t make life about swimming. Each swimmer is only one major injury away from never getting in the pool again. Do sleepovers, go eat pizza with friends, don’t deny all of the fun just because of the pool. Balance is important.
2) Be prepared for the challenges. Some swimmers at 13–larger for their age, fast to mature as girls, often cannot achieve the same level of trajectory in late high school–it makes swimming hard when personal bests, rankings, and other accolades begin to go to other swimmers who weren’t as fast at 13. You never know how it will go, its a journey.</p>
<p>Best of luck to the you, your family and the swimmer. College swimming can be done at many levels–D1, D2 and D3–she may be thinking D1 only right now, but by the time she is 17, may want to pursue a particular career in which D3 swimming might make more sense. </p>