Swim recruiting questions

D2 programs can (and do) give athletic scholarships. D3 schools can give merit scholarships or financial aid, but not athletic scholarships.

@ASKMother, have you checked collegeswimming.com? If you to their recruiting tab, you can search a multitude of college swim programs broken down by gender, location, division, etc. You also can see where swimmers from your state have committed over the last two or three years. You are correct that there are many fewer men’s programs than women’s; a lot of the mid-major D1 schools have completely dropped their men’s programs, and it seems like a couple more are threatened or dropped every year. That said, we know plenty of men swimming in college, but many of them have had a harder time finding somewhere to land than their female swimming equivalents. I assume your son swims club as well as high school? He is very young to be projecting how how fast he will be, as boys mature so late, but you can probably get some idea of what it will take to be recruited by checking out the times on collegeswimming.

There are lots of teams - but fewer than women’s teams, that’s for sure,

Go ahead and buy the lifetime membership at Collegeswimming.com. It’s only $25 and will let you follow teams, compare how your sons stats measure up as he gets older.

If looking for swimming scholarships, it’s also important to learn how they work. Swimming is a sport where the number of kids getting full scholarships is rare.

@planit and @jmtabb Thank you for your feedback! He swims on a year-round team and we have had several friends go on to swim in college but mostly at the DII and DIII level (Queens, Catawba, FIT and BSC mostly). As it stands I cannot see him being dedicated enough for a DI program especially considering they are the most competitive (although he dreams of swimming for Virginia!); he’s still young. From a parent standpoint, I would like his goal to be earning a spot on a competitive team but in a strong academic environment.

There are plenty of top academic schools with DIII teams. Do a search for my user name and you’ll see schools suggested for my daughter who has DIII times but tippy top grades and test scores. MIT, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, Chicago, Carnegie Mellon are all DIII schools with strong academics. Ivy League is also DI, in general a bit faster than the DIII teams and of course the academics are there. But there is no money strictly for the sport at DIII schools. Or at the Ivy’s.

You’ve mentioned completing first year of varsity as a 7th grader. Check your school/disrict’s athletic association for the eligibility rules - it’s my understanding that there are a maximum number of years to participate at the varsity level (4 or 5 max). You don’t have to swim for the high school to be recruited, but if that’s a priority for him it will be a consideration.

@jmtabb
AFAIK, for private schools there is no maximal number of years requirement for varsity sports, and I am assuming (hoping!) the the OP’s kid is in private school.

My D filled out recruitment questionnaire for one school only and she got an email several days before pie day from MIT coach telling her that they are looking forward to meeting her. Sure enough, she got admission from them on Pie day. She was a flyer, not that fast, 1.00 or so for 100 fly. With U Chicago (where D was admitted EA), they don’t recruit you unless you can place in their conference, which was 58 second for 100 fly.

She ended up picking Vandy with full tuition (merit academic) scholarship and her roommate freshman year was a swimmer. A lot of work involved for college swimming and the scholarship anywhere between 25% to 50% is determined when the swimmer joined, which doesn’t motivate performance and causes resentment for D’s roommate, as she sometimes placed better than girls with higher percentage of scholarship. But there are a lot of resources to help those athletes academically.

Oh, Vandy is another school without men’s swimming!

Best of luck to your swimmers!

@SincererLove Yes, we were sad to realize Vandy didn’t have mens’ swimming. My oldest will be a 1st year there in the Fall and little Bro would LOVE to follow her (even though she’ll be out of college before he graduates high school!) My cousin played volleyball all 4 years at GaTech and her sister played tennis at Auburn for a season before being injured - and one of our good family friends is a pole vaulter at Vandy now - so we are a little familiar with the extra work you have to put into with being a college athlete… at least for girls! MIT, UChicago, Vandy… that was a hard choice for certain!

The years on varsity rule is State by State. Many don’t allow more than 4, others allow 6 under certain circumstances, including at public school.

in our area there are not Middle School teams for swimming, so any athlete can’ play up’ to the Varsity team at the high school in your feeder pattern… same goes for Golf, Softball and Baseball, Wrestling, and Tennis. Softball team won state this year with an 8th grader pitching! My son as a 7th grader went to state as part of the 200 Free Relay team along with another 8th grade boy (who swan 2 individual events as well!) and a 7th grade girl swimming for two of the girls’ relays.

Does anyone know when anyone should expect the academic pre-read for JHU to be done? (or has anyone received their feedback yet?)

My daughter heard back from one NESCAC school 5 days after it was submitted. Waiting on a couple of Patriot League schools and another NESCAC school. Some NESCAC schools say they aren’t doing them until August. It is a big mystery. I wonder if they do pre-reads for their top recruits first, offer official visits and then go down the line to the second tier recruits. I have no idea.

^^I think they go on vacation, just like a lot of other people do in July and August.

I’m curious what the training commitment is at a school like Williams/Amherst.

6-9 two hour swim practices a week from November 1- End of March plus dryland/weight room workouts before or after. Optional captains practices during the fall maybe 3-4 a week plus dryland/weight room workouts as well.

ok so after a successful LC, summer and High School seasons S23 is starting to talk more like he really wants to swim in college (still very young but he made an individual state meet qualification so now he is considering an Olympic trial … LOL).
Here are a few more amateur questions for you parent-of-swimmer experts!
What is the difference between visiting a school, touring swim facilities and meeting their swim coach/team and an ‘official’ athletic recruit visit?
What exactly does “pre-read” mean?
Who should initiate contact - athlete or college coach?

And for those of you with swimmers who were recruited (regardless of size of program):
What would you have done differently during the recruiting/college selection process?
Were your financial expectations realized for your recruit?
What has been the biggest challenge for your collegiate swimmer once at school?

@ASKMother Is your son HS class of ‘23? Or did you mean college class of ‘23? Is he a senior, or in 8th grade now?

S23 is a mere 8th grader; I know early to think about but I’m trying to be prepared. Oldest is a college freshman so I know about standard academic admissions, but she was not an athletic recruit.

If Olympic trials is truly part of the equation you will be looking at top Division 1 schools and at this level I would have 3 thoughts.

  1. Start early. The earlier you are on the radar of the top programs the better. Starting contact as a junior or senior is too late and will cause problems with #3.
  2. Cast a wide net. Top programs, especially for men, are very limited in roster spots and you have to do a lot of "shopping" to see who has a need for your stroke/distance as well as a roster spot. This process may place more of the emphasis on the swimming program as opposed to the school itself which does skew the student-athlete into more of an athlete-student. For the very top swimmers this may be OK but for the majority of college swimmers is backwards.
  3. Money is very limited for men's swimming. While there are the full rides out there for the very top performers these are very rare. I believe each school is limited to 9.9 scholarships for men's swimming and diving. Considering a team will typically field 30+ athletes that works out to less than 1/3 of a scholarship for each. When you figure the top performers are receiving 50%+ that leaves a lot of swimmers receiving no money. Outside of football and basketball money is very tight for male athletes and athletic money should not be a primary motivating factor for the vast majority of swimmers.

@iaparent the Olympic mention was more tongue-in-cheek (idealistic vs realistic) because he’s feeling very accomplished right now (making state cut but probably will not final). However what has also changed from the spring is HIM (verses just dreamy mom) talking like this is his plan - to swim in college. He has mentioned it a few times recently to both his coaches (high school and club - both who were collegiate swimmers ‘back in the day’ and both who have helped teammates go on to be recruited) so I’m trying to prepare as the parent (and financial backer) what all is involved in the process. We know about academic hoops from my D18’s application process (current college freshman) but if he keeps this mindset I just want to be prepared for what to add to that admissions process. Grades and academics will always be top focus.