Swimming

Athletic Recruits
1

Hey, I’ve been swimming for quite some time now. I go on several swimming competitions each year and receive medals from each one. My strongest stroke is breaststroke, however, my time isn’t as good universally as my freestyle.

Leadership Roles:
Captain of Varsity Swimming Team (9-12 grade)

Time:
Freestyle 100 SCM: around 58 seconds.
Breastroke 100 SCM: around 1min 20 seconds.

Do you think I have a chance into getting in NCAA Division 3 schools like Caltech, JHU, or UChicago if I shave off more seconds in both strokes?

Thankss.

2

You need to have at least sectional cuts to even be looked at, and to be recruited, you need to be even faster than that.

3

SCM times are unusual in USA, are you international? Male or female?

4

You need to register on collegeswimming.com From there you can look to see how your times compare to the team times of the colleges you are interested in attending and to the conference times (you more likely to get recruited if you would qualify for a conference final). For instance my S23 has a 53.81 SCY and a 1:03.28 LCM in the 100 Free. Luckily he has 3 years to improve as right now he isn’t at a D1 level and would have limited chances to be recruited. Also it would help in giving advice to know if you are male or female and do you swim just in high school or have you been on a USA team/full year travel team. Good luck with your applications!

5

Have other swimmers from your country gone to the schools you are targeting? There are a number of international swimmers on many U.S. teams, but there are often clusters of kids from Sweden, let’s say, on one team, or another team might have three girls from Poland. If you can find recruits from your country at a particular school, reach out to that coach and ask whether your times are competitive. Keep in mind that U.S. colleges swim SCY, not SCM, always, so your times are not going to match what the coaches see from their U.S. recruits. A coach with experience recruiting students internationally should be able to give you an idea if your times are competitive. You can do the math yourself, which is pretty straightforward for SCM to SCY, but there are also multiple converters out there. Swimswam has one you can find via google. (It says a 58 second flat SCM 100 free is the equivalent of 52.25 in SCY–a significant difference; also, if you are a girl, a 52.25 SCY 100 free is very good. You can look at the programs you are interested in and see how their swimmers did in your events at their championship meet, which was probably February, 2019.

What year are you in school, and are you male or female?

6

Thank you for your replies! I am an international, male student and when converted have a

  • 52 sec SCY 100 free
  • 1:08 min SCY 100 breast
    I am currently looking for D3 swimming colleges that can give me a boost in the admissions process while handing in my regular resume. Could these times give me at least a little boost in my admissions in
  • WashU
  • UChicago
  • JHU
  • Caltech
    -Swarthmore
    ???
7

Thank you for your replies! I am an international, male student and when converted have a

  • 52 sec SCY 100 free
  • 1:08 min SCY 100 breast
    I am currently looking for D3 swimming colleges that can give me a boost in the admissions process while handing in my regular resume. Could these times give me at least a little boost in my admissions in
  • WashU
  • UChicago
  • JHU
  • Caltech
    -Swarthmore
    ???
8

Look at collegeswimming. com, also each school’s website will have the team’s statistics, so you can see where your times would be competitive, and which schools might have a need for someone in your events. Where you see a fit you should reach out to the coaches, and fill out the online recruiting questionnaires.

Will you graduate in 2021?

What are your GPA and test scores? These do have to be in the general ball park for these highly selective schools.

Also, will you be applying for Financial Aid? Even though these schools are need blind, many coaches typically ask whether the student is applying for FA.

9

Was a recruited swimmer right here class of 2020 swimming for vassar college next year. Hate to break it to you but the schools you listed will not recruit you as you will need at least junior national times (47 100 free, 59 100 breast). From my opinion, swimming diii in general does not give you a huge boost as you will still need to go through a pre-read. This means admissions must give the coach the green light that you are admittable. However, diii is not guaranteed admission as myself and many others were deferred when we applied ED1 despite having a positive pre-read (wesleyan was my ED1, vassar was my ED2). As a reference my times for those same events are 50 sec 100 free and 1:02 100 breast.

Schools that you would probably be able to recruited at:
Vassar
Wesleyan
Hamilton
Trinity

Hope this helps.