College divisions and time cuts - swimming

[Anonymous]

Need advice where AAA times would get my swimmer, if he decides to swim in college. Not an Olympic trials material, but steadily does sectionals in his main events. I tried to look up colleges information, but it's pretty dispersed. Are those colleges divisions time cuts firm, or they would also take someone outside those cuts, "to develop", if this is a swimmer capable to maintain pace in training? Thanks for the tips.

[Anonymous]

I suggest a small investment in collegeswimmingguide.com. There you can easily find the conference results of every college swimming conference. If your kid can score in the conference championship, a coach in that conference will value them.

[Anonymous]

No sure what college divisions Times you are talking about. If you are talking about NCAA division 1, 2, 3 nationals cuts, most kids swimming in those respective divisions won’t qualify for the National’s meet at their level. For instance, I swam Division 3. We were competitive in our conference (1st or second) but only a 4-6 of a 20 plus team went to Nationals every year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suggest a small investment in collegeswimmingguide.com. There you can easily find the conference results of every college swimming conference. If your kid can score in the conference championship, a coach in that conference will value them.

It seems that looking up the conference results require paid membership. My kid will graduate in 2023, membership not offered yet. Is there another place where I can see the conferences championship results?

[Anonymous]

Can someone provide the most known conferences for Division 1? I checked some results for several conferences online, but have no idea which division it was. My kid already achieved some of the conference long distances times in 500/1000/1650 FR at middle school, so I don't think they are Division 1.

[Anonymous]

Have you considered a hiring a sports recruiter? Can your child's club coach offer any insight?

[Anonymous]

We found that most division 1 colleges were pretty firm on the walk-in cuts. Those were minimums and if you met those they considered that you would develop into the times the really wanted. The time cuts were what showed potential. The time cuts were not the minimum to be an asset to the team.

[Anonymous]

I have a girl so conference info may be different. But look at these(ordered roughly in descending speed)
Big 10
SEC
ACC
Big East
Ivy League
Patriot League
CAA
Mountain Pacific
Western AthletiConference

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We found that most division 1 colleges were pretty firm on the walk-in cuts. Those were minimums and if you met those they considered that you would develop into the times the really wanted. The time cuts were what showed potential. The time cuts were not the minimum to be an asset to the team.

Thank you very much for the teams names and info! I looked it up but still confused about those min time cuts.

According to 2019 Division I Men's Swimming and Diving Qualifying Standards time standards at https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/DIMWSD_2019QualifyingStandards_20180606.pdf the time cut for Division 1 1650FR, for example, is 15.26.19 for B standard.
However, according to the real time championship results at https://www.collegeswimming.com/results/118537/event/22/, at the 2019 championships there were swimmers with low 17 min time on 1650FR (mine is already mid 17min). There are also B finalists at 2019 Big East Conference Championships, with 2.12 200BR time, but the published NCAA Division 1 B time cut for 200BR is 1.58.

If you are saying that the NCAA time cuts are pretty firm, why are so many swimmers competing for those Div 1 colleges with the times that are significantly slower? To know the minimum entry point, do I look at the slowest B finalists at the conference or at those published Division 1 Qualifying Standards, which are much faster? I doubt my kid would go 1.58 on 200BR prior applying for college, but he can definitely go under 2.10 at 17-18, as he's already under 2.20.

Our trainer won't be of a big help, and my son is actually near quitting point. I am trying to see if his times are "college promising", which may persuade him perhaps try another program.

[Anonymous]

It may be like some of the Championship meets around here: if you meet the qualifying time for one event, you are allowed to swim the maximum number of events, and even kids who only qualify as a part of a relay get to swim individual events too.

So it may be that the college swimmers you see who are below the cut time for that event are swimming that event as an 'extra body' but made the cuts in other events.

[Anonymous]

Even though your swimmer is 2023, you can find them through a search on https://www.collegeswimming.com/recruiting/; he just won't be in the ranking until they do it for 2023, but I think if you register you will see his college recruiting score unless it is 100+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It may be like some of the Championship meets around here: if you meet the qualifying time for one event, you are allowed to swim the maximum number of events, and even kids who only qualify as a part of a relay get to swim individual events too.

So it may be that the college swimmers you see who are below the cut time for that event are swimming that event as an 'extra body' but made the cuts in other events.

I was referring to "B finalists", even took a long time last night and looked up swimmers' times on usaswimming data base: many Division 1 February conference finalists don't have official NCAA Division 1 time cuts in any distances.

Can it be that colleges hire swimmers not only based on times, but also with min GPA/testing results, and as a result they simply don't have enough applicants with min passable GPA and Division 1 official cuts?

At local PVS championship yes, they would allow someone without cuts to be entered in some circumstances, but those kids won't make B finals at JOs....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even though your swimmer is 2023, you can find them through a search on https://www.collegeswimming.com/recruiting/; he just won't be in the ranking until they do it for 2023, but I think if you register you will see his college recruiting score unless it is 100+.

Swimming rank also gives percentile data, and he certainly already has some Division 3 and Division 2 cuts. I was wondering how it works with the official Division 1 time-cuts in practice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We found that most division 1 colleges were pretty firm on the walk-in cuts. Those were minimums and if you met those they considered that you would develop into the times the really wanted. The time cuts were what showed potential. The time cuts were not the minimum to be an asset to the team.

Thank you very much for the teams names and info! I looked it up but still confused about those min time cuts.

According to 2019 Division I Men's Swimming and Diving Qualifying Standards time standards at https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/DIMWSD_2019QualifyingStandards_20180606.pdf the time cut for Division 1 1650FR, for example, is 15.26.19 for B standard.
However, according to the real time championship results at https://www.collegeswimming.com/results/118537/event/22/, at the 2019 championships there were swimmers with low 17 min time on 1650FR (mine is already mid 17min). There are also B finalists at 2019 Big East Conference Championships, with 2.12 200BR time, but the published NCAA Division 1 B time cut for 200BR is 1.58.

If you are saying that the NCAA time cuts are pretty firm, why are so many swimmers competing for those Div 1 colleges with the times that are significantly slower? To know the minimum entry point, do I look at the slowest B finalists at the conference or at those published Division 1 Qualifying Standards, which are much faster? I doubt my kid would go 1.58 on 200BR prior applying for college, but he can definitely go under 2.10 at 17-18, as he's already under 2.20.

Our trainer won't be of a big help, and my son is actually near quitting point. I am trying to see if his times are "college promising", which may persuade him perhaps try another program.

Ignore those standards you found. I don't understand them but I believe they are for a "nationals." Most kids in most programs will never make it to nationals. Look at the confernce times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We found that most division 1 colleges were pretty firm on the walk-in cuts. Those were minimums and if you met those they considered that you would develop into the times the really wanted. The time cuts were what showed potential. The time cuts were not the minimum to be an asset to the team.

Thank you very much for the teams names and info! I looked it up but still confused about those min time cuts.

According to 2019 Division I Men's Swimming and Diving Qualifying Standards time standards at https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/DIMWSD_2019QualifyingStandards_20180606.pdf the time cut for Division 1 1650FR, for example, is 15.26.19 for B standard.
However, according to the real time championship results at https://www.collegeswimming.com/results/118537/event/22/, at the 2019 championships there were swimmers with low 17 min time on 1650FR (mine is already mid 17min). There are also B finalists at 2019 Big East Conference Championships, with 2.12 200BR time, but the published NCAA Division 1 B time cut for 200BR is 1.58.

If you are saying that the NCAA time cuts are pretty firm, why are so many swimmers competing for those Div 1 colleges with the times that are significantly slower? To know the minimum entry point, do I look at the slowest B finalists at the conference or at those published Division 1 Qualifying Standards, which are much faster? I doubt my kid would go 1.58 on 200BR prior applying for college, but he can definitely go under 2.10 at 17-18, as he's already under 2.20.

Our trainer won't be of a big help, and my son is actually near quitting point. I am trying to see if his times are "college promising", which may persuade him perhaps try another program.

Ignore those standards you found. I don't understand them but I believe they are for a "nationals." Most kids in most programs will never make it to nationals. Look at the confernce times.

Thank you. My son will be super happy to learn that he is so young but already pretty fast. He should reconsider quitting activity that could be indeed his college ticket! Are all colleges training mornings? He's exhausted after so many years swimming year-round with those before school workouts and doubles