D3 Swimming Recruitment

MaineCoon
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:23:57 +0000

I am glad I stumbled across this thread as I have learned alot. However, I still have a few questions. I have a HS junior with swim times that would final in the top eight in any conference (a few NCAA B cuts as well but oh so close to NCSA cuts).

From what I have read, I understand that most D3 swim coaches would likely be interested and maybe a few D1’s as well. I am not sure about how much admission support she would receive from any given coach at those schools in the top ten of the rankings.

D is a good student who manages mostly A’s in her 3 AP classes (though she has a high B in one now) with a rigorous swim schedule of over 20 hrs a week in the pool plus practicing/performing regularly in orchestra. She has a 199 PSAT (spread out fairly evenly, 670,670, 650) and is scheduled to take the SAT/ACT/SAT II and AP exams in the spring. We will definitely have a better read after those but we are planning a trip in April over spring break to casually visit schools. I don’t want to necessarily have her get her hopes up at one that will not be a good fit.

My question is this…are schools like UChicago and JHU too academically difficult when factoring in swimming? She is a STEM girl who wants to do pre-med (at this point) and so an LAC is not really up her alley. She is rather nerdy who likes to learn Chinese and communicate to friends in secret codes (they make up and then try to decipher) in her “down” time. She is used to being in the top 10% and I think she would be okay being in the bottom 25% but she doesn’t want to flunk out. She may do her undergrad in 5 or 6 yrs to lighten the academic burden.

Would she be better off going to a different school where she would initially be in the top 25% academically(and what would those schools be so we can compare swimming)? She wants to improve her swim times in college (or else it would be a “waste” she says) so it has to be a good program as well.

Any other insight/advice is well appreciated.