<p>Hey, does anybody know how fast you need to be to swim on the varsity team at Duke? I’m a junior thinking about applying to Duke (2120 SAT, predicted 40 IB, sitting sat subjects soon, legacy-status, probably ED as well), and I just want to know how fast I need to be to even think about joining varsity to swim at ACCs in the future (doesn’t have to be in my freshman year).</p>
<p>I live in Hong Kong and so we swim in meters, but the meters-to-yards conversion tool on swimswam.com shows that I am 23-low for the 50 yard free, and 57 seconds for the 100 yard fly. I’m aware these are too slow as of now, but I’m in my junior year and have time to improve; I just want to know what would be the bare minimum standard for the 50 yard free to be in the team.</p>
<p>I know the foregoing list of best times does not directly answer your question, but (presuming you have not already seen this data) it’s a start. While you didn’t ask for unsolicited suggestions, I’ll add one: please consider apply for ED.</p>
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<li> ED always provides some (marginal) acceptance advantage; it cannot reduce your admissions probability, although it obviously may commit you to Duke comparatively early in your senior year.</li>
<li> Legacy (and please review several of my older posts for extensive details) may help hardly at all, or may assist more substantially. An applicant, whose family has had slight or no Duke involvement since graduation, will receive very little benefit from his legacy status. Conversely, however, a legacy whose family has served the Duke in volunteer and/or leadership positions, and/or who has donated significant time and expertise in teaching or assisting current students, and/or who has led regional alumni groups, and/or who has participated in University governance, and/or who has generously supported Duke through charitable donations, and/or in innumerable additional ways, is far more likely to obtain a meaningful legacy advantage. </li>
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<p>Duke Swimming just started fundong scholarships again (for the class of 2014). So, this will undoubtably make it much more difficult to swim at Duke and their team will get much faster. Fast swimmers often use their swimming to get into schools that they otherwise couldn’t get admitted - this historically hasn’t been a huge factor for Duke because there wasn’t swim scholarships. Your times will probably not be fast enough. My son is being recruited by Duke and his times are faster in your two events (and those events are not the events he is being recruited for).</p>
<p>@ahsmuoh would swimming serve as a good extracurricular on my application even if I’m not fast enough? Not planning to give it up anytime soon.</p>
<p>I think anyone that understands swimming has a lot of respect what swimmers do. Any ec that you are committed to looks good. Fill out their questionnaire for swimming and see if you get the coach to reach put to you. Can’t hurt to try. </p>
<p>^Yes, showing success in swimming still would be seen as a positive by the admissions committee even if you’re not going to be participating in a varsity sport. I played tennis competitively in high school, but was not recruited at Duke, and participated on the club tennis team, which was great. Practice about once a week, competitive matches against other schools about 9 times a semester - flexible schedule, good players. I am sure they have something similar for swimming. And I’m definitely convinced that tennis helped my application - was my major extracurricular outside academics.</p>
<p>Far more important than participation alone, LEADERSHIP and SERVICE through your swimming would be a potential “acceptance boost.” For example, were you the team’s Captain and clearly and factually articulated how you had improved the team and/or its student-athletes, that could be a strong essay topic. Further, were the team – under your leadership – to have performed unusual community service, that, too, might be a meaningful competitive advantage. </p>
<p>I would suggest you fill in the questionnaire and write to the swim coach about your times.As an international student their standards could be different. You will find the email id of the swim coaches at <a href=“Swimming & Diving - Duke University”>Swimming & Diving - Duke University;