Research

Research on college swimming, written for families.

I run the database behind this site, and these are the questions I could not get a straight answer to when I started looking. Every number traces back to a query I can show you. Where the data stops, the article says so instead of guessing.

11 articles10M+ race resultsEvery figure source-checked

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Recruiting standards

How fast do you actually need to be for D1, D2, D3, or NAIA?

Every recruiting site hands you one cutoff time per division. That single number hides the thing families most need to see: the real gap in college swimming is not between the divisions parents agonize over. It is between D1 and everyone else.

ITIvan Tsai
Our research standards

How Swim to College research is produced.

Every study is built from more than 10 million race results and official college rosters, and every figure is checked before it runs.

  • Every number is checked against its source before publication. Draft figures are matched cell by cell against the query that produced them. A number that cannot be traced does not run.
  • Times describe swimmers who made it, not thresholds anyone must clear. These athletes all reached a college roster, so the numbers show the range they came through — never odds or cutoffs.
  • Undisclosed is written as undisclosed. When a school does not publish a policy, the article says so rather than estimating.
  • Corrections are logged on the article, not quietly overwritten.

Research led by Ivan Tsai, founder of Swim to College.