Every so often the data produces a school that looks like a pricing error. This is the clearest one among 539, and it fits in three numbers:
- 76.9% — the acceptance rate. The front door is open.
- $101,253 — median graduate earnings at ten years, in Harvard's neighborhood.
- 34.70 — the age-16 fifty of a swimmer on the current women's roster.
Schools are not supposed to offer all three at once. Rose-Hulman — a small engineering school in Terre Haute, Indiana — does, and the rest of this page is the itemized receipt, catch included. Season medians: 27.74 (women's 50 free), 23.13 (men's). If those numbers look reachable, check your swimmer's — free.
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology swimming at a glance
| Division | NCAA III |
| Current roster | 46 swimmers (17 women, 29 men) |
| Acceptance rate | 76.9% |
| Cost of attendance | $77,890 |
| Aid for internationals | need aware |
| Graduation rate | 78.2% |
| Median earnings (10 yr) | $101,253 |
| Women at age 16 (50 free, median) | 26.58 (n=10) |
| Men at age 16 (50 free, median) | 23.43 (n=20) |
Exhibit A: the widest age-16 tails in our database
| Group | Event | On record | Fastest | Top 25% | Median | Slowest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women | 50 free | 10 of 17 | 25.48 | 25.79 | 26.58 | 34.70 |
| Women | 100 free | 8 of 17 | 55.28 | 56.09 | 59.31 | 1:11.04 |
| Men | 50 free | 20 of 29 | 21.27 | 22.96 | 23.43 | 27.43 |
| Men | 100 free | 21 of 29 | 47.00 | 50.61 | 51.82 | 58.74 |
Sit with the bold ones. A girl who swam 34.70 at sixteen — a summer-league time by any measure — and another at 1:11 in the hundred are on this roster today, at a school whose median graduate clears six figures. A 27.4 boys' fifty made it too. No other rows anywhere in our data compress the "swimming is the ticket" argument into fewer characters. The filter at Rose-Hulman was never the pool. See where your swimmer's sixteen sits — thirty seconds, free.
Exhibit B: what the team swims now
Honest small-college D3 lanes: a year-round club swimmer holding a 23-low fifty (boys) or a 27-mid (girls) sits at this room's median. The men's group runs deeper (26 sprinters, medians 23.13 / 50.07 in the 50 and 100 free) than the women's (16 sprinters, 27.74 / 1:00.94), and the open lanes are genuinely open — the women's breaststroke group is 6 swimmers across all three distances, the men's mile has 4. The 75th-percentile column in the full tables below is the one to study: 29.07 and 23.86 in the fifties mean a quarter of each sprint group sits there or slower.
Exhibit C: the catch, named
Of 44 swimmers with a declared major, 39 study engineering and the rest computing, math and science — a 100% STEM roster on a campus where mechanical engineering alone grants 241 of 884 two-year degrees (computer science 157, computer engineering 124). The real filter: everyone here carries an engineering workload alongside two-a-days, and the numbers price it honestly — 91.7% freshman retention against a 78.2% graduation rate. The pool won't cut your swimmer; the problem sets might. That, and a $77,890 sticker (need-aware for internationals, historically strong merit), is the whole catch. No transfers, no national-teamers, no named feeder clubs: Indiana (11), Texas (6) and Ohio (5) families sending club swimmers who want to build things. Roster stability matches: 47 → 46 season-over-season, the steadiest seat count in this series.
The sibling door: Case Western
Two STEM-heavy academic D3s, two different bargains:
| Rose-Hulman | Case Western | |
|---|---|---|
| W / M 50 free median | 27.74 / 23.13 | 25.53 / 22.03 |
| At-16 W median (tail) | 26.58 (34.70) | 25.26 (27.24) |
| Acceptance | 76.9% | 36.5% |
| Cost | $77,890 | $85,851 |
| Aid for internationals | need aware | full need |
| Graduation | 78.2% | 87.2% |
| Median earnings | $101,253 | $87,989 |
| Full breakdown | this page | decision page · recruiting analysis |
Rose-Hulman: the wider door, the softer water, the bigger paycheck. Case: the faster room, the higher graduation rate, the full-need policy for internationals, a research-university campus. An engineering-minded swimmer's family should read both — then rank them against the other 537 by the swimmer's own time.
FAQ
How fast do I need to be for Rose-Hulman swimming? Medians 23.13 (men's 50 free) and 27.74 (women's); current members arrived with age-16 marks as modest as 27.43 and 34.70.
Is there athletic money? No — Division III. The aid conversation is academic and need-based, where this school is aggressive with merit.
Which lanes are emptiest? Women's breaststroke (6 across three distances) and the men's 1650 (4). Sprint free is the crowded end: 26 men, 16 women.
What's the real catch? The curriculum — see the retention-versus-graduation gap above.
Reference: full event benchmarks
Short course yards, best time per swimmer; women's results through 2026-02-14, men's through 2026-02-22; "median" = the middle swimmer of those who raced.
Women — all 18 events
| Event | Swimmers | Fastest | Top 25% | Median | 75th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 free | 16 | 25.38 | 26.09 | 27.74 | 29.07 |
| 100 free | 16 | 54.98 | 58.06 | 1:00.94 | 1:02.58 |
| 200 free | 13 | 1:56.42 | 2:02.74 | 2:12.45 | 2:23.70 |
| 500 free | 9 | 5:07.29 | 5:37.51 | 6:01.58 | 6:46.00 |
| 1000 free | 7 | 10:44.05 | 11:53.52 | 12:37.12 | 13:40.83 |
| 1650 free | 5 | 17:47.56 | 19:13.71 | 20:53.15 | 22:49.56 |
| 50 back | 15 | 27.48 | 30.13 | 32.28 | 34.55 |
| 100 back | 13 | 59.16 | 1:03.23 | 1:07.30 | 1:08.97 |
| 200 back | 7 | 2:09.70 | 2:14.47 | 2:19.25 | 2:26.80 |
| 50 breast | 6 | 33.99 | 36.50 | 38.31 | 41.55 |
| 100 breast | 6 | 1:12.75 | 1:17.10 | 1:21.94 | 1:29.39 |
| 200 breast | 6 | 2:42.08 | 2:47.80 | 3:03.25 | 3:13.76 |
| 50 fly | 13 | 27.92 | 29.61 | 30.50 | 31.41 |
| 100 fly | 14 | 1:00.24 | 1:04.11 | 1:07.24 | 1:09.32 |
| 200 fly | 5 | 2:22.38 | 2:29.70 | 2:33.35 | 2:41.57 |
| 100 im | 12 | 1:04.04 | 1:07.55 | 1:09.17 | 1:11.32 |
| 200 im | 13 | 2:15.81 | 2:24.29 | 2:26.71 | 2:33.04 |
| 400 im | 6 | 5:03.03 | 5:20.31 | 5:47.86 | 6:00.73 |
Men — all 18 events
| Event | Swimmers | Fastest | Top 25% | Median | 75th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 free | 26 | 21.21 | 22.48 | 23.13 | 23.86 |
| 100 free | 21 | 47.01 | 48.69 | 50.07 | 51.67 |
| 200 free | 18 | 1:42.56 | 1:47.74 | 1:53.22 | 1:56.34 |
| 500 free | 12 | 4:38.93 | 4:53.97 | 5:06.62 | 5:22.21 |
| 1000 free | 13 | 10:04.80 | 10:15.71 | 10:55.65 | 11:20.08 |
| 1650 free | 4 | 16:42.97 | 16:51.33 | 16:56.51 | 17:14.55 |
| 50 back | 18 | 24.14 | 25.77 | 26.78 | 28.80 |
| 100 back | 17 | 52.27 | 54.28 | 57.25 | 59.97 |
| 200 back | 13 | 1:55.48 | 1:58.34 | 2:02.65 | 2:11.80 |
| 50 breast | 17 | 25.60 | 27.49 | 29.17 | 30.99 |
| 100 breast | 16 | 55.37 | 59.41 | 1:03.81 | 1:06.17 |
| 200 breast | 13 | 2:03.04 | 2:09.49 | 2:19.42 | 2:27.78 |
| 50 fly | 20 | 23.71 | 24.17 | 25.68 | 26.62 |
| 100 fly | 20 | 51.64 | 52.67 | 54.23 | 58.04 |
| 200 fly | 15 | 1:51.46 | 1:58.37 | 2:06.82 | 2:14.50 |
| 100 im | 18 | 53.41 | 56.41 | 57.84 | 58.95 |
| 200 im | 15 | 1:51.60 | 1:59.12 | 2:02.30 | 2:13.25 |
| 400 im | 8 | 3:58.44 | 4:10.61 | 4:13.89 | 4:26.96 |
Data: swimtocollege.com database — current-season results for all 46 rostered swimmers across 36 event benchmarks; age-16 marks traced from 10M+ U.S. race results; majors and origins from 44 published biographies; admissions, cost, graduation and earnings from U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard, 2025-26 records. Case Western comparison figures from its own profiled data pack. Distributions of who made this roster, never probabilities for any one swimmer.