What Times Do You Need to Swim in College?
Short-course-yards times actually swum by athletes on college rosters, event by event and division by division — built from 280,217 swimmer-event best times, drawn from 10,286,914 race results. Every number below links to the full page for that division and event, with the schools at that level.
Division comparison, all 13 events.
Each swimmer contributes one time per event — their personal best. Each cell shows the median of those bests on that level's rosters, with the top-25% time underneath. Lower is faster. Click any cell for the full distribution and the programs at that level.
Women's — median and top-25% SCY times by division
149,317 swimmer-event bestsMen's — median and top-25% SCY times by division
130,900 swimmer-event bestsCommon questions.
What times do you need to swim in college?
It depends on the division. In the 100-yard events, the median NCAA Division I roster time is 3.55 to 7.51 seconds faster than the median Division III time, with Division II, NAIA and junior college in between. This page lists the median and top-25% short-course-yards times of the athletes on each level's rosters, for all 13 events, men's and women's.
What is the difference between D1, D2, D3 and NAIA swimming times?
Division I is a clear step above everything else. D2, D3 and NAIA sit far closer together than most families expect: in the 50 free their medians fall within 0.84 seconds of each other for women and 0.74 seconds for men, and across the 100-yard events the three are separated by 1.78 to 3.30 seconds. NAIA is not a step below Division III — the NAIA median is faster than the D3 median in 24 of the 26 events on this page.
Are these official NCAA recruiting standards?
No. The NCAA publishes no time cutoffs for swimming. These are distributions of the times swum by athletes who ended up on each level's rosters, computed from 240,005 swimmer-event best times drawn from 10,286,914 race results. They describe swimmers who made it, never admission odds or cutoffs.
Are these the same as USA Swimming motivational times?
No. USA Swimming motivational time standards (B through AAAA) are official age-group benchmarks, listed separately at /times/standards. The times on this page are college roster distributions by division, not age-group standards.
Do these times account for the swimmer's age?
No. Each swimmer contributes one time per event — their personal best in short-course yards — regardless of the age at which they swam it. For age-by-age benchmarks, use the USA Swimming motivational standards pages instead.
Browse all 156 division-and-event pages.
Every page lists the full time distribution plus the colleges at that level, ranked by team median.
NCAA Division I
NCAA Division II
NCAA Division III
NAIA
CCCAA (California CC)
NJCAA
Where does your time actually land?
Enter one time and an age to see the divisions you reach and the schools you could swim for.
Check My Times USA Swimming motivational standards