What swimming times should I be aiming for in order to get a scholarship into a good college or university?
For women what are the times that would qualify you to earn scholarships in all of the events for good colleges??
and if anyone knows specifications about applying for swimming scholarships like what qualifications you need and how much training you would put in and what getting a scholarship actually requires you to do when in the college would be good to know too! Or any other information that you know about the matter!
Thanks!
xx 
This is a huge question and depends on many factors… do you mean just academically good schools (i.e. Harvard, Yale, etc) or good in both academics and swimming (Stanford, University of Arizona, USC, etc)? Stanford, U of Arizona, and USC are in NCAA Division I and have been strong in athletics for years; Harvard is in NCAA Division I, but I don’t think they have had much of a showing at the NCAA Division I Swimming Championships in any recent time.
Each school has their own standards for who they will give athletic scholarships to and some schools will only give out partial scholarships no matter how good you are; they can split scholarships up that way and increase the amount of people that they can give aide to (the NCAA limits the amount of athletic scholarships a school can give out).See the link below for the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving website – this is a good place to find out which schools are in which Division.
My best advice to you would be to go to each school’s athletic website, they should have a current roster with each of their current swimmer’s best events and best times; their fastest will have scholarships, shoot for the times they have posted. You can also, contact the schools you are interested in; each school’s athletics’ website will have an email link either to the Head Coach or each Assistant Coach. Introduce yourself and ask them what times they think you need to get a full ride scholarship to their school. Keep in mind that if you are less than a Junior in High School, colleges and universities are not permitted to actively recruit you, however you can initiate contact and they can answer your questions (at least, those were the rules back in 1995, when I was recruited by the University of Arizona for women’s swimming, the NCAA may have changed their bylaws since then; your club coach should be able to help you contact the right people for conduct rules). Also, check out the NCAA Championship qualifying times, you will need to beat those times if you want a full ride to the best swimming schools, but that is still no guarantee (see the second NCAA link below).
Remember that no school will want you as bad as when they don’t have you, especially if you are good, so bargain hard for your future; it is in their best interest to get you in their program for as little expense as they can manage. If you are persistent, it shows your dedication and coaches really like dedication!
Best of luck!
Denali