2025-2026 NCAA Division I College Preview Compendium

By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam

We’re lower than per week away from the beginning of September, and after months of main worldwide meets, we’re able to return to NCAA Swimming & Diving with the beginning of the 2025-2026 season simply across the nook. The 2025 recruits, and transfers, have made their choices for the place they are going to spend their yr and might be beginning courses over the following month.

At SwimSwam, the odor of faculty swimming within the air implies that now we have been working via the highest recruits, the highest recruiting courses and final season’s high 12 packages for each genders. As we publish articles, we are going to replace our compendium (as Mark coined it final yr) so you’ll be able to shortly and simply entry every thing.

Prime 12 Applications Preview

Girls’s Prime 12

Males’s Prime 12

Program
2025 NCAA Rating
Stars (★)

Virginia
544

1
Texas
490

Stanford
417

2
California
471

Texas
394

3
Indiana
459

Indiana
312

4
Florida
315

Tennessee
298

5
Tennessee
266.5

Florida
232

6
Arizona State
248

Louisville
209.5

7
Georgia
238.5

California
202.5

8
Stanford
216

Michigan
196

9
NC State
178

NC State
164

10
Virginia Tech
107.5

Southern California
130

11
Michigan
98.5

Wisconsin
126

12
Texas A&M
95.5

GRADING CRITERIA

Through the years, we’ve gone forwards and backwards on methods to undertaking factors, starting from largely subjective rankings to extra data-based grading standards primarily based on ‘projected returning factors.’ We like being as goal as attainable, however we’re going to stay with the strategy we’ve adopted post-Covid. The “stars” will rely closely on what swimmers truly did final yr, however we’ll additionally give credit score to returning swimmers or freshmen who’ve posted occasions that might have scored final yr.

Since we solely profile the highest 12 groups on this format, our grades are designed with that vary in thoughts. Within the grand scheme of faculty swimming and in comparison with all different school packages, high 12 NCAA packages would just about all grade nicely throughout the board. However within the curiosity of constructing these previews informative, our grading scale is hard – designed to indicate the tiers between the nice stroke teams, the nice ones, and the 2015 Texas fly group varieties.

5 star (★★★★★) – a uncommon, elite NCAA group projected to attain 25+ factors per occasion
4 star (★★★★) – a really, superb NCAA group projected to attain 15-24 factors per occasion
3 star (★★★) – a superb NCAA group projected to attain 5-14 factors per occasion
2 star (★★) – a stable NCAA group projected to attain 1-4 factors per occasion
1 star (★) – an NCAA group that’s projected to attain no factors per occasion, although that doesn’t imply it’s with out potential scorers – they’ll simply must leapfrog some swimmers forward of them to do it

We’ll grade every occasion self-discipline: dash free (which we outline to incorporate all of the relay-distance freestyle occasions, so 50, 100 and 200), distance free, IM, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly and diving. Use these grades as a jumping-off level for dialogue, somewhat than a cause to be offended.

Additionally, remember the fact that we’re publishing many of those previews earlier than groups have posted finalized rosters. We’re making our assessments primarily based on the most effective info now we have out there on the time of publication, however we reserve the appropriate to make modifications after publication primarily based on any new info which will emerge relating to rosters. If that does occur, we’ll make sure to notice the change.

Prime Recruiting Lessons

Girls’s Applications

Males’s Applications

1-4

5-8

9-12

13-16

Honorable Mentions (in no explicit order)

A couple of necessary notes on our rankings:

The rankings listed are primarily based on our Class of 2025 Re-Rank. “HM” refers to our honorable mentions and “BOTR” refers to our Better of the Relaxation part for top-tier recruits.
Like most of our rankings, these placements are subjective. We base our staff ranks on a lot of elements: prospects’ incoming occasions are by far the principle issue, however we additionally think about potential upside within the class, class dimension, relay affect, and staff wants. Better weight is positioned on identified success briefly course yards, so overseas swimmers are barely devalued primarily based on the issue in changing lengthy course occasions to brief course manufacturing.
Transfers are included, although they’re weighed lower than recruits who arrive with 4 seasons of eligibility.
For the total listing of all verbally dedicated athletes, click on right here. An enormous thanks to SwimSwam’s personal Anne Lepesant for compiling that index – with out it, rankings like these could be far much less complete.
Some groups had not launched a finalized 2025-26 staff roster on the time these articles have been revealed, which means it’s attainable we missed some names. Tell us within the feedback under.