I believe it is important to also point out the limitations of the smaller schools in terms of majors available, resources and graduate programs. This has been especially true in the post-pandemic period when 5th years were very scarce at Kenyon, Denison, Williams size schools (and Coast Guard) and where MIT, NYU, Emory and other larger universities with sizable graduate programs prospered. Even from a straight recruiting point of view, these schools, especially like Chicago which tends to use its "pipeline" into their med school as a recruiting tool, have distinct advantages. The fact that Kenyon, Denison and Williams have been so consistently successful with their small enrollments and limitations is quite impressive.
What information is your Chicago med school "pipeline" claim based on? My source at Chicago, who has been there for several years, can't think of a single team member over that period who has gone to UChicago Med School after graduating. Maybe there has been one, but I don't believe there is any justification for your claim.
I've heard the same thing said about another prominent D3 swim program that has a med school, and I took for granted that it might be true, but now I'm wondering if that isn't just sour grapes on the part of people associated with the smaller schools you mentioned.
Point number 4 for high schools is spot on! The vast majority of the team if not the entire team in HS is just made up from the student body, without any recruiting. Just the opposite of college.
I would guess of the top schools at NCAAs, at least 90 percent of the swimmers are recruited to the school?
Probably most or all of those are early decision?
Then add in maybe 10 percent “pleasant surprises” that happen to be accepted into the school, have a swimming background, and decide to come out for the team?
I agree with this. I think the walk-on factor forD3 swimming is minimal. I think the advantages for schools with a larger undergraduate population may have more to do with underlying resources and aspects of athletic infrastructure. Again, I don’t think it’s like high school where the population correlates so strongly with success. I think there’s a correlation, I just think the connection is gonna be less direct.
And honestly, the part of this about which I feel least confident would be the aspects that throw shade on schools like NYU and Carnegie Mellon. I just think it’s really cool that this tiny little service Academy had such a great run.
I don't know how you define "walk-on," but I know a number of D3 swimmers who didn't receive any "support" or "leg up" in the application process. In most cases, they discussed with the coach in advance whether they could join the team if accepted to the school on their own merit. I also know D3 swimmers who weren't accepted to their first-choice school even though they could've added value to the team, because they weren't quite elite enough to receive coach support in the admissions process.
If by "walk-on" you mean people who show up on the first day and try out for the team, I agree that's pretty rare.
My frame of reference is heavily UAA-influenced, so maybe the situation is different in other conferences.
I wasn't trying to throw any shade on NYU by bringing up their enrollment size. They are a great swim program that plays by the same D3 rules as everyone else.
Hey guys - thanks for these thoughtful posts. I think the Coast Guard Academy’s run was a great story, and I get that celebrating a smaller school’s success can sometimes feel like a criticism of the fairness of the overall competitive environment. That’s not what I intended.
D3 dynamics are complex. It’s possible that larger schools may have some structural advantages — things like athletic infrastructure — but even that varies, and I wouldn’t want to lean too hard on the point. Any tight correlation between enrollment size and competitive success is confounded by a lot of factors, including the fact that some of the very small schools in D3 are quite affluent and seem to spare no expense on athletics. I mean, have you seen the Kenyon Athletic Center?
So yeah, I was trying to walk the line — recognizing that there was something cool and unexpected about USCGA's success without launching a broader critique of the context of that story. I have doubts about whether I quite nailed it, but I really appreciate the nuance others have brought to this thread.
Haha. Great question. And I think you know the answer. The denominator is 29,000 undergrads.
That said, this isn’t high school. Where relative size is the most important consideration. It feels like undergrad population should matter, but the effects should also be less direct (because of so many reasons, but let’s start with recruiting…)
Let's start with recruiting. Do coaches at larger schools have the ability to offer "application support" to a greater number of athletes (I'm asking because I really don't know)? In the absence of any rules regulating the practice (again, I really don't know), it would seem that a highly selective school with 1K students would not be able to offer as many coach-supported spots to athletes in general as a highly selective school with 29K students.
I believe it is important to also point out the limitations of the smaller schools in terms of majors available, resources and graduate programs. This has been especially true in the post-pandemic period when 5th years were very scarce at Kenyon, Denison, Williams size schools (and Coast Guard) and where MIT, NYU, Emory and other larger universities with sizable graduate programs prospered. Even from a straight recruiting point of view, these schools, especially like Chicago which tends to use its "pipeline" into their med school as a recruiting tool, have distinct advantages. The fact that Kenyon, Denison and Williams have been so consistently successful with their small enrollments and limitations is quite impressive.
What information is your Chicago med school "pipeline" claim based on? My source at Chicago, who has been there for several years, can't think of a single team member over that period who has gone to UChicago Med School after graduating. Maybe there has been one, but I don't believe there is any justification for your claim.
I've heard the same thing said about another prominent D3 swim program that has a med school, and I took for granted that it might be true, but now I'm wondering if that isn't just sour grapes on the part of people associated with the smaller schools you mentioned.
Point number 4 for high schools is spot on! The vast majority of the team if not the entire team in HS is just made up from the student body, without any recruiting. Just the opposite of college.
I would guess of the top schools at NCAAs, at least 90 percent of the swimmers are recruited to the school?
Probably most or all of those are early decision?
Then add in maybe 10 percent “pleasant surprises” that happen to be accepted into the school, have a swimming background, and decide to come out for the team?
I agree with this. I think the walk-on factor forD3 swimming is minimal. I think the advantages for schools with a larger undergraduate population may have more to do with underlying resources and aspects of athletic infrastructure. Again, I don’t think it’s like high school where the population correlates so strongly with success. I think there’s a correlation, I just think the connection is gonna be less direct.
And honestly, the part of this about which I feel least confident would be the aspects that throw shade on schools like NYU and Carnegie Mellon. I just think it’s really cool that this tiny little service Academy had such a great run.
I don't know how you define "walk-on," but I know a number of D3 swimmers who didn't receive any "support" or "leg up" in the application process. In most cases, they discussed with the coach in advance whether they could join the team if accepted to the school on their own merit. I also know D3 swimmers who weren't accepted to their first-choice school even though they could've added value to the team, because they weren't quite elite enough to receive coach support in the admissions process.
If by "walk-on" you mean people who show up on the first day and try out for the team, I agree that's pretty rare.
My frame of reference is heavily UAA-influenced, so maybe the situation is different in other conferences.
I wasn't trying to throw any shade on NYU by bringing up their enrollment size. They are a great swim program that plays by the same D3 rules as everyone else.
Hey guys - thanks for these thoughtful posts. I think the Coast Guard Academy’s run was a great story, and I get that celebrating a smaller school’s success can sometimes feel like a criticism of the fairness of the overall competitive environment. That’s not what I intended.
D3 dynamics are complex. It’s possible that larger schools may have some structural advantages — things like athletic infrastructure — but even that varies, and I wouldn’t want to lean too hard on the point. Any tight correlation between enrollment size and competitive success is confounded by a lot of factors, including the fact that some of the very small schools in D3 are quite affluent and seem to spare no expense on athletics. I mean, have you seen the Kenyon Athletic Center?
So yeah, I was trying to walk the line — recognizing that there was something cool and unexpected about USCGA's success without launching a broader critique of the context of that story. I have doubts about whether I quite nailed it, but I really appreciate the nuance others have brought to this thread.
Where would NYU rank on this list?
Haha. Great question. And I think you know the answer. The denominator is 29,000 undergrads.
That said, this isn’t high school. Where relative size is the most important consideration. It feels like undergrad population should matter, but the effects should also be less direct (because of so many reasons, but let’s start with recruiting…)
Let's start with recruiting. Do coaches at larger schools have the ability to offer "application support" to a greater number of athletes (I'm asking because I really don't know)? In the absence of any rules regulating the practice (again, I really don't know), it would seem that a highly selective school with 1K students would not be able to offer as many coach-supported spots to athletes in general as a highly selective school with 29K students.