Keeping the spark alive
Intimate thoughts on qualifying times
We wrote this earlier in the season but did not find a good time to post it. There are aspects that still feel relevant, perhaps even more relevant given that nationals qualifying is currently top of mind for many athletes and programs. So, for your edification...At the start of each season, Division III releases its qualifying times tables. For fun, we expanded the table to include the average on which SRS is calculated. We’ve also assigned an SRS value to each qualifying time, including last season’s actual invite times.
Division III: Maintaining the mystery
As far as we can tell, there is no public information on how Division III sets qualifying times for nationals. Not online; not in any official NCAA document or publication.
Division III seems to have taken to heart the old couples-counseling advice about keeping the mystery alive in the relationship. It’s like, when setting qualifying times, they want to keep it spontaneous, and never offer too much information. You won’t catch Division III walking around the apartment in old sweatpants.
Not like those nice-guy try-hards in Division I, whose qualifying standards document includes (on page three) an explanation of the calculations behind their standards.
Now, to be clear, Division III does have a methodology for calculating A Cuts and B Cuts. They just don’t share it, because, you know, boundaries.
Anyway, a source close to the NCAA has actually seen the guidelines, which read:
The A-cuts are based on the 3-year average of the top finisher's time from finals.1
The B-cuts are calculated by the 3-year average of the 32nd place time from the meet entry system, unless such calculation is slower than the previous year's B-Cut time.
The relay cuts are calculated by the 3-year average of the 20th place time for the men and 24th for the women from the meet entry system, unless such calculation is slower than the previous year's cut.
Seems straightforward enough, but…
The thing about A Cuts
Here’s the thing. Sure, there are rules about setting A Cuts in Division III. But Division III doesn’t seem particularly impressed with their own rules.2
Here is an example - from women’s 500 Free:
The rule says that A Cuts in any event should be the three year average of the national championship winning times in that event.
Here are the last three national championship winning times in women’s 500 Free: 4:48.55 (Taryn Wisner), 4:48.38 (Kristin Cornish), and 4:48.65 (Bengisu Caymaz).
Since the 2024 A Cut was 4:49.75, then we would expect this year’s A Cut to be the average of those last three winning times (4:48.53).
But it isn’t. The A Cut standard for 2024-25 is 4:45.33.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
On B Cuts and men’s invite times
Wow, the SRS values for men’s invite times are much higher than for women’s. Obviously this is a function of the ratio of men and women invited to nationals. Still:
In women’s events, B Cuts and invite times are relatively close in SRS points. For example, last season’s largest gap between a B Cut and an invite time in women’s events was 0.41 SRS points (in the 500 Free).
For men, even the smallest gap was larger—0.47 SRS points.
For all events, the average difference in SRS points between men’s B Cuts and invite times is three times higher than the difference for women (0.64 for men, 0.19 for women).
Practically speaking, if you get a B Cut in a women’s event, you’re likely very close to earning an invite; if you earn a B Cut in a men’s event, you are not.
You could nitpick. Tying A Cuts to the winning time in finals at Nationals feels a little arbitrary. It is not necessarily the fastest time of the season, not even necessarily the fastest times at nationals (sometimes the fastest time in an event is swum in prelims). But that is how they do it, and we are sure there are other advantages to using the winning time from finals.
One more observation on women’s events. Variation between the SRS value of women’s invite times is interesting in this way: SRS points gauge how much faster that time is than the historical average of fast swims from the past five seasons. So, that 100 Fly SRS score (the highest among women’s events) tells us that - right now - 100 Fly times are dropping very fast compared to the historical average. While the invite time for 100 Back is kind of the opposite - it is not so much faster now than the historical average of fast 100 Back swims over the past five full seasons (thus the low SRS score).
In D1, A cuts are meaningful. A handful of swimmers make the A cut in each event and they are automatically in the NCAA meet. In D3, the A cuts are meaningless on a practical basis because they represent the winning times or faster as you pointed out in the 500 free example. The two times that are meaningful are the B cuts and the invited times from the previous year(s). If you get below that invited time by enough, you are, in theory “safe” and can train through your conference meet without resting/shaving and focus on NCAAs or your parents can make non-refundable hotel reservations in Greensboro. I recently had a conversation with a swimmer who was a full second under the 2024 200 breast invited time. He said it is hard to imagine the invited time this year being a full second faster so he felt his chances are pretty solid. This is the practical side of the cuts. I talked to a relay swimmer who was on a relay that had a solid shot at being in NCAAs but she only had one B cut so she was going to a last chance meet to try for 2 more B cuts. I rarely hear anything about A cuts and swimmers like NYUs Kaley McIntyre don’t even have to think about the A cuts because she knows she’s going to NCAAs anyway and is focused on that right from the start of the season. The only times that matter are the B cuts and the invited times. And you might want to check the invited times. I checked a few of them and found what was actually invited last year was not the same as the time in the chart. For example, the women’s 1650 is listed as 17:18 for the invited time when it was actually 17:15.15. There is also the number invited per event. Last year it was 25 for the women and 16 or 17 for the men. That can change the situation too.
Great post! Back in my heyday, I missed the 2010 D3 NCAA's by 0.05 in the 100 Fly. Meanwhile, I continued training for nearly a month not knowing. (The selection process seemed mysterious like a Papal Conclave.)
But hey! I went the local State meet for USA Swimming and ticked off a bunch of high schoolers. Didn't want to waste that taper...