Introduction

June 15 has become one of the most anticipated dates in college swimming recruiting. For many rising Juniors, it feels like the day when the entire recruiting process suddenly becomes real. Phones start buzzing. Emails start coming in. Instagram follows. Some recruits will get overwhelmed with attention. Others will hear very little and immediately assume something has gone wrong.

Before anything else, understand this: June 15 is the beginning of a new stage in the recruiting process. It is not the end of your recruiting process. It is not a final judgment on your swimming future. It is not a ranking of your worth as a student-athlete. It is simply the first day that Division I college swimming coaches can have recruiting conversations with you after your Sophomore year of high school.

If you prepare the right way, June 15 can be exciting and productive. If you sit around waiting for coaches to discover you, June 15 can become stressful and confusing very quickly.

And if you are reading this after June 15, do not panic. It is not too late. But you do need to start now. The same steps still apply, but the longer you have waited to begin the process, the more urgency you need to bring to your research, recruiting resume, and outreach.

The Basic Rules

The first thing you need to understand is what June 15 actually means. For Division I swimming recruits, June 15 after your Sophomore year is the date when coaches can begin recruiting communication with you. That includes calls, texts, emails, and social media messages.

Division II rules are different. Division II coaches have more flexibility and can communicate with recruits earlier than Division I coaches. Division III and NAIA coaches also do not have to wait until June 15 to communicate with you. This is why some swimmers will hear from Division III, NAIA, or Division II programs before they ever hear from a Division I program.

Official visits also have their own timelines. In most Division I sports, including swimming, official visits can begin August 1 before your Junior year. Division II official visits can begin earlier, around June 15 before your Junior year. Division III official visits can begin January 1 of your Junior year. NAIA schools operate under a different set of recruiting rules, so you should ask each coach directly what is allowed and what the school is able to provide.

As of July 1, 2023, there is no longer a limit on the total number of official visits a recruit can take to NCAA schools. But that does not mean you can take unlimited official visits to the same school. In most cases, you are still limited to one official visit per school unless there is a coaching change.

Rules can change and there are always sport, division, and school specific details. When you are getting close to visits or offers, ask the coach to explain exactly what is allowed and what the school can provide. Do not assume. Ask.

Do Not Wait Until June 15 to Start Recruiting

One of the mistakes recruits make is treating June 15 like the starting line. It is not. If June 15 is the first day you start thinking seriously about recruiting, you are already behind the recruits who have done their research, built their resume, filled out questionnaires, and emailed coaches.

You need to be prepared before June 15. That does not mean you need to have everything figured out. You are not expected to know exactly where you want to commit before your Junior year even starts. But you should have a realistic list of schools, a strong recruiting resume, and a plan for outreach.

If June 15 has already passed, the message is not that you missed your chance. The message is that you need to move with purpose. You may need to compress work that other recruits spread out over several months. You may need to research schools, update your profile, fill out questionnaires, and send emails in a much shorter window. That is manageable. But you cannot keep waiting.

There are three big things you need to do before June 15, or as soon as possible if June 15 has already passed:

• Research. Build a realistic list of colleges that could fit you athletically, academically, socially, and financially.
• Build Your Recruiting Resume. Make sure coaches know your times, academics, potential, motivation, and story.
• Outreach. Fill out recruiting questionnaires and send introductory emails to the coaches at schools that interest you.

If you do those three things well, you will be in a much better position when coaches start building and adjusting their recruiting lists.

Research: Build the Right College List

The first step is research. You need to start building a list of potential college destinations. This does not mean creating a dream list of schools you have heard of because they play football on ESPN every Saturday. It means creating a thoughtful list of schools that might actually fit what you are looking for.

What matters to you? Academic selectivity? Your intended major? A big school? A small school? Close to home? Far from home? Warm weather? A city campus? A small college town? You need to start figuring out what you actually want from these upcoming four years of your life.

Ultimately, you are trying to find colleges that meet your expectations in four major areas: athletics, academics, social life, and intangibles. The athletic fit gets the most attention in swimming recruiting, but it is only one part of the decision. A school can be a perfect athletic fit and a terrible academic or social fit. That does not make it the right school for you.

Athletically, you need to know whether you are a realistic fit for the programs you are contacting. Comparing your current times to conference championship scoring times is a good starting point. But it is not enough. What you really want to know is how a college program has historically recruited and how you compare.

The top and bottom teams in a conference may not recruit anywhere close to the scoring standards of that conference. A team trying to win the conference may be recruiting swimmers who can already make A-finals. A team at the bottom of the conference may be more willing to take a swimmer who is still a developmental recruit. Both teams are in the same conference. They may be using very different recruiting standards.

This is where historical recruiting data becomes so important. If you have an Impact Rating of 91.0 and a college historically recruits 97.0 swimmers, you are probably going to get a rejection unless there is something very compelling in your profile. That does not mean you can never reach out to that school. It means you need to understand the gap. You need to be within striking distance of closing that recruiting gap. You can learn more about the Impact Rating here: Impact Rating Overview.

Want a scholarship? Then you probably need to be above the historical recruiting standard average for that program. Coaches do not typically use scholarship money on swimmers who are below their normal recruiting level unless they believe there is major upside, a specific roster need, or some other reason to make that investment.

Build Your Recruiting Resume

You may get some well-meaning but misguided advice about the recruiting process such as “college swimming recruiting is only about times.”

This is one of those statements that people get kind of right and very wrong at the same time. Times matter. Of course they matter. College swimming is a timed sport. But times do not matter in the way many recruits think they matter. What matters most is what your times will be in college, not necessarily what they are right now. College coaches are trying to score points and place higher at conference championships. They use your current times as a starting point to figure out where those times could be in one, two, three, or four years.

If you are a 50.0s 100Y freestyler now, it does not do a college coach any good if you swim 53.0s every year in college. The coach is trying to figure out if you are going to keep improving, how fast you might become, and whether those future times will help the team score points at conference championships.

That means coaches are evaluating your potential. They are evaluating your motivation. They are looking for signals that you are going to explode in college. They are also looking for red flags like burnout, lack of improvement, poor communication, or signs that you may not want to keep swimming once college gets hard.

Approximately 1 out of 6 freshman college swimmers do not return to swim their Sophomore year. That is not meant to scare you. It is meant to help you understand what coaches are trying to predict. They are not just asking, “How fast is this swimmer right now?” They are asking, “What is this swimmer going to become and will this swimmer still be on our team in two or three years?”

This means you need to tell the story of your potential. Why are you going to get faster in college? What are your signals? Are you still growing? Do you have parents or siblings who were collegiate athletes? Have you overcome an injury? Have you just started strength training? Have you never done real strength training? Are you new to competitive swimming? Have you improved every season? Have you recently changed your training and already seeing results?

College swimming recruiting is a lot like job hunting. You need to build your resume and sell your potential to recruiters. Your times matter. Your academics matter. Your leadership matters. Your potential matters. Your intangibles matter. If you think the only thing you need on your resume is your current best times, you are very wrong.

You have to stand out. A college coach may reach out to and receive interest from hundreds of recruits. But most college swimming programs are trying to bring in a recruiting class of only 4 to 8 freshmen swimmers per gender. There are 13 individual events to cover plus five relays at conference championships. It is going to take more than one good time to earn that roster spot offer.

For swimming, SwimIntel profiles give you some great tools to showcase your entire recruiting resume. You can claim your existing profile, update your information, fill out your About Me, and share your contact info with coaches. Do not skip the About Me. Coaches need more than a list of best times. They need to understand who you are and why they should believe your best swimming is still ahead of you. A guide to building your recruiting resume can be found here: SwimIntel Profile Guide.

Outreach: Get on the Coach’s Radar

Ideally, recruits should start reaching out to college coaches before June 15. You need to fill out recruiting questionnaires and send introductory emails to the programs that interest you.

Division I coaches can receive communication from you before June 15, but they cannot have recruiting communication with you until June 15 after your Sophomore year. That does not mean your emails disappear into the void. Coaches are reading emails. They are watching results. They are building lists. They are trying to figure out who they want to contact when the rules allow them to do so.

Recruiting questionnaires matter because they put you into the coach’s database. Coaches use these databases to manage recruits through the recruiting process. If you only send an email and never fill out the questionnaire, you may be making it harder for the staff to track you. If you only fill out the questionnaire and never send an email, you may be sitting in a database with hundreds of other recruits and hoping someone notices you.

Do both.

Fill out the recruiting questionnaire and send a strong introductory email. You want to get on the coach’s virtual and physical recruiting boards. In other words, you want to get on their radar before June 15. You need a solid email that introduces who you are, why you are interested in the school, what your best events are, and why the coach should keep watching you. Here is a great place to start: Intro Email Template.

This also means you are going to take an active role in your recruiting. Do not wait for coaches to contact you. That is the most common mistake recruits make every year. It does not matter if you are ranked #28 in your class. You are rolling the dice if you do not reach out to colleges that interest you. Coaches might assume you have your sights set somewhere else and do not want to waste their time recruiting you.

The amount of communication many 3-star, 2-star, and lower recruits receive on June 15 will often be proportional to the amount of outreach they did before June 15. There are a lot more recruits in those groups, which means coaches are not going to magically find every good fit on their own. It is up to you to get noticed.

How many colleges should you reach out to? It depends on the recruit, but reaching out to 3 or 4 colleges is definitely not enough. Reaching out to 80 colleges is unrealistic to manage. The sweet spot for early outreach is typically somewhere between 15 and 30 colleges.

Your list will change. New schools will pop onto your radar. Other schools will drop off. The closer you get to committing, the narrower your list will become. But early in the process, you need options. You need conversations. You need information.

What to Expect on June 15

June 15 probably will not go exactly how you expect. Do not panic.

Some recruits will get flooded with communication. Some will get a handful of messages. Some will hear from schools they were not expecting and not hear from schools they thought would definitely call. Some recruits will hear from a dream school at 8:00 a.m. and then spend the rest of the day wondering why another school has not reached out. This is normal.

You should also be prepared for phone calls to happen much sooner than you expect. For 5-star, 4-star, and many 3-star recruits, coaches may want to get on the phone almost immediately after June 15. Do not be surprised if a coach wants to schedule a call that same day or later that week.

You need a strategy for these calls. Before you talk to a college coach, write down questions. Know what you want to learn about the school, the team, the coach, the training environment, the recruiting timeline, roster spots, scholarships, admissions, and visits. You do not need to sound like a corporate executive. But you do need to sound prepared. Here is a helpful guide: Questions to Ask on Phone Calls with College Coaches.

June 15 is just the beginning. There is still a lot that is going to happen before you commit.

5-Star and 4-Star Recruits

5-star and 4-star recruits are often going to get overwhelmed on June 15. Emails, texts, phone calls, social media messages, and meeting requests can all start coming in quickly. Coaches want to make a good first impression and they want to make that impression early.

Power 4 schools are typically the first programs to fill up their rosters, which means there can be a mad sprint to lock up top recruits early. If you are a 5-star or 4-star athlete, you need to be prepared for a lot of attention and you need to handle that attention professionally.

You should also be prepared to move from text or email to phone calls very quickly. These calls matter. Coaches are trying to figure out if you are actually interested, how you communicate, what matters to you, and whether you might be a good fit for their team. You should not wing these conversations. Have questions ready. Take notes. Pay attention to what each coach says and how they say it.

You may also need to tell some coaches that you are grateful they reached out, but you are focusing on other colleges right now. I promise you that coaches would much rather you be honest with them if they have zero chance than have you lead them on for weeks.

That can be a hard message to send to a college coach, especially as a Junior in high school. But you can be polite and direct. Thank them for reaching out. Tell them you appreciate their interest. Let them know you are focusing on other schools right now, but you will reach back out if something changes.

Swimming is a small world. Coaches talk. You need to act professionally in every interaction, even with coaches from schools you do not think you are interested in. That may change in a few months.

3-Star Recruits

3-star recruits often receive a lot of outreach on June 15. Some of that outreach may come from Power 4 schools. Some may come from mid-major Division I programs. Some may come from Division II, Division III, and NAIA programs.

For 3-star recruits, your outreach before June 15 can make a big difference. There are a lot more 3-star swimmers than 4-star and 5-star swimmers. Coaches may already know the obvious names at the very top of the class, but they are not going to have perfect information on every recruit who could help their program. If you have emailed coaches, filled out questionnaires, updated your profile, and clearly explained why you are interested, you are giving yourself a much better chance to be on their radar.

You should also be ready for phone calls to happen quickly. A lot of recruits are surprised by how fast the process can move once a coach shows interest. Do not wait until a coach asks for a call to start thinking about what you want to ask. Have your questions ready before June 15.

Yes, Division II, Division III, and NAIA coaches may be able to communicate with recruits before June 15. But that does not mean they are all going to have their Junior recruiting boards finished before Division I coaches are allowed to call. Many Division II and Division III programs still follow a timeline that looks similar to mid-major Division I recruiting in practical terms.

If a mid-major Division I school you reached out to does not contact you on June 15, do not panic. They may still be focused on finishing their Senior recruiting class. They may be prioritizing a different event group first. They may be waiting to see which top recruits show interest before moving further down their board. They may simply be behind.

None of that means they are not interested. It means recruiting is messy and each program has its own timeline.

2-Star and Lower Recruits

2-star and lower recruits may or may not get a ton of calls, texts, or emails on June 15. What you do before June 15 is going to make a big difference in what happens on that day. If you don’t get a ton of outreach, do not panic. This does not mean you will not be recruited. It does not mean there is no college swimming future for you. It means you need to understand the game you are playing.

There are a lot more 2-star and lower recruits than 3, 4, and 5-stars combined. The closer you get to that line, the more crowded the recruiting pool becomes. That puts pressure on you to stand out. This is a scarcity game. College swimming programs only have so many roster spots. Coaches only have so much time. They are trying to identify the recruits who can help their team, fit their school, and continue improving in college. If there are hundreds of swimmers with similar current times, the recruit who tells the better story of potential is going to have an advantage.

That story matters. Why are you going to get faster? What has changed in your training? Are you still growing? Did you start swimming later than your peers? Are you just starting strength training? Have you had a recent breakthrough? Are you improving every season? These are not throwaway details. These are the signals that help a coach see your upside.

You will need to craft that story and put it in front of coaches. That means sending thoughtful emails, keeping your profile updated, filling out questionnaires, and sending progress updates through your Junior year. A time drop in December of Junior year can completely change the way a coach looks at you. A strong championship season can open doors that were not open in June.

You may also get outreach from schools you have never heard of. Do not dismiss those schools immediately. Just because a college does not play football on national television every Saturday does not mean it is not a fantastic fit with a phenomenal swimming program.

Research the schools that reach out to you. Look at the roster. Look at the conference. Look at the majors. Look at the location. Look at the team culture. Some of the best opportunities in college swimming come from schools that were not originally on your radar.

Again, do not panic based on what happens on June 15. The goal is not to win June 15. The goal is to find the right college fit.

How to Handle the Communication

When coaches start contacting you, stay organized. Track every school, coach, email, call, questionnaire, visit discussion, and next step. You will forget details if you try to keep everything in your head.

Be responsive. Try to answer coaches within 24 hours. You do not need to write a novel in every response, but you do need to show maturity and interest. If you are interested in a school, say so. If you are not interested, be respectful. If you need time to think, say that too.

Before phone calls, write down questions. After phone calls, write down notes. What did you like? What concerned you? What did the coach say about your events? What did they say about roster spots? What did they say about scholarships? What did they say about admissions? What did they say about visits?

This is where recruiting starts to feel a lot more real. Coaches are evaluating you, but you are also evaluating them. Pay attention to how they communicate. Pay attention to whether they answer your questions directly. Pay attention to whether you can see yourself spending four years with that coach and that team.

Final Thoughts

June 15 is exciting, but it can also create a lot of unnecessary stress. Some swimmers will get more attention than they expected. Some will get less. Some will hear from the wrong schools. Some will not hear from the school they care about most.

Do not let one day define your recruiting journey.

And if June 15 has already passed, do not use that as an excuse to stay stuck. Start now. Research schools. Build your resume. Update your profile. Fill out questionnaires. Send emails. Prepare for calls. The longer you have waited, the more intentional you need to be.

The swimmers who handle recruiting the best are usually the ones who take an active role early. They research schools. They understand athletic fit. They build a real recruiting resume. They tell the story of their potential. They fill out questionnaires. They email coaches. They stay organized. They communicate like adults. They keep updating coaches as they improve.

If you do those things, June 15 becomes a milestone instead of a mystery. It becomes one step in the process of finding a school where you can swim fast, get a great education, and have an incredible college experience.

That is the goal. Not collecting the most calls on June 15. Not chasing the biggest logo. Not panicking because someone else posted a screenshot of their inbox. The goal is finding the right fit.