The 2026-2027 NCAA season is around the corner, and, as always, we will be ranking the top 16 recruiting classes for both the men’s and women’s NCAA Division I programs along with a few honorable mentions.
There are a number of changes in store for athletes this year. Last year, the NCAA introduced a new qualifying system and NCAA meet format, which saw the introduction of automatic qualifiers via conference championships. Earlier this summer, the NCAA approved new eligibility guidelines which gives athletes five years of NCAA eligibility.
The new five-for-five rule mandates that athletes get five years of eligibility, and their clock starts at full-time college enrollment or at their 19th birthday, whichever comes first. This means that our recruiting class rankings might be a little skewed if athletes fresh out of high school decide to take a gap year before starting school, but we are operating under the assumption that the Class of 2026 athletes will be arriving on campus as originally planned.
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A few important notes on our rankings:
- The rankings are based on our Class of 2026 Re-Rank and our Top 10 NCAA Diving Recruits. “HM” refers to our honorable mentions and “BOTR” refers to our Best of the Rest section for top-tier recruits
- Like most of our rankings, these placements are subjective. We base our team ranks on a number of factors: prospects’ incoming times are by far the main factor, but we also consider potential upside in the class, class size, relay impact, and team needs. Greater weight is placed on known success in short course yards, so foreign swimmers are slightly devalued based on the difficulty in converting long course times to short course production.
- Transfers are included, though they are weighed less than recruits who arrive with five seasons of eligibility. We also take into account how many years the transfers have remaining. An athlete with one year remaining will be weighted lower than an athlete with four years remaining.
- For the full list of all verbally committed athletes, click here. A big thank you to SwimSwam’s own Anne Lepesant for compiling the index – without it, rankings like these would be far less comprehensive.
- Some teams had not released a finalized 2026-27 team roster at the time these articles were published, meaning it’s possible we missed some names. Let us know in the comments below.
Honorable Mentions
Ohio State Buckeyes
The Ohio State Buckeyes have a relatively small recruiting class compared to other teams on this list, but they have a few heavy hitters that will make a big difference at the conference and potentially the NCAA level.
Their top-ranked new recruit is honorable mention Anna Shnowske, from Quest Swimming in Virginia. She had a huge year, setting a massive personal best in the 200 fly of 1:55.04, which is near NCAA scoring position and would have been 4th at the Big Ten Championships. She is a likely scorer in her other individual events as well and will have relay duties with the program.
They also picked up a massive transfer from Brown University’s Morgan Lukinac. The sprint freestyler’s times would have been 2nd on the team in the 100 free and 3rd in the 200 free and Big Ten ‘A’ finalists in both. She will have two years of eligibility remaining under the old policies.
Those two will be joined by Chloe Cappola, Macie McCarter, and Sarah Juiris.
Alabama Crimson Tide
The Crimson Tide have a very big recruiting class coming in with 11 athletes joining the program, one is a ranked recruit from 2026, two are transfers, and three are international. Of those 11, one is a diver, Aime Cano from Mexico, who dove 3m synchro at the 2022 World Junior Diving Championships.
Their only ranked swimming recruit from the class is BOTR Emma Bronson, who will be joining the program with SEC scoring times in the 100 and 200 fly.
They also picked up two transfers, Avery Luedke and Zara Zallen. Luedke will be joining the program from Tennessee with four years of eligibility remaining with best times that could score at SECs from high school. Zallen is a big pickup from Mizzou, scoring 30 points at last year’s SEC Championships, and she will have the top 100 breaststroke time and one of the top 100 free times on the team. She only has two years remaining, but will be a massive asset to the program.
The rest of their class is made up of a mix of international and domestic recruits including European Juniors finalist Iman Avdic from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her converted times sit just outside of SEC finals qualifying swims.
They will join Addison Sala, Alyse Block, Ava Grazziani, Eva Whitehead, and Georgia Wimberley.
Colorado State Rams
Colorado State is one of the only mid-major programs on this list, and their spot primarily comes from #17 ranked Kayda Geyer.
Geyer, who is from North Carolina, was originally ranked as an honorable mention recruit when she initially committed to Colorado State, but an incredibly strong senior year saw her jump to #17 in our re-rank. She dropped more than a second in both her 100 and 200 breaststroke events during her senior year of high school, and she is coming into college at 59.61/2:08.91 in the breaststroke events as well as 4:12.39 in the 400 IM and 2:00.74 in the 200 IM. With the new NCAA qualification procedure, Geyer has a very strong chance of making the NCAA Championships her freshman year.
At the 2026 Mountain West Championships, there were five swimmers under 1:00 in the 100 breaststroke and all but one have graduated. She is also faster than any returning swimmer in the 200 breaststroke. Her best times in the 200 and 400 IM would also have made the ‘A’ final at the Mountain West Championships.
She will be joined by Alaina Biebl, Audrey Martin, Avery Lonergan, Lauren Golden, Malia Costa, and Tavia Arnell.
Arizona Wildcats
The final spot on our honorable mention list goes to Arizona. They have another large recruiting class, which is highlighted by one Best of the Rest ranked recruit, three transfers, and seven domestic recruits.
Pilar King, their BOTR recruit from Georgia will be a very strong asset to the program with ‘A’ final qualifying times in the 100 fly, 100 free, 50 free, and 100 back at the Big 12 Championship meet.
Two of their three transfers are coming from Texas A&M including recently graduated Rachel Love (who has one year of eligibility) and rising junior Kailey Kennedy (who has three years). Kennedy is a potential ‘A’ finalist in the 50 free and 100 fly and Love will be a major boost to their distance program with the top time on the team in the 1650 free and the 3rd time in the 500 free.
Caelle Armijo, Jewel Hart, Kingsley Rosevold, Lucy Flynn, Lyla Lusk, Macey deGroot, Madison Ensing, and Samantha Anderson will round out the recruiting class.
