The NAIA, a non-NCAA level of American collegiate swimming, has announced its qualifying standards for the 2023-2024 season.
- The 2024 NAIA National Championships will be held in the Columbus Aquatic Center in Columbus, Georgia from March 6-9, 2024.
The 2024 national championship meet will once again feature 300 swimmers (140 men and 160 women) and 16 divers (8 men and 8 women).
Like the NCAA Championship qualifying standards, the NAIA standards are more motivational than anything in most years. Automatic Qualifying Standards were set based on the average of the 3rd place finisher in finals from the three previous years; if that results in an automatic qualifying time getting slower, the time will instead remain unchanged.
The provisional qualifying standard (in red) is set based on the “A” standard from the 2020 NAIA National Championships.
After qualifying standards underwent major changes in summer 2022, they have remained largely unchanged for 2023-2024.
The Keiser men and women both dominated the 2023 NAIA National Championships; the men won by 150 points while the women won by 331 points. That was the 5th consecutive title for the men and 2nd consecutive title for the women.
SCAD finished in 2nd place in the women’s meet, while St. Thomas (FL) finished 2nd on the men’s side.
INVITE PROCESS FOR SWIMMERS:
- Swimmers achieving automatic qualifying standards are invited to the meet.
- Once a swimmer is invited to the meet, he/she can swim two additional individual events, provided they have achieved the provisional time standard in said events.
- The next fastest swimmers in each event are added until every event has the same number of entries.
- For example, if the 50 free were to have the most “A” cuts of any event with 5, then every other event would get swimmers with the top 5 fastest times in.
- Finally, one entry is added to each event to keep the entries per event even. This process is repeated until all the swimming spots (140 for men, 160 for women) are filled.
- The swimmers with entry times closest to the NAIA AUTOMATIC cut will get added first in the final row, and when the 140th man or 160th woman is added, the process stops.
- In the case of a tie for the final spot, a “+1” will be added to the meet.
- Schools with 4 or more qualifiers will be allowed to enter up to 5 relays.
- An alternate list of 10 swimmers is compiled in case a student-athlete is scratched prior to the meet.
- In the event an institution enters more than 18 athletes per gender (including alternates) for selection consideration, that institution will be required to submit a final roster declaring the maximum 18 athletes for competition. If an institution does not enter more than the maximum of 18 scorers, then no further action is necessary.
DIVING STANDARDS:
- Limited to the Top 16 Divers (8 men & 8 women).
- Divers will count as ½ persons toward overall roster number.
- If the number of qualified divers is less than 8 in either Gender, no additional spots are available for
swimming.
Altitude Adjustments
Qualifying Standards
