The Emory women are big favorites to continue their dominance of Division 3 this year (they’ve won 7 straight national titles). It’s difficult to gauge just how good they are by comparing them to D3 teams because the answer is always “much better.” They also beat defending D2 champions Queens in a dual meet this year 136-126, so it’s pretty safe to say they would be a powerhouse in D2 as well. Instead, I compared them to a bunch of D1 teams using the Swimulator hypothetical head to head meet tool.
Emory vs D1 Teams
Here are some hypothetical dual meets using this year’s results vs D1 teams. A win means a win for the Emory women. Current rank is a team’s current rank in their conference in the Swimulator top times conference simulation.
| Team | Conference | Current Rank | Emory vs Them |
| Illinois | Big 10 | 12th of 13 | W (132-126) |
| Purdue | Big 10 | 8th of 13 | L (185-72) |
| Miami (FL) | ACC | 11th of 12 | W (133-125) |
| Georgia Tech | ACC | 10th of 12 | L (125-83) |
| Oakland | Horizon | 1st of 8 | L (147-111) |
| UW-Milwaukee | Horizon | 2nd of 8 | W (163-95) |
| Penn | Ivy | 4th of 8 | L (130-128) |
| Princeton | Ivy | 5th of 8 | W (133-125) |
| IUPUI | Summit | 2nd of 7 | W (177-81) |
| Denver | Summit | 1st of 7 | L (180-78) |
| Missouri State | Missouri Valley | 1st of 7 | W (138-120) |
| SIUC | Missouri Valley | 2nd of 7 | W (158-99) |
| Duquesne | A10 | 1st of 11 | W (182-76) |
| William & Mary | CAA | 1st of 7 | W (161-97) |
Emory is clearly not at the level of top D1 teams as they are only competitive with the worst teams in major conferences. However they would be a very respectable mid-major team. They would be competing to win the weaker mid major conferences (such as the Summit, Missouri Valley, Horizon League, A10, or CAA) or in the mid tier of the better mid major conferences (such as the Ivy League).
For anyone unfamiliar with the NCAA rules, Emory’s status as a Division 3 school gives them a number of competitive disadvantages that make their beating Division 1 schools impressive. Unlike D1 schools, D3 schools are not allowed to award athletic scholarships. Also, unlike D1, D3 schools are not allowed to have practices in the off season organized by their coach, and the amount of time counted as in season is shorter (19 weeks for D3, 24 weeks for D1).
SUIC (Missouri Valley) Don’t you mean SIUC?
No match for NC State in or out of the pool
Andrew – I’m forced to ask how carefully you actually looked at this before posting/publishing it.
In your Penn V.s Emory dual meet for instance, Ashley Daniels is swimming the 100 and 200 Breaststroke twice. (taking the 1st and 2nd place points). Now, Ashley is a very good swimmer but this seems against the rules.
Further, someone like Fiona Muir is swimming 3 individual events and so would only be able to do 1 relay. Now everyone freely admits that D3 schools have good (if not great) swimmers, but the biggest issue at MOST (not all) D3 schools is depth, not studs. Without Ms. Muir (amongst others) – would Emory win that Medley Relay? (I don’t know, honest question)
I… Read more »
1. Swimmers appearing multiple times in the database is a known swimulator bug. It happens rarely but it does happen. We’re working on it. In this case the effects of the bug appear fairly minor on the overall conclusion. In your example, if you take the duplicate out Emory loses 2 points and Penn gains 2 points. That’s a 4 point swing, the margin was 6. Emory still wins.
2. 3 events and a relay complaint. In your example, Emory lost one relay and won one relay. First for arguments sake she could have been on the relay they won. Second, if she wasn’t, at the meet they swam that time, she split 22.81. The freestyle swimmer on the B… Read more »
Post NCAA post graduate scholarship – refreshing to read the discussion mentioning this achievement. The coach who accrued the most team NCAA titles mentioned more than once to me – that these were what he held as among the proudest awards his athletes received. It is not surprising Emory, Dennison, and Kenyon (among others) head coaches all were under his watch as athletes.
It reflects in their own athletes and continually sets the standard for swimming/diving at the college level.
Don’t believe for a moment that the upper group of D3 schools don’t have very creative financial aid packages for the right athletes. They aren’t called athletic scholarships, but are based on need: whether or not they need a particular swimmer.
An accountant would have a field day, given the opportunity, as would anyone who could have access to the admissions office.
So, don’t go patting these guys on the back so quickly.
With the academic requirements of some of the top NCAA division 3 schools mentioned, student/athletes must be able to achieve in both endeavors. The same can be said for the Ivy League schools, a Stanford and many more Division 1 or 2 colleges and universities.
If one brings a talent to a particular school or something special that differentiates that applicant from another, most admissions and financial aid offices would take that into consideration.
Consistent academic success and future post graduation prominence correlates pretty well with the top tier of the division 3 powerhouses in swimming and diving – Williams, MIT, Emory, Kenyon, …. on and on.
With the continual concern over keeping swimming and diving in Division… Read more »
Emory swimming does NOT give out “creative financial aid packages.” Those who actually need financial aid must go through the regular system just like any other student (which does not guarantee that they’ll get anything). I’m on the team now, and I can tell you that all of us are here because we want to be–NOT because we’re given money.
Why don’t you do this for D2 as well? Especially at the end of the year teams like Drury, Queens, Lindenwood, Nova Southeastern and Tampa would compare equally or Even better to what Emory did.
The author just said that Emory beat queens, the D2 national champions, in a dual meet. Maybe if Queens had outperformed Emory they would have. But the fact of the matter is they didn’t.
Emory’s huge squad is way better suited to a dual meet than Queens’. I’d argue that Emory wouldn’t have beaten Queens at d2 Nats last year if they’d swum.
Which isn’t that the end goal of swim teams? I’m sure NC state’s win over Texas won’t mean much to them if they don’t beat them at NCAAs. What I’m saying is that dual meets are too hard to compare because coaches could place different levels of importance on those dual meets. The number of times teams might beat one team in a dual meet but lose to them in an invite format is too high to count.
It’s also worth noting that Ivy’s don’t give out athletic scholarships or even guaranteed admission to the school.
Not only GPA but how about area of study/major?
And let’s not forget that the NCAA awards post-graduate scholarships to student-athletes who excel both athletically and academically and across all divisions and all sports, Emory ranks second in number of scholarships awarded only to Stanford with half of the Emory scholarships coming from the swim team.
Let’s compare GPA
Why?
The reason why I said that is because they achieve greatness in the pool but they also dominate in the classroom.
Do you not realize that Emory is a top 20 school? Yeah maybe they aren’t D1, but they’re extremely academic and we aren’t not the type of school who values athletic achievement at the expense of academic achievement. We value both, if not academics higher. Check your facts thoroughly before you make comments like this
EP,
I was pointing out another achievement. I know they are extremely academic driven and that is why I asked the question about comparing GPA’s.
Emory would win against most of those schools
Emory’s swim team GPA in 2015 was 3.53 GPA for both men and women. Princeton had 3.35, Illinois 3.37, Purdue 3.20 and 3.44 for men and women, GA tech 3.1, Penn was 3.44, and WIlliam and Mary was 3.17 and 3.49. If you don’t believe it, here’s the information:
http://www.cscaa.org/news/2016615/cscaa-recognizes-658-teams-for-academics.
Emory is a top 20 school and is known for its tough academics and difficult science classes due to so many students coming in as pre-med. So go ahead, let’s compare GPAs! Emory has upwards of 30 Academic All-Americans every year.