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Natalie Mannion has verbally committed to swim for Stanford University beginning in the 2022-2023 season. She is a rising senior at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and she swims club with the Sarasota YMCA Sharks. She was an Honorable Mention on SwimSwam’s Top NCAA Class of 2022 Recruits. Her sisters, Lily and Macey are also collegiate swimmers. Lily graduated from Princeton in the spring of 2020 and Macey, also a Tiger, is expected to graduate in 2023.
“I am thrilled to announce my verbal commitment to swim and study at Stanford University! I want to thank my coaches, teammates, friends, and especially my family for their endless support on this journey. I can’t wait to get to the farm! Go Card 🌲❤️ #fearthetree”
Mannion is a member of Team USA’s National Junior Team. She traveled to Budapest in 2019 to competed at the 7th FINA World Junior Championships. She touched 6th in the 200 back in a time of 2:12.26.
She recently traveled to Omaha to compete at the U.S. Olympic Trials Wave II in the 100 and 200 backstroke. During the pandemic, she trained with the Sarasota Sharks in Florida. She went to Trials with nine of her Sarasota teammates, including Emma Weyant who took a year off from the University of Virginia to focus on making the Olympic Team. Mannion finished 19th in the 200 back and 52nd in the 100 back.
Top SCY Times:
- 100 back – 53.07
- 200 back – 1:54.24
- 100 free – 49.70
- 200 free – 1:46.83
- 500 free – 4:45.93
- 200 IM – 1:59.95
Mannion will be an immediate point-scorer for Stanford when she joins the team in the fall of 2022. Her times would have earned her a spot in the A-finals of the 100 and 200 back and the 200 and 500 free at the 2021 Pac-12 Championships. The Cardinal finished 75 points behind Cal, taking home the second-place trophy.
Stanford is sending three swimmers to the Tokyo Olympics. Simone Manuel, Katie Ledecky, and Brooke Forde all qualified individually and are on the Team USA training trip in Hawaii.
Kira Crage, Alex Crisera, Isabel Gormley, Taylor Ruck, Janelle Rudolph, and Emma Wheal will be returning swimmers during the 2022-2023 season. Crisera is a top backstroker for the Cardinal. She picked up a bronze medal in the 100 back and was 5th in the 200 back at Pac-12’s. Gormley had a similar impact for the team. At the 2021 conference champs, she was third in the 1650 and 5th in the 500 free and 400 IM. Ruck redshirted her sophomore season. She was the 2019 NCAA DI runner-up in the 200 back and 200 free and finished third in the 100 back. She was pre-selected to represent Canada at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
Stanford recently completed its academic reviews, resulting in a large number of commitments in the last two weeks. Gigi Johnson, Kayla Wilson, Kirsti McEnroe, Lucy Bell, and Sophie Duncan have already sent their verbals to swim for the Cardinal’s class of 2026. Johnson and McEnroe will have an array of events to choose from. They each would have made it back to finals in multiple events at the 2021 Pac-12 Championships. Bell would have been an A-finalist in the 100 and 200 fly and the 200 and 400 IM, coming out of prelims as the second-fastest finisher in the 200 fly. Duncan’s best time would have landed her in the A-final of the 400 IM and Wilson would have picked up a spot in the B-final of the 200 free.
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Congratulations Natalie! Welcome to the Farm!
Don’t mind Bobo Gigi who probably has never set foot on Stanford campus and didn’t really understand what he/she was talking about. A lot of swimmers came to Stanford and developed, dropped times, and many didn’t. There are tons of factors why they didn’t. You don’t know what was going on with their lives. Sometimes, swimming might not become the most important things any more to focus their effort on. They want to do other things. Stanford, being in the heart of Silicon Valley and the bay area, offered many student-athletes opportunities ones would dream for. The school is super beautiful and diverse.. It is very difficult to get in. Many top schools… Read more »
Not sure why tnp101 gets negative votes on his/her true statement. Many athletic programs do not like you to get in majors like pre-med, engineering, computer science …etc or you just realize you need to change majors to keep your sport going.
Stanford is very hard to get in period! Even though you are a record holder, you would not get in without high GPA or SAT/ACT score AND 15 good essays. But if you get in, it is worth! Check the roster and see what the athletes major in. The guy team actually had the second highest GPA in the D-1 swim & dive teams men and women combined in the country.
The pandemic restrictions were very… Read more »
Congrats!
Why Stanford is still so attractive for so many girls from a pure sporting standpoint? I don’t get it.
Apart from Simone and Maya their track record of developing the best US juniors in long course and help them reach the top international level is not the most brillant in the last decade.
You’ve misdefined your terms. “From a pure sporting standpoint.”
These decisions aren’t usually made from a “pure sporting standpoint.”
Well, Stanford tends to get students way above average in the first place. In fact as far as teachers, the Cal State System is just as good but they don’t get the top students. Also, elite colleges have Teachers assistants teach classes more at the lower division while in non elite schools students are more likely to get the regular professors. Plus, if Amy Klocbucher, the senator from Minnesota gets her way. The tech companies can’t buy or merge with smaller companies as much since she supports anti-trust bills against the tech giants. Regan Smith might have to go back to Minneapolis to get a biotech job if the giants are stopped from buying smaller companies in other parts of… Read more »
I was never taught by a teaching assistant while at Stanford. Got my B.S in ChemE in ’91. TAs taught the breakout sections but those were in addition to the lectures by the professors and the office hours of the professors. I had some very cool seminars that we paid for through dorm fees and we recruited fun professors to host the seminars in our dorm common area. We had academic advisors right from day 1 that were real professors in our intended major. They would take us out to dinner in small groups of 5-6 students and just discuss life and our studies. We also had Resident Fellows who were professors that lived next to our dorm and were… Read more »
Maybe the cafeteria food and freshman quad are decent?
How’s the caliber of academics at Stanford?
Katie Ledecky and Lia Neal are some big names…
I mean I agree, but weren’t both Olympians before they even got there?
I mean “from a pure sporting standpoint” throws out a lot of factors that go into a recruit’s decision to commit to a certain school. Stanford’s academics are incredible and it’s in one of the nicest areas in the U.S., so that likely drives a lot of recruits. Plus the women will likely be challenging for national championships, which is a big plus.
At the end of the day, most swimmers are going to have to work after they retire, so a Stanford degree really helps in that respect
Also note that Stanford just gave their early acceptance to a group of 2022-2023 swimmers, allowing them to announce their commitment (unlike most schools, Stanford requires this approval before committing). This is why there is a blitz of Stanford-commitment articles over the last few days, which makes things seem like everyone is committing to Stanford lately.
In the last and this year, Stanford and some IVYs must have benefitted from the admission policy change of making SAT optional(due to COVID) which significantly lowered their academic barrier of entry for many elite swimmers who weren’t be able to pass the rigorous admission standard in the past. That explains the concentration of top swimmers to those schools this year. Everybody wants a name brand, in the past, those high SAT and SAT subject test score requirement automatically filtered out many swimmers. Not this year.
There is more to the Stanford application process than just SAT/ACT scores. To assume that these girls would not have gotten into Stanford because they opted out of submitting their SAT scores (which you have no clue whether they did or not) is a huge insult. Meehan requires transcripts prior to continuing the recruiting process to see GPA and if they have been taking a rigorous academic course load. That is generally the first barrier to entry. These girls worked hard to get to this point in their lives. Give credit where credit is due. And taking the SAT/ACT is not optional. They still have to take it as an NCAA requirement.
Natalie has always been an incredible talent, and I look forward to seeing her continue to rise to the top at Stanford. Brilliant, and comes from a welcoming and supportive family and network that wants nothing but to see her succeed. Having to learn virtually this past year, she definitely benefited from moving to train with the Sarasota Y team. Natalie is an incredible teammate and elevates not only herself, but those around her. Congratulations!!!
Katie Drabot, Brooke Forde and Ella Eastin might disagree. Also.. how many generational talents does one need to have to helped get to the international level before they get your nod?
The Avery Aquatic Center is to die for.
https://gostanford.com/facilities/avery-aquatic-center/4
Are you serious? How many swimmers become self-supporting professionals? Most of the Stanford recruits have superlative non-athletic resumes. Stanford is the hardest school to get into in the US, with an acceptance rate lower than Yale, Harvard, etc. Why wouldn’t an accomplished swimmer put Stanford on their top 1-3 “wish list”? Then, when they consider the entire Stanford “package,” the school blows away the competition. The real analysis should be how many swimmers decline a Stanford acceptance to attend another school. Let’s compile that list.
DiRado
Drabot
Eastin
Forde
Ledecky
Manuel
Neal
2021-2022 NCAA Season freshman:
Huske, Torri
Smith, Regan
So you’re giving Meehan credit for the performance of swimmers who have never swum one practice at Stanford? I guess Stanford claiming credit for their performances on social media is working.
Stanford is an exceptional school with great resources, but for every name mentioned above, there are at least 4 others that never improve. Cal (women) is in the same boat.
@bbomb – Same with Virginia. Six seniors from last years graduating class quit the team in their senior season. Where does that even happen?? And taking out their 6 or so superstars, no one on the UVA roster has dropped time in their primary events since arriving in Charlottesville. Seems like to me they only focus on their stars. At least all of the Stanford students enjoy the team and program enough to stick it out for 4 years.
Ummm.
I’m not sure that your “And taking out their 6 or so superstars, no one on the UVA roster has dropped time” statement is even close to right.
I just scrolled through and picked a few lesser-known names off the roster.
Ella Collins in the 200 free: 1:46.83 —> 1:46.30
Anna Keating in the 100 breast: 59.04 —>58.81
Anna Keating in the 200 breast: 2:09.26 —>2:07.26
Jessie Nava in the 200 fly: 1:58.24 —>1:54.36
Kyla Valls in the 50 free: 22.87—>22.40
Kyla Valls in the 100 free: 49.91—>48.39
Carter Bristow in the 100 free: 52.88 —>51.74
Carter Bristow in the 200 free: 1:50.95 —>1:49.53
There were definitely a few examples I came… Read more »
Six seniors deciding not to swim in their final year under team quarantine & other enhanced processes during a pandemic isn’t *well, there’s some problems there*
Embarassingly bad post.
Most important, congrats Natalie Mannion on this great accomplishment.
Eskew, Skinner, Wilson, Bristow (no drop in primary distance events) , Schaedler, Donohoe, Cronin, Menkhaus, Kulp…. Seniors who quit: Pang, Richte, Sieberlich, McGuire, Early, Eskew. Again – I didn’t see any other top flight school where that many seniors quit. I will stand by my post. If you can dish it out, you have to be able to take it.
You’re going to stand by your original post of “no one” even though it’s verifiably false? Not going to soften it even a little bit and say something like “many”?
That’s brave.
Ok – agree I should have said “many.” I was primarily focusing on the fact that about 25% of their swimming roster left the team.
I mean they won a national championship without them so….
Regan Smith was homeschooled.
Because most of the swimmers who go to Stanford don’t improve once on campus. Care to compare Ledecky’s 2016 Trials times with 2021?
Because most of swimmer who go to Stanford don’t choose the school for swimming only. Very proud of Ledecky, Di Rado, Manuel and Neal who got successful swimming and academics.
So because it is ‘Stanford’ it’s ok they put in the same long hours of work in the pool and doing dryland as everywhere else for no improvement? It’s that type of thinking that keeps the sheep heading to the farm for slaughter.
Do you honestly believe high school swimmers are transfixed by the SwimSwam comments section and using that as criteria toward the second most important decision of their lives?