Fitter and Faster Swim Camps is the proud sponsor of SwimSwam’s College Recruiting Channel and all commitment news. For many, swimming in college is a lifelong dream that is pursued with dedication and determination. Fitter and Faster is proud to honor these athletes and those who supported them on their journey.
High school senior Jake Wang from suburban Philadelphia has verbally committed to swim for Yale University in fall 2024. Wang, who committed earlier in the fall, is the 2023 Winter Juniors East Champion in the 100 yard breaststroke.
Wang trains with the Suburban Seahawks Club in Philadelphia’s western suburbs – the same program that produced another elite breaststroker, Olympic gold medalist Brendan Hansen. He attends Conestoga High School, which finished 3rd at last season’s Pennsylvania High School State Championship meet.
He was the high scorer for that 3rd-place effort, winning state titles in the 100 breaststroke (53.92) and 200 IM (1:46.94) in the spring. That 100 breaststroke title was his second-straight title in that event.
He’s improved even further since then, winning a bunch of big titles in the 100 breaststroke – including the 100 yard breast at Winter Juniors East a few weeks ago (52.97), the 100 meter breast at the NCSA Summer Championships in July (1:02.88), and the Middle Atlantic Senior Championship in the 100 yard breast in March (54.31).
Best Times in Yards:
- 100 breast – 52.97
- 200 breast – 2:00.26
- 50 free – 19.93
- 100 free – 43.39
- 200 free – 1:37.89
- 200 IM – 1:46.51
While Wang’s 200 isn’t to the level of his 100, he brings more than just breaststroke to the Bulldogs next season. Besides having a 100 breaststroke time that’s already faster than Yale’s best this season (freshman Charlie Egeland has been 53.21), he also is a 19.9/43.3 sprint freestyler. Only one Yale swimmer has been sub-20 in the 50 free this season (Deny Nankov, 19.76), and only one Yale swimmer has been under 44.4 in the 100 free this season (Nankov, again, at 42.85).
So besides being a projected 70+ individual point scorer as a freshman, he could immediately contribute to all five Yale relays in a big way – to the point that, thanks to Egeland’s presence, the best option for Yale points-wise might be to not use him on one of the medley relays, in spite of being so good in breaststroke.
Yale finished 3rd at the 2023 Ivy League Championships with 1,052 points. That put them 381.5 points behind Princeton and 493 points behind Harvard.
A big and power-packed high school class of 2023 should help Yale begin to close that gap. Wang, along with another highly-ranked Mid-Atlantic swimmer Elliot Lee, are part of a smaller Yale class of 2024, but those two classes together represent a wave of progress for the Bulldogs, who haven’t finished higher than 3rd at the Ivy League Championships since winning the 1972 title.
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].
About the Fitter and Faster Swim Tour
Fitter & Faster Swim Camps feature the most innovative teaching platforms for competitive swimmers of all levels. Camps are produced year-round throughout the USA and Canada. All camps are led by elite swimmers and coaches. Visit fitterandfaster.com to find or request a swim camp near you.
FFT SOCIAL
Instagram – @fitterandfasterswimtour
Facebook – @fitterandfastertour
Twitter – @fitterandfaster
FFT is a SwimSwam partner.
Congrats Jake！Can’t wait to see what you can do for the Bulldog!
He split a 1:35 in the middle leg of their 800 yards free relay at winter junior, so his flat start 200 free should be faster than the 1:37.8 that he did last December. Anyway, congrats Jake! Yale did a good job getting a high-potential talent.
Wow. Those times in high school are insane. Congrats!
Side thought… Ivy League not messing around. Though not offering athletic scholarships, they’re attracting major talent on academic brand and an improving track record against the traditional swimming powerhouses. Feels like you can see that in the D3 schools too (MIT, UChicago, Emory, NYU, amongst others). I wonder if we’ll see a shift such that an Ivy finishes top 5 at NCAAs in the next 10, 20 years
Ivies will not crack top 10 in the foreseeable future unless a Dean Farris talent rolls around and develops at an Ivy, which is highly unlikeable.
Swimming wise, Ivies are not on the level of power 5s
“Highly unlikeable” is probably an autocorrection but feels like a Freudian slip. It could be worse, Andrew. At least he’s not going to Cal or UVa.
Make sense! Let’s see.
Have any of the ivies ever gotten a top 5 recruit? Until they do that it’s hard to imagine a top 5 team finish. So far, the very top tier of swimmers has either decided Stanford, Cal, UVa, etc were good enough, or maybe they’ve wanted to go Ivy but couldn’t get in.
Congratulations to Jake and to Yale. They should both be proud.
We’ll see! A lot can happen in 10-20 years
a young gary