Meagan Popp has made a verbal commitment to The Harvard Crimson for the 2015-16 season.*
Popp, a senior at Corona Del Mar High School in Newport Beach, California, is a versatile swimmer who has made great strides in the year she has spent at Irvine NovAquatics. Popp was essentially a breaststroker when she moved from Illinois (St. Charles Swim Team) to California in the summer of 2013. She had times of 1:03 and 2:16 for the 100y and 200y breast, and went 2:03 and 4:24 in the 200 and 400 IM. A year later she’s a 2:01 in the IM and has now developed into a sub-1:50 200 freestyler and 4:50 500 freestyler. Her top times over the last two years are:
200y IM: 2:01.53 200m IM: 2:22.43
100y breast: 1:03.99 100m breast: 1:13.40
200y breast: 2:17.19 200m breast: 2:36.38
200y free: 1:48.95 200m free: 2:04.66
500y free: 4:50.35 400m free: 4:22.50
At her first California high school championships, CIF-Southern Section Division I, Popp led off Corona Del Mar’s 200 medley and 200 free relays and swam the 200 free (she was fifth) and 500 free (third) individually.
A lot depends on who else Harvard is recruiting but The Crimson likely need more help in the breast than in free, where they have a lot of depth. They have also received a verbal commitment from California’s Sonia Wang, who specializes in IM and fly, so this is a nice complementary get for Harvard.
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*DISCLAIMER: Popp has not yet been officially accepted to Harvard. As is true with all Ivy League schools, Harvard’s Admissions Office will not send its acceptance letter until the beginning of December, along with those of all Early Action candidates. The procedure for a recruited athlete like Popp is for Admissions to review her transcript and SAT scores, “support (her) application for admissions in the fall,” issue a Likely Letter, then offer her acceptance into the class of 2019.
