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We are not even halfway through June and already 318 members of the high school class of 2021 have announced their verbal commitments to collegiate programs for the 2021-22 season. That’s about 60 more commitments than at the same time last year for the class of 2020 and 175 more than for the class of 2019 in June of 2018.
The explanation can be found in the shifting landscape for athletic recruiting. In April 2018, the NCAA changed the recruiting rules for Division I to allow official visits beginning September 1st of a swimmer’s junior year of high school. Previously, swimmers weren’t allowed to take official visits until after the first day of classes of their senior year. The following year, the NCAA adopted new rules allowing communication between coaches and recruits to begin on June 15 after the athlete’s sophomore year of high school.
As a result, 16 of SwimSwam’s top-20 boys and 17 of our top-20 girls have already announced their intentions. The programs benefiting from these early verbal commitments are:
| Top 20 Boys | Top 20 Girls | |
| Auburn | 1 | 2 |
| Cal | 2 | 1 |
| Florida | 2 | |
| Georgia | 1 | |
| Indiana | 2 | 1 |
| Michigan | 1 | 2 |
| NC State | 5 | 2 |
| Northwestern | 1 | |
| Notre Dame | 1 | 0 |
| Tennessee | 1 | |
| Texas | 2 | |
| Texas A&M | 1 | |
| Virginia | 1 | 3 |
| Wisconsin | 1 |
Top 20 Boys
| Rank | Conference | School | Name | State | High School | Club Team | LSC |
| 1 | ACC | NC State | Aiden Hayes | OK | Norman North High School | SSC | OK |
| 2 | Big 12 | Texas | Anthony Grimm | VA | Oakton High School | MAKO | PV |
| 3 | B1G | Indiana | Joshua Matheny | PA | Upper St. Clair High School | PEAQ | AM |
| 4 | B1G | Michigan | Tim Connery | NC | Christ the King Catholic High School | MAC | NC |
| 5 | ACC | Virginia | Jack Aikins | GA | West Forsyth High School | SA | GA |
| 6 | Pac-12 | Cal | Jack Alexy | NJ | Delbarton School | SHY | NJ |
| 7 | ACC | NC State | Sam Hoover | NC | Chapel Hill Senior High School | NCAC | NC |
| 11 | ACC | NC State | David Curtiss | NJ | Pennington School | THY | MA |
| 12 | ACC | NC State | Arsenio Bustos | CT | Amity Regional High School | WAC | CT |
| 14 | Pac-12 | Cal | Trent Frandson | IA | Ankeny Senior High School | CIA | IA |
| 15 | Big 12 | Texas | Luke Hobson | NV | Reno High School | LAKE | PC |
| 16 | B1G | Indiana | Luke Barr | NE | Papillion-La Vista Senior High School | SCSC | MW |
| 17 | ACC | Notre Dame | Chris Guiliano | PA | Daniel Boone High School | TOPS | MA |
| 18 | ACC | NC State | Garrett Boone | NC | South Mecklenburg High School | ATOM | NC |
| 19 | SEC | Auburn | Nate Stoffle | GA | Brookwood High School | SUMM | GA |
| 20 | SEC | Texas A&M | Tyler Hulet | TX | The Woodlands High School | TWST | GU |
Top 20 Girls
| Rank | Conference | School | Name | State | High School | Club Team | LSC |
| 1 | ACC | Virginia | Gretchen Walsh | TN | Harpeth Hall High School | NAC | SE |
| 3 | ACC | NC State | Grace Sheble | VA | James River High School | NOVA | VA |
| 5 | B1G | Wisconsin | Paige McKenna | PA | NCAP | PV | |
| 6 | SEC | Florida | Micayla Cronk | FL | Flagler Palm Coast High School | BD | FL |
| 7 | B1G | Northwestern | Ashley Strouse | AZ | Chapparal High School | SAC | AZ |
| 9 | Pac-12 | Cal | Mia Kragh | CA | Torrey Pines High School | RSD | SI |
| 10 | B1G | Michigan | Lindsay Flynn | NC | Charlotte Latin High School | ATOM | NC |
| 11 | ACC | NC State | Annabel Crush | KY | Sacred Heart Academy | LAK | KY |
| 12 | ACC | Virginia | Reilly Tiltmann | WI | Brookfield East High School | EBSC | WI |
| 13 | B1G | Indiana | Mariah Denigan | KY | Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning | LAK | KY |
| 14 | SEC | Auburn | Rebekah Hamilton | AL | Westminster Christian Academy | HSA | AL |
| 15 | SEC | Georgia | Rachel Stege | IL | Neuqua Valley High School | FOX | IL |
| 16 | B1G | Michigan | Letitia Sim | AL | Spanish Fort High School | TNT | SE |
| 17 | SEC | Florida | Brooke Zettel | NC | Apex Friendship High School | TAC | NC |
| 18 | ACC | Virginia | Ella Bathurst | FL | Plant High School | TEAM | FL |
| 19 | SEC | Auburn | Ellie Waldrep | TN | The Baylor School | BAY | SE |
| 20 | SEC | Tennessee | Asia Minnes | Canada/VA | GATR | VA |
Total 2021Commitments by College Program
| Program | Verbal Commits |
| Air Force | 1 |
| Akron | 2 |
| Alabama | 11 |
| Arizona | 4 |
| Arizona State | 6 |
| Arkansas | 1 |
| Auburn | 12 |
| Ball State | 1 |
| Cal | 17 |
| Cincinnati | 1 |
| Cleveland State | 1 |
| CS Mines | 1 |
| Duke | 3 |
| Duquesne | 1 |
| East Carolina | 1 |
| Florida | 11 |
| Florida International | 1 |
| Florida State | 6 |
| Georgia | 14 |
| Georgia Tech | 3 |
| Illinois State | 4 |
| Indiana | 14 |
| Indiana State | 2 |
| Iowa | 1 |
| IUPUI | 1 |
| Kentucky | 6 |
| Louisville | 8 |
| LSU | 7 |
| Miami (FL) | 1 |
| Michigan | 10 |
| Minnesota | 8 |
| Missouri | 6 |
| Navy | 1 |
| NC State | 10 |
| Nebraska | 4 |
| North Carolina | 14 |
| Northeastern | 1 |
| Northwestern | 5 |
| Notre Dame | 11 |
| Ohio State | 10 |
| Penn State | 1 |
| Pitt | 2 |
| Purdue | 4 |
| Rice | 2 |
| Richmond | 1 |
| SDSU | 1 |
| South Carolina | 3 |
| Stanford | 1 |
| Tennessee | 11 |
| Texas | 13 |
| Texas A&M | 7 |
| Toledo | 3 |
| UCLA | 8 |
| UCSB | 1 |
| UCSD | 1 |
| USC | 2 |
| Utah | 1 |
| Virginia | 14 |
| Virginia Tech | 4 |
| West Virginia | 4 |
| Wisconsin | 11 |
High School Class of 2021 Verbal Commitments
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].
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That’s a lot of ACC 👀
The ACC clearly has the best coaches in the NCAA. IMAGINE the possibilities if they built new facilities!!!
That’s so much data, thank you for putting it in one spot!
I wondered how could that 1 Stanford recruit (divng) already know she got.in when others still didn’t? She announced it quite a long time ago too.
Thanks to Swimswam – great stuff for a college swimming fan. Do you have a separate list of D3 commits or still too early for smaller schools?
The ACC got great deal of the committed ranked men and women. Speaks volumes to where the conference is going.
Congrats recruiting 👏
Let’s not forget, committing and attending are 2 entirely different things, especially with the pandemic and as time passes. I have seen a # of these kids already change their commitments and they haven’t started their senior year of high school yet. The earlier they commit, the earlier they change their minds.
According to Lindsay Flynn’s Instagram, she’s now committed to Michigan.
Terrific data! Thanks for tracking!