Conference nominees for the 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year award were due at the end of July, and at least three swimmers are featured among the conferences who have announced their nominees.
The NCAA Woman of the Year award honors one senior athlete from across the NCAA (Division I, II, and III) who has “distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, community service and leadership.”
The nomination process starts with each member school getting the opportunity to honor its top graduating female student-athlete(s) by nominating them. According to the Nomination and Award Process, schools are “urged” to submit two nominations if at least one of them is a “student-athlete of color or international student-athlete.”
These nominations were due to their specific conferences by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on June 23rd, and in 2024 627 athletes were nominated.
After the specific school nominees were submitted to the conference, the conferences are then tasked with recognizing one or two of the nominees (two if one is a woman of color or international) and submitting their choices to the NCAA by 5 p.m. on July 31st.
From there, the NCAA will choose the top 10 women from each division, who will earn their spot in the top 30 honorees. That list will be narrowed down further to the top-9 (three from each division) before finally a winner is chosen.
Last year, the Woman of the Year, Alexandra Turvey, was a swimmer. She became the 14th swimmer to win the award, more than any other sport
While the nominations were due by July 21, not every conference has publicly released their picks. There are more than 200 conferences in the NCAA, and since there is no master list, we did our best to find the swimmers. If you know of someone we have missed, please let us know in the comments so we can add them.
Of the conference nominees who have been released, we found at least three that were swimmers.
Akron swimmer Grace Nuhfer was chosen as one of two nominees from the Mid-American Conference. Nuhfer is a Paralympian, who won a silver medal in the women’s 100 fly in Paris, coming in at 1:03.88
Also a Division I nominee was Chloe Farro from Indiana State, who was nominated by the Missouri Valley Conference. Farro, who is from Aruba, was the MVC runner-up in the 50 freestyle earlier this year, touching in 22.84.
Kenyon’s Sydney Geboy was nominated by the Division III North Coast Athletic Conference. She swam the 50 and 100 free at the DIII NCAA Championships, finishing 14th in the 50 (23.31) and 25th in the 100 (51.13). She also participated on four of Kenyon’s relays, contributing to their silver medal in the 200 medley relay and their bronze medal in the 400 medley relay.
Swimming Nominees:
| Division | Conference | School | Athlete |
| I | MAC | Akron | Grace Nuhfer |
| I | MVC | Indiana State | Chloe Farro |
| III | NCAC | Kenyon | Sydney Geboy |
