By Nicole Miller on SwimSwam
2026 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships
Wednesday, March 18 – Saturday, March 21, 2026 McAuley Aquatic Center, Atlanta, GA Defending Champions: Virginia (5x) Championship Central Preview Index Psych Sheet Live Stream Live ResultsEntering the 2026 NCAA D1 Championships this year, there was a lot of discussion surrounding changes to both the format of the meet and the qualifying standards. Well, only one event into the first session, we’re already seeing the implications of those changes.
That’s thanks to Indiana State’s Grace Cummings, who put up a huge performance this morning to secure the 7th-fastest time so far, with only one heat remaining. While her time of 16:08.21 marks a new Mountain Valley Conference Record and personal best by 9 seconds, it has far greater implications on scoring as it guarantees her at least 15th overall.
Cummings qualified for the meet via her victory at the Mountain Valley Conference Championships late last month, where she hit a time of 16:17.25 to slip under the NCAA’s qualifying standard of 16:25.29. In previous years, Cumming’s performance likely would’ve sat right on the NCAA cutline, as that time had her seeded 36th on the initial psych sheet, with the cutline usually falling around somewhere around that area. While in previous years, she would’ve needed to wait to find out her qualification status, Cummings knew well before the psych sheets dropped this year due to her auto-qualifying time.
By qualifying for the meet, Cummings also became the first Indiana State swimmer to ever compete at the NCAA Championships, and is now the first swimmer in school history to score at the meet as well.
Earlier this season the NCAA announced changes to the meet qualifying procedures, with conference champions being awarded automatic qualifying spots, assuming they hit the NCAA standard in their winning performance. These standards were generally slower than the traditional NCAA cutline as the the qualifying times were determined by averaging the 72nd-best time over the previous three years. While Cummings falls as an “in-between” case having both the auto-qualifying time and being around the cutline, there were 16 swimmers in this year’s field who qualified under the new system who would not have qualified previously, marking just 5.7% of the entrants.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: 2026 NCAA Championships: AQ Grace Cummings Drops MVC Record in 1650 Prelims for Guaranteed Points
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