By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam
As we continue ranking recruiting classes, we have made it to the top 8 schools for the 2026-2027 season.
See Also:
Individual Recruit Rankings: Girls Final Standings Women’s 2026 Recruiting Class Rankings: Honorable Mentions Women’s 2026 Recruiting Class Rankings: #16-13 Women’s 2026 Recruiting Class Rankings: #12-9A few important notes on our rankings:
The rankings are based on our Class of 2026 Re-Rank and our Top 10 NCAA Diving Recruits. “HM” refers to our honorable mentions and “BOTR” refers to our Best of the Rest section for top-tier recruits Like most of our rankings, these placements are subjective. We base our team ranks on a number of factors: prospects’ incoming times are by far the main factor, but we also consider potential upside in the class, class size, relay impact, and team needs. Greater weight is placed on known success in short course yards, so foreign swimmers are slightly devalued based on the difficulty in converting long course times to short course production. Transfers are included, though they are weighed less than recruits who arrive with five seasons of eligibility. We also take into account how many years the transfers have remaining. An athlete with one year remaining will be weighted lower than an athlete with four years remaining. For the full list of all verbally committed athletes, click here. A big thank you to SwimSwam’s own Anne Lepesant for compiling the index – without it, rankings like these would be far less comprehensive. Some teams had not released a finalized 2026-27 team roster at the time these articles were published, meaning it’s possible we missed some names. Let us know in the comments below.Honorable Mentions
Ohio State, Arkansas, Alabama, ArizonaPreviously Ranked
#16 Arkansas Razorbacks #15 UNC Tar Heels #14 Florida Gators #13 Wisconsin Badgers #12 Harvard Crimson #11 Arizona State University Sun Devils #10 Duke Blue Devils #9 Michigan Wolverines#8 Georgia Bulldogs
SwimSwam Ranked Recruits: #19 Maya Schweikert (OH – back/fly/IM), HM Maddie Thornton (OR –back/IM), BOTR Brooke Bennett (CA –IM), BOTR Ella Antoniewski (WI – free), BOTR Virginia Hinds (MD – back) The “Rest”: Rin Drudge (Alabama transfer – diving), Ruth Anne McCranie (Purdue transfer – diving), Abby King (CT – breast/fly/IM), Grace Hunt (SC – breast/IM), Liliana Krstolic (FL – free/fly), Kamila Blanchard (Canada – breast/IM)The Georgia Bulldogs have a massive recruiting class for 2026 which includes one top-20 recruit, one Honorable Mention recruit, and three BOTR recruits along with two transfers, three more domestic recruits, and one international recruit.
Maya Schweikert, the #19 ranked recruit in the class, leads the Bulldogs with her 1:52.03 in the 200 backstroke, which is almost in NCAA scoring position. She will also come in as the fastest backstroker on the team and will be a huge relay addition as a freshman.
Maddie Thornton was an Honorable Mention in our re-rank, jumping up from where she was previously as a BOTR backstroker. She will come in as one of the top IMers on the team after Ieva Maluka’s graduation, and is another potential NCAA qualifier.
The Bulldogs also grabbed three BOTR recruits. Brooke Bennett is another strong IMer at 2:00.6/4:14.1, and she will also add depth to their distance freestyle program, a place Georgia excels.
Virginia Hinds is another strong backstroker at 52.6/1:53.9, and Ella Antoniewski brings broad-range freestyle prowess, but she is strongest in the distance races at 4:44.6 and 16:33. Both will be likely SEC scorers, and potential NCAA qualifiers if they can drop time this year.
Canadian World Juniors qualifier Kamila Blanchard will also add depth to the IM and breaststroke programs with best times that convert to potential SEC scoring position.
The Bulldogs also grabbed Alabama diver Rin Drudge, who scored 10 points at the 2026 SEC Championships. She will be a big addition to the diving program that didn’t score any points at last year’s SECs.
#7 Stanford Cardinal
SwimSwam Ranked Recruits: #13 Clare Watson (WA – fly), #15 Alyce Lehman (NJ – fly), #16 Taylor Klein (NC – fly), BOTR KC Braeger (KY – IM) The ‘Rest” – Skye Carter (England – free), Tanni Stevanato (Italy – sprint free)Stanford is not known for bringing in massive recruiting classes, and this year is not different with only six freshmen coming into the team, four of which were SwimSwam ranked recruits and the other two are international.
Clare Watson is their highest ranked swimmer at #13. She comes into the team as a butterfly specialist with a lifetime best 100 fly of 51.75 and 200 fly of 1:54.29. The Cardinal graduated their top 100 butterflyers in Torri Huske and Gigi Johnson after last season and Watson will be a strong addition to the 200 fly roster of Caroline Bricker and Charlotte Hook.
Alyce Lehman, who was ranked #15, had the fastest 200 butterfly among high school seniors last year of 1:53.84, which is nearly under the 1:53.24 it took to score in the ‘A’ final at the NCAA Championships.
Taylor Klein is another butterfly with best times of 52.36/1:54.79. Her 200 fly time is also under the NCAA scoring threshold and she is near the cutline in the 100 fly.
Their final ranked recruit is BOTR IMer KC Braeger, who is coming into a very strong IM program at 1:59.0/4:13.0 in the 200 and 400 IM respectively.
They picked up two international sprint freestyle recruits in Skye Carter from England and Italian Tanni Stevanato. Carter’s best times convert to 21.9 and 47.9 in the 100 free and 52.7 in the 100 fly.
Stevanato’s best time in the 50 free converts to 22.3 and in the 100 free converts to 48.1. Both will have potential to be relay swimmers for the Cardinal this year.
Stanford also picked up Virginia transfer Sylvia Roy, but she does not appear on Stanford’s roster for the season.
#6 NC State Wolfpack
SwimSwam Ranked Recruits: #7 Emerson Callis (VA – free/back/fly/IM), #10 Zoe Smith (AR – free/back), #12 Emma Cigna (VA – back/fly/IM), BOTR Vera Conic (IL – back) The “Rest”: Sydney Gring (Pitt transfer – back/fly/IM), Taylor Schwenk (FL – back)NC State picked up a huge recruiting class in speed, even if it’s on the smaller side.
Their top ranked recruit is #7 Emerson Callis. Two years in a row, we said that Callis might be the most versatile swimmer in the recruiting class, and she is coming into the program within 3% of the NCAA cutline in 10 different events and will be a likely scorer in two. She has a best 200 fly time of 1:54.82 and a best 400 IM of 4:06.52, which are both potential scoring swims. Both events are places where NC State could use a boost after they didn’t pick up points in either event at NCAAs. She can also fill a number of other roles on the team with strong fly/free/and even breaststroke times.
#10 ranked Zoe Smith will come in as one of the top sprint freestylers in the program as a potential NCAA qualifier and relay swimmer in the 50 free (22.18), 100 free (47.80), and 200 free (1:46.34). She is also a strong backstroker, which NC State has shown prowess with developing.
Emma Cigna, who is ranked #12, had a massive senior year to move from Best of the Rest ranked to inside the top 20. She is another potential NCAA qualifier in the 400 IM (4:09.09), but she shines the most in the 200s.. In the 200 back, she is under the cutline at 1:52.81, and about a second off the scoring time of 1:51.97 and in the 200 fly, she sits at 1:56.12, also under the cutline. Those events conflict in the NCAA schedule, but we have seen athletes race both before. She is also incredibly versatile, however, and could swim the 200 IM or 500 free as well.
Their final ranked recruit is BOTR Vera Conic. She has a best of 52.57 in the 100, which would make her an ACC scorer and a potential qualifier.
Pitt transfer Sydney Gring is another huge addition to the roster. The senior will have two years of eligibility remaining with the Wolfpack, and she is coming in after scoring points in all three of her individual events at the 2026 NCAA Championships. She will be a huge relay addition and will help fill the vacancies left by Olivia Nel’s graduation.
#5 Cal Golden Bears
SwimSwam Ranked Recruits: #1 Rylee Erisman (FL – free/back), #9 Kelsey Zhang (CA – fly/IM), BOTR Ava DeAnda (CA – sprint free), BOTR Isabel Wolk (NC – IM), #2D Madeline Kohel (MN – diver) The “Rest”: Egle Salu (Estonia – breast), Halle West (Canada – breast), Kassy Yeung (Hong Kong – fly), Malak Tawfik (Egypt – diver)After bringing in the top ranked recruiting class for 2025, the Cal Golden Bears picked up another massive recruiting class in 2026 headlined by the top recruit in the class, Rylee Erisman.
The Florida native Erisman is a generational talent in the freestyle events, and has the fastest times in the class in the 50 free, 100 free, 200 free, and 500 free events. She reclassified to the recruiting class of 2026 and will be joining the Bears this fall at just 17 years old as a likely NCAA scorer and major relay contributor.
#9 ranked Kelsey Zhang is one of the top 200 butterflyers in the class with a lifetime best of 1:53.51 from April of 2024. While she hasn’t matched that time since, she swam 1:55.05 in her senior year, which is still under the NCAA cutline and if she can get back to her best, she will be a potential scorer. She is also a potential scorer in the 100 fly (51.78), and will have strong training partners in Annie Jia and Mia West.
The Golden Bears picked up two BOTR ranked recruits in Ava DeAnda and Isabel Wolk. DeAnda is another sprint freestyler with best times of 22.4 and 48.2, which would both have been potential relay swims for the Bears last season. Wolk is an IMer with bests of 2:00.2 and 4:13.8.
On top of their ranked swimming Recruits, Cal nabbed the #2 ranked diver in the class in Madeline Kohel. She will be joined by Egyptian platform diver Malak Tawfik.
The Golden Bears also picked up Estonian breaststroker Egle Salu, who set personal bests in both the 50 and the 100 breaststroke last season and finished 12th in the 50 breast at the European Championships last month.
Canadian Halle West, whose older sister Mia had a huge breakout season with Cal this year, will also be joining the team as another breaststroke talent, and if she has anywhere near the same level of success as her sister, she will be huge for the team.
Kassy Yeung, a butterflyer from Hong Kong, will also be joining the team and she has converted best times under the cutlines in both fly events.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Ranking the 2026 Women’s NCAA Recruiting Classes: #8-5
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