In our rankings of the top swimming colleges, we take you beyond wins and losses to reveal what truly makes a college swim program great. To come up with our list of the top 10 women’s swimming programs, we consider a variety of factors—not just a team’s record, but also academic rankings from U.S. News & World Report and Academic Progress Rates. The result is a list of schools we’d recommend to any swimmer seeking an elite athletic program and a strong education. Learn more about how we arrived at our rankings through the Elite 50 guide, and browse through STACK’s rankings for 20 other sports at the bottom of this page.
STACK’s Top 10 Women’s Swimming Colleges

College	Score	’12 U.S. News Rank	APR [Out of 1,000]	National Ranking ‘11/’10/’09	STACK Factor
1. Stanford	100	5	985	4/2/4	192
2. Cal	92.54	21	988	1/3/1	120
3. Texas	82.63	45	989	6/11/5	144
4. USC	81.27	23	966	3/7/9	108
5. Florida	81.24	58	969	7/1/7	144
6. Georgia	80.14	62	989	2/5/2	84
7. Virginia	79.57	25	994	13/9/12	132
8. Texas A&M	79.25	58	987	10/6/8	144
9. Arizona	68.04	124	971	5/4/3	108
10. North Carolina	66.28	29	1000	23/20/20	144

Inside the Rankings: North Carolina Women’s Swimming
North Carolina’s women swimmers had notable success over the past year, but expect them to pick it up another notch in the upcoming season. The team has a strong senior class of 10 swimmers, who provide invaluable leadership.
Nine team members were named to the 2011 All-ACC Academic Women’s Swimming & Diving team, proving that the Tar Heels’ prowess extends to the classroom. They are also a compassionate group, regularly teaming up with the men’s swim team to give back to the community. Projects include adopting a third-grade class to tutor students about valuable life skills and traveling to Vietnam to teach local students how to play sports and excel in the classroom.
Check out the rest of STACK’s college rankings:

Football	Softball	Men’s Swimming	Men’s Cross Country
Volleyball	Women’s Track	Lacrosse	Men’s Golf
Men’s Basketball	Men’s Track	Hockey	Women’s Golf
Women’s Basketball	Men’s Soccer	Wrestling	Men’s Tennis
Baseball	Women’s Soccer	Women’s Cross Country	Women’s Tennis