The NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Transfer Portal Is Closed — Let’s Breakdown The Numbers

By Sophie Kaufman on SwimSwam

Post in collaboration with Springboard Creative

The NCAA women’s swimming and diving portal has closed for the 2024-25 season. While there is an exception for swimmers whose head coaches have left—like Stanford and Wisconsin—we have a much more complete picture of how all the numbers have shaken out in this landscape-shifting season for the league, put together by Springboard Creative.

Of course, hanging over all of this is the House vs. NCAA settlement. At the time of publishing, the settlement is still up in the air. Judge Claudia Wilken announced last week that she would not grant final approval to the settlement unless changes are made to include language about “grandfathering” in roster limits.

Colleges and conferences involved in the settlement had pre-emptively set roster limits and begun enforcing them, causing current students to lose their roster spots. However, in her order giving the parties two weeks to amend the language, Wilken wrote “the decision by Defendants and NCAA member schools to begin implementing the roster limits before the Court granted final approval of the settlement agreement is not a valid reason for approval of the agreement in its current form…any disruption that may occur is a problem of defendants’ and NCAA member schools’ own making.”

It’s still unknown what this will mean for athletes who have already been told there is no roster spot for them at their current school and have entered the portal or signed with another team. It hasn’t been two weeks since Wilken’s order, meaning there is the potential for more chaos when it comes to the transfer portal.

Nevertheless, let’s breakdown the numbers that we do have as of 5pm EST on April 30^th, 2025, courtesy of Springboard Creative’s data. We’ll have a similar breakdown when the men’s portal closes as well.

courtesy of Springboard Creative

There were 346 total women’s swimming and diving entries into the transfer portal for the 2024-25 season, 302 of which came after the portal’s official opening. 20 of these athletes receive some form of athletic aid. Note that the graphic reports the number of athletes that have signed with a team; there is a difference between a commitment and signing by the NCAA’s rules, and the league does not report commitments to the portal. The overwhelming majority of the women’s swimming and diving portal are swimmers with 293 entries compared to 53 divers.

Overview

courtesy Springboard Creative

With the post-portal/summer entries still to come, this season already has the highest number of women’s swimmers and divers in the portal. The total number rose above 300 in the 2020-21 season and continued to rise since with 335 in 2023-24 the highest number until this year.

It is worth noting just how much the sprint portal window exploded this season. The 302 athletes who entered during that time would outpace the total number of entries for the 2018-19 and 2019-2020 seasons. Before the spring—when schools began to inform athletes about roster cuts—the number of athletes in the portal was below the pace of the last five seasons.

That said it’s also important to keep in mind the impact that the COVID-19 fifth year has had on the transfer portal. Many more students have transferred to use that year at another institution, driving the total number of transfers up. You can see how the number of graduate transfers jumps from 6 in 2019-2020 to 66 in 2020-21, then over a 100 for the next three seasons. This year, the number of graduate transfers has dropped as the 2024-25 season due to the lack of a COVID-19 fifth year for this class of seniors.

courtesy Springboard Creative

Spring Breakdown – By School

Power Four Conferences By School

courtesy Springboard Creative

Focusing on the numbers from this spring, Division I athletes from 113 programs–more than half of the DI programs–have entered the portal. 45 of those programs have only one athlete in the portal, but 14 have at least six. As we had a sense of from our live updates on the transfer portal’s opening, it’s Auburn that has the most athletes in the portal at 13.

Five of the ten programs with the most athletes in the portal are SEC schools, and that conference has the most total athletes in the portal (60) by a 17-point margin. It will be interesting to see how that number tracks to the men’s portal, as the SEC men’s swimming and diving teams are reportedly down to a 22-athlete roster limit (for now). While Cal Poly swimmers are on a mission to raise $20 million and save their program, the school is currently tied for second-most athletes in the transfer portal at 12.

None of the teams listed above have more divers in the portal than swimmers, though Virginia is close with 4 swimmers and three divers. The Cavaliers announced they will not sponsor a diving program next season. While they’ve added some high-powered international recruits for next season, they have also been active in the transfer portal, signing DII champion Bryn Greenwaldt and Auburn’s Lawson Ficken.

Mid-Major Programs By School

courtesy Springboard Creative

Spring Breakdown – By Conference

As mentioned earlier, the SEC has 60 athletes in the transfer portal, the most of any conference. The ACC is next with 43 athletes, followed by the Big 10 with 39, and the Big 12 with 32. In all of the Power Four conferences except the Big 12, there’s one school that dominates the transfer portal entries. It’s Auburn for the SEC (13), Virginia Tech (12) for the ACC, and Indiana (10) for the Big 10.

While Auburn’s entries make up about 21.6% of the SEC’s total entries, Indiana athletes are about 25.6% of the Big 10’s total entries and Virginia Tech’s athletes make up 27.9% of ACC entries.

Beyond the Power 4 conferences, the Big West and MAAC conferences are tied for the most athletes in the portal at 19. Cal Poly swam in the Big West, accounting for most of the influx of athletes from that conference.

courtesy Springboard Creative

DII and DIII

The DII and DIII conferences function differently than the DI transfer portal, namely because there is not a specific window where the portal is open. Still, there has been action in the portal. Not only has Greenwaldt transferred, DII 200 breaststroke record holder Jonette Laegrid has transferred to Indiana. There’s been moves from DI to DII as well, with teams like the Tampa men once again picking up post-division movers.