What’s Going On With Relay Qualification For the 2026 NCAA DI Championships?

There are a lot of changes to the NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships this year. There’s an updated event schedule, consolation finals are gone, and a new qualification system has already had major impacts through the first week of conference championships.

There were two main changes to NCAA qualification for this year: first, the elimination of ‘A’ and ‘B’ cuts for individual events and second, the “win and you’re in” incentive that automatically qualifies a swimmer for NCAAs if they win their conference title in a time faster than the 2026 invitation time in the final.

So, how do these changes impact one of the most important parts of the championships–the relays?

How To Qualify Relays For NCAAs

On the surface, relay qualification has not changed that much. There are still ‘A’ and ‘B’ cuts, also known as qualifying and provisional standards. The simplest way to qualify relays for NCAAs is still to hit the ‘A’ cut. Any team with at least one invited swimmer that hits the ‘A’ cut in one relay can also enter all relays where it has a ‘B’ cut.

Steps For 2026 NCAA Relay Qualification 

• A school that has at least one invited swimmer and has a relay qualifying standard can swim all relays where it has an ‘A’ or ‘B’ cut. These schools can bring up to four uninvited relay swimmers
• A school that has no invited swimmers but does have an ‘A’ cut in a relay can swim the relays where it has an ‘A’ cut and bring four uninvited relay swimmers.
• A school that has at least four invited swimmers but only relay ‘B’ cuts can swim the relays where it has achieved a ‘B’ cut and bring up to four uninvited relay swimmers.

It’s also important to note that relays are qualified “to the team”, not the individual swimmers so teams can take whichever swimmers they want to use on the relay, even if they did not swim on the relay that achieved the cut.

This may be a familiar process, but the new individual qualification system could have major impacts. The new “win and you’re in” provision makes NCAA relay qualification a real possibility for more mid-major programs and smaller Power Four programs. It also could make NCAA relay qualification more of a focus in the coming weeks.

The changes in the individual qualification system provides more clarity for these programs because now, they do not have to wait until the cut-line psych sheets to drop in order to find out if their swimmer got invited. As long as their swimmer won their event and was under the cut time, they already know they’re heading to the meet. So, for this type of program, the “Last Chance” meets may become less about moving swimmers as far up the NCAA season rankings as possible and more about trying to get relays under the qualifying or provisional standards.

Last year, five mid-major programs qualified relays for NCAAs: the Princeton women and men, Harvard men, Yale men, and Army men. Through one week of conference championships, three mid-major teams have qualified relays for the NCAA championships by hitting at least one ‘A’ cut: the Washington State women, plus the Army and Navy men. The Ivy League men’s championships takes place this week, so more teams could join this list.

This year, the Princeton women serve as a good example of the way the new qualification system may change their priorities. The Tigers qualified three women for the 2026 NCAA Championships, which means it is one invited swimmer short of being eligible to swim the relays where its achieved a ‘B’ cut (the 200 freestyle relay, 800 freestyle relay, and 200 medley relay). Expect the Tigers to pop-up at some last chance meets as they hunt for an ‘A’ cut, most likely in the 200 freestyle relay, where their time from the Ivy League Championships (1:28.31) is five-hundredths from the ‘A’ cut (1:28.26).

Meanwhile, the Harvard women qualified four individual swimmers for NCAAs, so they are eligible to swim the 200 medley relay (1:36.13) and the 400 medley relay (3:32.44) as they’ve achieved the ‘B’ cut in those events. The Crimson could opt to use last chance meets to qualify more relays, like the 800 freestyle relay, where their fastest time this season (7:05.23) missed the ‘B’ cut (7:05.18) by five-hundredths.

So far, none of the other mid-major women’s programs with at least one automatically qualified swimmer have achieved a relay ‘A’ cut. The other women’s mid-major programs that have at least a ‘B’ cut are Brown (400/800 freestyle relay), San Diego State (200 freestyle relay) and FIU (1:36.24).

Women’s Programs With 1+ NCAA Relay ‘A’ Cut (As of 1/23)

Men’s Programs With 1+ NCAA Relay ‘A’ Cut (As of 1/23)