What motivational times actually are
USA Swimming publishes National Age Group Motivational Time Standards for 18-and-under racing. The current packet is the 2024–2028 quad — released late summer 2024 (SwimSwam, 4 September 2024; USA Swimming’s Time Standards page is the live index). They sit on every event, both genders, and three courses. SWIMS will hang a letter next to a swim once the time is in the file. That letter is a national benchmark. It is not a medal, and it is not a permission slip.
Parents mix up three lists. Motivational times are the B–AAAA report card — a common language so “first BB in the 100 back, short course yards” means the same thing in Pacific and in Florida Gold Coast. LSC championship cuts are whatever your Local Swimming Committee printed for Age Group Champs this season. Named championship cuts — Sectionals, Futures, Junior Nationals, the US Open — are another stack again. Whether a BB gets them into next month’s invitational is a fourth sentence, written by the host.
I am not printing a 50 free. The PDF fills a screen, the numbers go stale the next quad — and a 2025 update already added extra 50s of stroke for older age groups after the House of Delegates. Get the clock from USA Swimming’s Time Standards page, or from the meet announcement. Write the letter next to the time in a list you own — never lose a PB.
C through AAAA, in parent English
Read it bottom to top. Faster times get more As. BB is “B plus,” not a second alphabet.
| Letter | What parents actually mean |
|---|---|
| C / slower than B | Everything slower than B for that age, gender, event, and course — including a first NT. First invitationals are often labelled B/C or no-cut. C is the leftover bucket, not a detention. |
| B | The first national stamp. A real milestone. Still a developmental Saturday for most kids. |
| BB | The next rung. Some B/C meets cap here — a BB may be too fast for that session. Check the announcement. |
| A | Where a lot of age-group invitationals start using letters as a floor. Still not “nationals.” |
| AA | A stronger age-group time. In a deep LSC, championship talk gets louder around here. In a small one, champs may have been easier. |
| AAA | The tall motivational end for most club seasons. Approaching the kind of speed sectional flyers like. Not the same list. |
| AAAA | The top motivational stamp on this table. Rare. Still not automatically a Futures, Junior National, or US Open cut. |
How the quad is built — and the percentile hedge
USA Swimming rebuilds the table every four years from the previous quad’s national data. Historically the algebra starts from a seed time near the sharp end of that event’s age-group list, then stretches it by factors to make B through AAAA. A 2012-cycle methodology memo (Jim Patterson / Central California LSC; still the document SwimSwam pointed at in 2024) used the fastest 16th-place time in the prior Top 16 years as that seed. A later USA Swimming times FAQ — while it still listed the 2020–2024 set as “current” — described a 25th-place base. I am not pretending I sat in the 2024 committee room. Shape is enough: national data, four-year refresh, a fast reference swim, then rungs. SCM rows have historically been derived from yards seeds; LCM is its own column. The PDF is the answer key.
Older USA Swimming teaching copy — still reprinted by clubs; Streamline Aquatics is one PDF still floating around — mapped the letters onto percentiles: roughly B ~45%, BB ~65%, A ~85%, AA ~92%, AAA ~94%, AAAA ~98% (or “top 55% / 35% / 15% / 8% / 6% / 2%”). Treat that as a picture from older docs, not a live ranking of every 12-year-old in SWIMS this month, and not a promise that the 2024–2028 formula still aims at those exact percentiles. The published method is seed time plus factors, not a fresh census. Hedge it.
USA Swimming Time Standards: age-group motivational PDF, single-age motivational PDF, Hy-Tek file, and separate championship cuts. Parallel Time Standards (P1–P3) for swimmers with disabilities sit on the same page. I am not reprinting any of them.
A BB in yards is not a BB in metres
The motivational tables come in three flavours: SCY (short course yards — the US winter default), SCM (short course metres), and LCM (long course metres — the summer 50m pool). Hit BB in a yards 100 free in January. That does not mint a BB 100 free in the summer metres pool. Converted times are maths, not a swim — personal best vs official vs converted. The metres course split is short course vs long course. Yards is a different clock again; I am not writing that conversion sermon here. Write the course next to the time.
Age groups — and why they “got slower” on a birthday
The national age-group packet uses 10&Under, 11–12, 13–14, 15–16, 17–18. USA Swimming also publishes a single-age packet (age 10 through 18). Clubs and Hy-Tek files use both. 8&Under Saturdays are real racing; the national motivational PDF starts at 10&U. Do not hunt a national AAAA for a seven-year-old in that table.
Age at a meet is usually age on the first day — already in the first-meet briefing. The trap for this page is the standard jumping. A 10-year-old BB can look like a B, or slower than B, the morning they age up into 11–12. The child did not forget how to swim. The report card got a harder class. Growth spurts do the same unkind trick in the other direction: they work, the clock does not move — growth spurts and slower swim times, and why mid-season times look worse.
When a letter is a cut — and when it is just a sticker
Some hosts copy the national letters into the meet announcement: “A / BB,” “slower than A,” “B/C.” That is a door policy for that invitational. Plenty of developmental meets are no-cut. A first B/C Saturday is the logistics briefing, not this ladder — your child’s first USA Swimming meet.
LSC championships are a different list. Pacific, Illinois, Florida Gold Coast, Potomac Valley — fifty-odd Local Swimming Committees — each publish Age Group Championship cuts. In a stacked LSC those cuts often sit around A or AA on the national motivational table. In a smaller LSC they can be gentler. Having an A time in SWIMS does not mean they are in champs. Having a BB does not mean they are out. Read the LSC PDF.
Do not tell a child their B time “doesn’t count.” Do not treat AAAA as the only respectable letter. Do not screenshot last quad’s PDF and enter this year’s Sectionals with it. The meet announcement, this quad’s USA Swimming file, and the coach — in that order.
The other ladder: LSC, Sectionals, Futures, Juniors, US Open
Above club invitationals sits a championship stack with its own cuts, updated more often than the four-year motivational PDF. Short map — I am not inventing times:
| Rung | What it is, roughly |
|---|---|
| LSC Age Group Championships | Your region’s age-group champs. Cuts are local — not the national B–AAAA table, even when the letters look similar. |
| Speedo Sectionals | Large regional meets. USA Swimming publishes maximum standards; a host may set its own, but not slower than that ceiling. Not age-group motivational. |
| TYR Futures | The national-flavoured step between Sectionals and Junior Nationals. Own cut sheet. |
| Speedo Junior Nationals / Winter Juniors | The junior national championships. Own cut sheet, own calendar. |
| Toyota U.S. Open | Open-age national meet. Faster again. Olympic Trials is another list on top of that. |
An AAAA motivational time can still miss a sectional cut. A sectional cut is not a Junior National cut. Copy this year’s numbers from the Time Standards page or the meet announcement.
Motivational letters describe the swim. Championship names describe the meet. Hosts sometimes borrow a letter as a door. That still does not merge the two PDFs.
Not a moral score
Kids spend years in B and BB. That is the sport, not a stall. AAAA is a tiny slice of the table. If the letter became the only praise in the car, you have turned a report card into a personality. Use it as a next-rung goal — one event, one course — the way goal setting you can track is supposed to work. The mid-season add, the growth-spurt wobble, the yards-to-metres shock: none of those are a character reference.
A B time is a stamp, not a verdict. The next letter is a goal. The meet announcement is the door. Those are three different sentences.
After the session, put the time in Finzy with the course and the letter if you care about the letter. SWIMS will catch up. A Meet Mobile screenshot is not a season. Saturday’s stands, check-in, and packing already live on the first-meet page. This page is the dictionary on the clock.
If a search for “levels” dumped you on an Irish or English meet-licence map, that is a different object. Swim Ireland 1–5 and Swim England 1–4 classify the meet. USA Swimming B–AAAA classifies the swim. A US host may say qualifying, bonus, or “slower than BB” — not Ireland’s QT/CT pair. That Irish table is qualifying vs consideration if you need it; do not paste it onto a Potomac Valley PDF.
