From Local Meets to the Olympics: USA Swimming Championships and Time Standards Explained

Competitive swimming in the U.S. is organized as a pyramid. Each level represents a higher standard of competition — and a smaller group of athletes. Every Olympian started at the bottom of this pyramid: success is not about skipping steps, it is about mastering each one with patience, consistency, and hard work. This guide explains the levels, the championship meets you will hear about, and the “cuts” you need to get into each of them.

First, the letters: what B, BB, A, AA, AAA, AAAA mean

USA Swimming publishes motivational time standards for every event, age group, and course. They form a ladder of six levels, from slowest to fastest: B → BB → A → AA → AAA → AAAA. They exist to give every swimmer a next goal that is close enough to reach: drop time, earn the next letter.

Three things to know about these standards. They are defined per event, per age group, and per course (short-course yards vs long-course meters), so a swimmer is not “an AA swimmer” overall — she might be AAA in the 100 back and BB in the 200 breast. They are refreshed by USA Swimming every four years. And they are motivational: they are goalposts, not meet entries by themselves — but many championship meets use them (or times close to them) as qualifying cuts. For a deeper dive, see our article on swimming time standards.

How cuts work

Almost every meet above the local level has qualifying times (“cuts”): to enter an event, you must have officially swum faster than the published standard during the qualification window. Each meet publishes its own cuts each season in the meet announcement, usually in both yards and meters. The higher up the pyramid, the faster the cuts and the fewer swimmers who hold them. Making a cut is a milestone in itself — swimmers talk about “getting a Sectional cut” or “chasing a Futures cut” the way others talk about medals.

The age-group path

Your own LSC may add meets of its own to this ladder. In Pacific Swimming, for example, the season builds through Zone Age Group Championships to the Far Western Championships — a prestigious invitational, open beyond the LSC, with cuts faster than Junior Olympics. Pacific also runs senior meets such as the Senior Open and Senior 2, which give older swimmers championship racing at two different qualifying levels. Check your LSC's website for its championship calendar and cut sheets.

The national path

From here on, meets are national in scope, run long-course or short-course depending on the season (spring/summer championship meets are generally long-course meters; the winter editions short-course yards), and every one has published cuts.

The international stage

The very top of the pyramid works differently: you cannot enter these meets with a cut. Swimmers are selected to represent the United States based on their results at Trials or Nationals.

Reading the pyramid as a swimmer (or a parent)

The pyramid is not a checklist to rush through — it is a map. At any point in a season, a swimmer really only needs to know two things: which meet is next, and which cut is within reach. A 12-year-old chasing her first A time and a 17-year-old chasing a Junior National cut are doing exactly the same thing, one level apart. Race often at the level you are at, target the next standard in your best events, and let the levels take care of themselves.

ScoreMeUp shows how your times compare against USA Swimming standards on every swimmer profile — so you always know which letter you hold and how far the next cut is.

Happy swimming!