Administrative vs. Performance-Based Swim Conversions – What’s the Difference?

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When you see FINA Points, converted times, or course comparisons on Swim Standards, you might notice an option called “Conversion Mode” — Administrative (NCAA) or Performance (Swimulator).

At first glance, they both seem to do the same thing: change a time from Short Course Yards (SCY) to Long Course Meters (LCM) or Short Course Meters (SCM).
But under the hood, they’re doing very different things — one is a rule-of-thumb, and the other is data-driven.

Understanding these models helps you interpret scores, rankings, and FINA calculations accurately — especially when a swimmer’s best time is from an SCY meet.

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🏫 Administrative (NCAA) Conversion

The Administrative (or NCAA) conversion method uses fixed factors to translate times between courses — SCY ↔ SCM ↔ LCM.

These constants were created by NCAA and other governing bodies decades ago to standardize meet entries and qualifying times. They are simple and fast but not precise — they don’t consider stroke efficiency, turn frequency, or swimmer performance profiles.

Example:

100-yard freestyle × 0.875 → estimated 100-meter (LCM) time

This method is ideal for administrative tasks such as meet seeding, entry cuts, and event qualification — but it’s less accurate for comparing performance potential.

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⚙️ Performance-Based (Swimulator) Conversion

The Performance-Based (or Swimulator) model is grounded in regression analysis from thousands of real swims.

Instead of fixed multipliers, it calculates conversions using event-specific formulas that reflect how swimmers actually perform across courses.

Formula:

LCM Time = a + b × SCY Time

Each stroke, distance, and gender has unique coefficients (a, b) derived from real data — capturing the nuanced differences between SCY, SCM, and LCM swimming.

That’s why Swim Standards uses this mode for analytical features such as:

• FINA (World Aquatics) point scoring
• IMX / performance comparisons
• Swimulator-style time projections

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✅ In Short

Mode	Based On	Best For	Example
Administrative (NCAA)	Fixed conversion factors	Meet entry, eligibility, seeding	100FR × 0.875
Performance (Swimulator)	Real-world regression models	Rankings, analytics, FINA points	100FR = 0.6 + 1.107×time

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🧠 Why Swim Standards Uses Performance Mode

Whenever a swim time is entered in SCY, Swim Standards automatically converts it to LCM using the Performance mode before calculating FINA (World Aquatics) Points.
This ensures consistent, world-comparable results.

You can still toggle between modes when using the FINA Points Calculator to see the difference for yourself.

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📎 Learn More

• FINA (World Aquatics) Points Explained