USA Swimming publishes sets of time standards for various
reasons. One of the reasons behind standards is their usefulness
for setting goals. They are also used to control the size of
swim meets,as each higher or faster level in the standards has
fewer swimmers - as the standards get faster, less swimmers
achieve them. Almost every swimming federation in the world uses
some form of stepped standards within their system. Standards
can also be used to offer swimmers a general idea how they match
up with other swimmers in their age group and between age-
groups, but raw times works better within age-groups. In a
general sense they can be used to compare swimmers in different
age-groups with each other, but just because a swimmer has "AAA"
times as a 9-10 year old does not mean that same swimmer will
get "AAA" times as a 13-14 year old. There are several reasons
for this, including differing maturation rates, changing
interests, and even injuries. Bottom line - Time standards are
great for goal setting and somewha