Seventeen teams, nine of them automatic qualifiers and the other eight being at-large selections, are chosen by the NCAA Bowling Committee to compete in the championship.

Jacksonville State, in its inaugural season as an NCAA bowling program, is the reigning champion, coming back from 3 games to 2 deficit to defeat Arkansas State 4 games to 3 in the 2024 championship held at Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, MI.

Teams would then be seeded for bracket play based on their qualifying rounds win–loss record and then competed in best-of-seven-games Baker matches in a double elimination tournament.

In 2018 the NCAA Women's Bowling Committee selected a field of ten participants.

The ten participants were ranked and seeded based on the criteria used by the selection committee.

The four lowest-seeded teams played in on-campus opening round matches to determine the two participants advancing to the eight-team championship bracket.

[3] In 2019, the championship field expanded from 10 to 12 teams, coinciding with two new conferences fulfilling the criteria for automatic qualification—the Division II Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) and the Division III Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference.

Accordingly, eight conference champions received automatic bids, and the NCAA Women's Bowling Committee selected four at-large teams to fill out the 12-team field.

The number of automatic bids was reduced by one after the MIAA bowling league disbanded at the end of the 2018–19 season.

Each regional was to be played as a double-elimination tournament, with the format identical to that introduced for the championship event in 2019.

[7] The 2021 tournament featured six automatic berths (CIAA had its championship cancelled due to COVID-19) and ten at-large selections.