Previous WCWS losses do not factor into the best-of-three championship series, and the first team to win two of three games is declared the National Champion.
This feature allows any two of the eight WCWS teams to potentially comprise the final two, unlike the MCWS, whose two halves remain separate until the championship series.
The 1982 softball championship tournaments of both the AIAW and the NCAA were called "Women's College World Series".
** The 1995 title by UCLA and any related records have been vacated by the NCAA due to scholarship violations.
Criticism also centered on UCLA player Tanya Harding who was recruited from Queensland, Australia, midway through the 1995 season.
After UCLA captured the NCAA National Championship, Harding, the MVP of the tournament, returned to her homeland without taking final exams or earning a single college credit.
Despite not violating any formal rules in recruiting Harding, the incident generated heated criticism that some foreign athletes were little more than hired guns.
‡ UCLA's 1995 NCAA championship and Nebraska's 1985 runner-up finish were vacated by the NCAA and are not counted This listing excludes results of the pre-NCAA Women's College World Series of 1969 through 1982 (both Division I tournaments in 1982—AIAW and NCAA—were called "Women's College World Series").