<p>Has anyone gone through the process of recruitment for a top-tier university? My number one choice is currently Stanford and I would definitely look at ives such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. I'm currently a sophomore in high school and I am ranked 1 out of 450. I was not able to run cross country this year because I had to spend a great amount of time with a family member with cancer. However, I am currently running a 5k at about 16 minutes; I know I need to drop my time down to at most 15 minutes. I think I am capable of this. I already have really good academics (ranked 1, have a 4.5 as a sophomore with 4 AP courses, and I scored a 2340 on a practice SAT) so what are my chances at running for a school like Stanford? Will times from junior year be "too late" and do I need to be running track too? I currently do Varsity tennis but I am willing to drop it if it is a deciding factor on my recruitment</p>
<p>have you emailed the coach (at lots of schools) a brief intro, your transcript, sat scores and your times as well as an explanation of why you took some time off the track? as you may know, you can email and call the coach. starting with communicating the above info is your best bet. all the best.</p>
<p>Emailing the coach is fine but as a sophomore they can not respond back, except one basic email stating they cannot contact you… Try it anyway, and you might get lucky and see a coaches cell number at the bottom. You can call them but they cannot call you… YET… leave a message as to when you will be calling back and try again. Get things moving in the direction of being on the coaches radars of where you want to go.</p>
<p>Just making sure you are aware that the Ivy League schools do not give scholarships. Track and/or cross country scholarships in college are few and far between anyway. You MIGHT qualify for a small scholarship IF you come in with a lot of potential and right now your times are not there. It doesn’t hurt to send an email to schools you are interested in with a resume of your track/cross country career and update them a few times during the season with your progress. Include your academic information on there as well. Just don’t expect to hear back from any of the coaches until next fall at the earliest.</p>
<p>In my experience, potential T&F, XC recruits at top tier (HYPS) schools tend to overestimate the academic requirement and underestimate the athletic requirement. </p>
<p>In other words, your academics look fine if you are a very strong D1 athletic prospect.</p>
<p>The 5k time most likely won’t cut it for Stanford or Princeton, and improving by one minute within a year may not be that easy. Junior times for x-country won’t be too late, but, yes, most schools want to see athletes run year-round, especially since x-country times are hard to compare. You could try to run at Nike or Footlocker during next year’s x-country season and also do some road races this spring season, especially if you can run 10Ks. Another school to look at would be Williams (D3).</p>