<p>I'm just trying to get a sense of how my athletic accomplishments compare to the strength of MIT's XC and track program, and if they would affect the admissions process to some degree. If all goes well my senior year, my times will probably look like</p>
<p>3200: 10:05 (junior track season)
3 miles: 15:40's/15:50's (senior year XC)
5k: low to mid 16's (senior year XC)</p>
<p>My team will most likely qualify for the state XC championships next year in a competitive state. How would these times look to MIT?</p>
<p>Here's what I'd recommend for any of the colleges you're interested in:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Get on the college's athletics website.
For MIT MIT</a> Intercollegiate Athletics - Official Athletic Site
Check out the results for some recent meets and look the times scored by athletes from the college you're interested in.</p></li>
<li><p>If your times are in the ballpark, contact the coach by email and indicate your interest in the college. If you are planning to visit, ask if you can schedule a meeting with him. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>If a coach is really interested in you, he can be helpful with admissions, even at a Div III school like MIT. He's not going to be able to "get you in," but if the adcomm is already seriously considering you, a coach's letter may be the tipping point.</p>
<p>My daughter will run for MIT next year. She was admitted EA.</p>
<p>First, we looked at all the schools that were the best fit academically.</p>
<p>Then we looked at the XC team sites and googled the 800/1600/3200 times of the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th place runners for what those runners did in their junior years in high school. We compared those times to what my daughter did and then filled out the athletic recruiting questionnaires for all the schools where there was a match with BOTH the academics and her junior year times to theirs. We looked for the high school times because we assume that everyone gets better as they get older with college level training.</p>
<p>She filled out the forms for 8 schools. A few contacted her a lot this past fall, such as MIT. A couple said that she wasn't good enough to be "recruited", but if she got in on her own, that she would make a good walk on. And a couple never responded. </p>
<p>MIT turned out to be her best fit academically and running wise. The coach put her name in a ranked list that he gave to the admissions office. It appears that she was ranked in the top five. Four of the top five were admitted early. </p>
<p>I think that the running becomes a tie breaker for places like MIT, but you still need to have SATs and GPAs equivalent to the rest of the MIT admits.</p>