Running in College

Athletic Recruits
1

<p>Hi I am going to be a junior in high school (Male), and this year I am going to take cross country and track seriously,
before I mostly did running for fun with my friends. But now that it is coming closer to thinking about college, I wanted to know what chances I had at running at a good D3 school, that has an okay running program and great academics.</p>

<p>My times are:
16:50 5k,
2:02 800m
52 400m
4:25 1500m (Only have ran this once)</p>

<p>Goals for Junior year:</p>

<p>16:20 5k
1:57 800m
50 400m
4:10 1500m</p>

<p>Grades: 3.9UW
4.14W</p>

<p>SAT: Have not taken- but looking around 2190-2250
ACT: Have not taken- projected around 32-34
CS hours: about 300
ECs:
Keyclub
MUN
Speech and Debate
Deca-ICDC
Cross CountryTrack and field
Leadership:
Vice President of Key Club in my HS
Captain of Cross Country Team
will be 4 time varsity Track athlete
and 3 time varsity XC :(
Work Experience:
Nature Camp youth leader: 120hours
Research Intern at a college- 278 hours</p>

<p>What colleges do you think I would have a chance at going to that have high academics but would like me to run for them. (I want to use running as a hook to get me into a better college, rather than relying fully on academics.) If you need any additional information just leave it in the comments.</p>

2

<p>If you hit your goals, both athletically and academically, next year, you could potentially be a fit at any number of selective D3s. UAA conference (WashU, UChi, Carnegie Mellon, etc), NESCAC and Centennial come to mind. The only thing is, the degree of coach influence varies a lot at these schools. There is potential for support in the NESCAC, WashU and UChicago - others may have little or no influence with admissions. </p>

<p>See where you are next year, reach out to the coaches and you’ll (hopefully) be able to determine if they are able to offer any admissions boost.</p>

3

<p>A couple comments. </p>

<p>First, in my experience coaches will not be interested in your goals … they will want to know what times you have achieved. In addition, they will also want to know how much you have been training and your raw speed (to gauge your potential to improve) … so it will be clear you have a lot of upside assuming the comment about taking cross country and track seriously implies you have not run high mileage up to this point.</p>

<p>Second, Your sophomore times will look VERY GOOD to D3 schools … I would guess it’s likely you will end up being very highly recruited at D3 schools. These may help … <a href=“http://www.ncsasports.org/recruiting-tools/mens-high-school-track/mens-track-recruiting-guidelines”>http://www.ncsasports.org/recruiting-tools/mens-high-school-track/mens-track-recruiting-guidelines&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Finally, while getting recruited can help beat the admissions odds of a school at many high end academic D3 schools the cross country and track kids pretty much have similar academic credentials as “regular” applicants.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

4

<p>Do you think it would be wise to focus more on running open 400m races or do 800m races and 4x400m which I have only done, I have only ran one open 400m so I am not sure if thats a race that I would want to focus on or not. Thanks for all the feedback.</p>

5

<p>400’s and LD (long distance) really do not mix. In HS you are either a 400/800 guy or an 800 and on up (at least that was my experience watching our HS team the last 4 years) I know my son would run 1 or 2 competetive 400’s but only as part of a training pattern. </p>

<p>It is not too early to start with intro emails to coaches and as the poster above stated it is important to state your CURRENT PB’s along with your current milage - be sure to include the XC course that you ran that time, is it flat? hilly? they should be made aware.</p>

<p>To give you a comparison my son did receive XC D1 $ and his times after his sophomore year were:</p>

<p>5K XC - flat course - 17:06
3,200 - 10:00
1,600 - 4:45
800 - 2:02</p>

<p>improved to as a junior
5K XC - 16:26
3,200 - 9:29
1,600 - 4:25
800 - 1:56</p>

<p>Senior year was injury ridled with 4 seperate injuries to his feet but he did manage
5K XC - 16:02
3,200 - did not run
1,600 - 4:19
800 - 1:56</p>

6

<p>He got into a D1 cross country team with a 16:02? That’s great to hear, would those times make D3 coaches want to get you on the team?</p>

7

<p>What times would I need to get to have a shot of going to: Dartmouth, Brown, WUSL, UCB.</p>

8

<p>I have 2 B’s How screwed am I? one was an 89 that wouldn’t get rounded…</p>

9

<p>Dartmouth and Brown are D1, of course, so they’re going to be a bit faster than WUSL (which is a strong D3 program) It’s tough to compare XC times because of course variation, but on an 8k course at Ivy Champs - Dartmouth men averaged 24.01 or 4:50/mile. So, that’s a 15:00 5K pace kept up for 8K</p>

<p>WUSL guys averaged 25:28 or 5:07 min miles over an 8K course which would be a 15:52 5K pace. (again, difficult to compare but might give you an idea,)</p>

10

<p>Do you think it would be better for me to focus and try an get a sub 50 400m, or sub 1:58 800m? Because the only way I’m going to run sub 50 is if I run them fresh, which I haven’t done before.</p>

11

<p>I’m sure your coach is better tuned in to your aptitude and potential as far as where to focus your efforts. </p>

12

<p>well our distance coach is the XC coach, she didn’t even want to let me do the 4x400m until we were doing a time trial in practice and I sneaked in with the sprinters just to get my a time. So if it was up to my coach I would run-3k,1500m and a couple 800m. But the sprint coach convinced her to let me run on 4x400 squad. So I don’t know if I should stay long distance or transition to sprinters and focus on 400m</p>