I am a junior who hasn’t one semester left before being a senior. Most likely I will end this year with an overall gpa of 3.5 . I wish to attend LBSU and SDSU, and run there. I looked at times compared to me and I’m eligible to compete. Considering the schools are so impacted and they don’t look at too much outside of GPA and SATs, I was wondering how I could raise my chances of getting accepted.
My track coach (Ran at UCDavis) told me that her senior year she contacted the track coach at UCDavis and CalPoly. They told her that she was eligible to run and because of that, the schooo accepted her. Of course her grades mattered, and they looked at her gpa (she said they weren’t amazing but they were average) and they let her in.
Could that happen to me?
Yes. Being an athlete can definitely help you get admitted to the college of your choice. There’s a whole process for getting into college via athletic talent–I don’t know the details, and it probably differs for each sport. I suggest that you do some google searches–for example “college track recruiting”–to give you and your parents some background info on the process. Then talk seriously to both your track coach and your high school’s athletic director to see what they know, how they view the process, and how much they will support you. Finally, try to get in contact with current college students who are running track and who have gone through the process, to get the value of their experience. Also, there are probably current seniors at your own school who have just gone through this process, and could already be in a position to give you some advice.
I also just found that the individual colleges have their own info on the process–search, for example “Long Beach State athletic recruit” and you’ll get to this site:
http://www.longbeachstate.com/univ/recruits.html
This site gives the email address of the track coach (or recruiter)–but before contacting the coach directly, do your background research (as laid out above) and work with your parents, to be sure you know what your strategy/options will be going in.
Good luck!
Not only could it help you to get admitted, you could even get some additional financial aid – although probably not very much. NCAA Division I schools (like LBSU and SDSU) are allowed to offer athletic scholarships, but typically only a few sports (notably football and basketball) routinely provide full tuition scholarships. There is usually some athletic scholarship money that goes to track & field and cross-country, but it is likely to be relatively limited, and the coach will typically divide it up so that everybody on the team gets a small piece.