Wow ok. Your son is very similar to our S19. Left soccer for XC and track. Decreases in his running times (both XC and 1600) just shy of recruitable at the end of junior year but he knew he was getting faster. 1540 one sitting on the SAT August of junior year. Lots of rigor. Also an art student and lots of leadership in the community. Wanted a LAC.
He reached out to coaches during the summer before senior year. Gave them his most recent times but also explained he was pretty new to the sport and had grown five inches during junior year and was still growing. His summer training was going very well. He had very positive responses from head coaches at Kenyon, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Williams and more. He never heard back from the coach at Carleton but he did get in and that coach called him after his admittance. Only Kenyon’s coach visited him while he was in our neighborhood fall of senior year but S kept all of the coaches up to date on his XC times throughout the fall. They each were quick to respond to all of his emails and told him to keep them up to date. They never offered to “give him a spot” ED but all said he would be welcome on the team if he got in. S wasn’t ready to choose an ED school so we rolled the dice with RD to all schools.
He got into ten out of 14 schools and has decided to go to Bowdoin. The coach called him to congratulate him after he sent in his deposit. They’ve had a couple of calls since then. Ends up the coach thinks he might end up being the seventh guy on the XC team and he will be competing quite a bit. We don’t know if the coaches at any of the schools had a hand in his acceptances. We think he had the stats and other ECs that made him a strong candidate.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.