<p>I currently pole vault and have just joined a new team which has helped my pr increase tremendously (I went up 3 feet in less than a month,) but at the last few meets I had I did not clear any decent heights because I was sick. Since the season ended over a month ago, my pr is a low 9'6" in a meet and 10' in practice. My next meet is the first week of august and I know I can clear 11' there. In pole vaulting, this is a huge difference. Should I start emailing coaches and filling out forms now (I'm a rising senior), or wait until then when I will have a respectable pr since no one would even consider a 9'6" vaulter?</p>
<p>PS: I'm applying to smart schools, like Brown and UVA, but not ones that are very good at sports (minus unc). For most of these schools, I might need the coach's help for admittance. </p>
<p>Also, do the ivys have a lot of slots for track athletes? i know uva, my top choice, has practically none.</p>
<p>Hi Alexis - first of all, congrats on increasing your PR by 3’ - that’s quite an accomplishment. Hopefully your new team can provide the coaching to help you get to the next level. I’m pretty familiar with womens PV and I’ll share some insights that hopefully won’t discourage you, but motivate you to improve. First of all, you may be underestimating the caliber of vaulters that the ‘smart schools’ are recruiting. Ivy league coaches will consider 11’6" HS vaulters, but generally are looking for 12’+. Brown has 1 rising soph and 1 rising jr., both of whom went 12+ in HS. The Princeton girl was 12’9 and both Harvard girls were 12’6 in HS, UVA is similar.
So you’re correct that a 9’6" PR won’t attract much attention. Vault as much as you can this summer, JO’s, etc. and hopefully you’ll be able to give the coaches some big numbers by the end of the summer. Also, coaches don’t want to hear about practice PR’s or clearing bungees - they want to know what you can do in a meet.</p>
<p>As for the number of Ivy League track slots, there are approximately 5-12 womens slots each year. I think Dartmouth had the most and Penn the fewest this year. It looks like UVA brought on 4 women last year (no vaulters). Anyhow, drop me a PM if you have any specific questions.</p>
<p>hi thanks for the insight. i know the brown girls and although they may have gone 12’ in high school, by junior year, one had cleared 11’3" and the other 11’6". princeton and harvard are out of my league and i dont really have any interest in them. As for UVA, although they have a 12’4" vaulter, she is there only one and she just graduated or is graduating this year (I forget), so they will need someone.</p>
<p>I know that practice pr’s dont count, I was just using that to point out that i’ve cleared a 10’ bar and i really am better than 9’6". I’m on a team and I practice 4 times a week so hopefully I’ll clear a lot higher. The problem is, there are no meets before the time when I would need to talk to coaches and submit those athletic recruit forms. when is the latest that i could submit them or start talking to coaches and still be considered?</p>
<p>Well coaches are talking to rising seniors now and they’ll start bringing them out for officials once the school year starts. It’s hard to say how late you could submit info and still be considered. It’s possible that a recruit may back out at the last minute leaving the coach scrambling to find a vaulter in October or November but obviously the sooner you can get on their radar with some good numbers, the better. Here’s a link to some of the USATF meets that are taking place this summer.
[USATF</a> - Calendars - Search Results](<a href=“Events | USA Track & Field”>Events | USA Track & Field)</p>
<p>I’d like to offer some good news and some bad news.</p>
<p>The bad news: Your recent 3-foot increase in your PR (from ~7 feet to ~10 feet) is great. However, you are not likely to continue to improve at anything near this rate. It sounds to me like you got some good coaching for the first tme, which corrected some big technical problems. You can do a lot of things incorrectly and still clear 7’; to clear 9’6" you have to know the basics; to consistently clear 10’+ you have to start refining the basics. And you have to build strength, learn how to adjust to the conditions (headwind? tailwind?, are you tired?, how long have you been waiting since the warm-up?) Your progress now will probably be measured in inches and be a “two steps forward-one step back” kind of thing.</p>
<p>Now the good news. D1 was a 9’ vaulter going into her senior year. She was not recruited by any Div 1 schools, but most of the Div 1 coaches that she contacted indicated that she would be welcome to practice with the team. The conversation was usually “I currently have four vaulters on the team, only the top two get to travel to away meets. You would be welcome to practice with the team, but you may not ever compete.” (one of D1’s friends went this route – he doesn’t get to travel but does compete in the two “home” meets every season)</p>
<p>So if you have your heart set on a certain school for academic reasons but the vaulting doesn’t quite measure up to the level required, there is the possibility that you could practice with the team and eventually improve enough to compete for the team.</p>
<p>More good news – with your current PR, you should get a lot of interest from any Div III coaches that you contact. There’s no athletic scholarships available in Div III, but honestly there is very little (if any) money available for a track athlete in Div I so you aren’t really losing anything. </p>
<p>A lot of “smart” schools compete at the Div III level; you may find a good match. good luck!</p>