Hi I am a female junior. I would really love to run for Yale, but I know my PRs don’t hit their standards. If I improve my XC PR to 17:40 (I am on target for my senior year xc season), do I have a chance? If not, what could I do to get a chance? My school does not a rigorous running program; we run about 25 miles a week and don’t have a track to train on.
ACT: 35
My 1600 PR: 5:15
3 mile PR XC: 18:17 (from sophomore year, I was injured my junior xc season)
Thank you in advance! Any help is greatly appreciated!
For Ivies, a 1600/mile in the vicinity of 5:05 is the minimum for what they are looking for. You are not all that far off. You may be able to walk on with your times, but likely are not recruit able.
I agree with wisteria. Think walk on, not recruit. Off top of my head, Princeton, Dartmouth and Penn post recruiting standard times for recruits and walk-ons. You can google those to get rough idea of what Yale might expect. Ideally, recruits hit track standards by junior year in order to attract attention of coaches. XC is harder to compare because times range wildly due to variable difficulty of courses and accuracy of measurement. In general, you would need to place high at big meets (eg state, Footlocker, Nike regionals, etc) to get recruiting attention of coaches for XC, especially without recruitable track times. For you, running is likely to be another EC of high-achieving kid, not something that will get you preference as athletic recruit.
Good luck with fall XC!
Running those times with only 25 miles per week is pretty fantastic. Those times are very close to the marks that Ivy Leagues want. Once you get in, you could walk on to their team, but you may still have a chance to be recruited. You should contact the coach, and tell him your times. Definitely make sure to tell him that your only doing 25 miles per week. Most girls run much more than that and don’t beat your times by much. When the coach sees your times and that you only do 25 miles per week, maybe they will be compelled to recruit you. Let’s hope for the best!
It should be noted that, of all the schools in the Ivy Conference, Yale is the least aggressive in recruiting athletes.
True as Yale doesn’t use all its allotted recruited slots like other ivies.