I am a distance runner (800m and 1600m) and want to see if I can get recruited to JHU or WashU for track or cross country. What times do you need, and is it possible to get recruited at D3 schools?
Yes, athletes can be recruited to D3 schools. There are no athletic scholarships but coaches at some schools can help with admissions.
I’d go to tfrrs.org to see what sort of times their athletes are running and what times the athletes scoring at the conference meet have run. That’ll give you an idea of what they’re looking for and you can project whether you’ll be in that range (look at current athlete Hs times in Milesplit). Generally coaches will use their limited admissions support for athletes they project to score but many of those on the team get in on their own and walk on. My guess is that they’re probably looking for guys who ran in the 1:58ish/4:25ish range, girls in the 2:25/5:15 range as HS juniors but it just depends on who else is available and what the coach is looking for.
Next step is to fill out the recruiting forms on each website and follow up with an email to the coach letting them know you’d like to learn more about the program. Include your PRs, grades, test scores. It’s worth doing this even if you don’t think the coach will want to recruit you. D3 coaches need to build a team with a lot of students who get accepted without coach support, so they usually take the time to pitch their program and school to anyone who will listen. You can learn a lot from this.