<p>Son is a Junior. His 1600m PR as a Soph was 4:42 outdoor in his 1st year of running with essentially no training. Then got religion. Ran a lot of miles this summer. Had a strong XC season improving his times by ~ 2:00 with a PR in low 16s.</p>
<p>He's at ~ 4:31 now indoor (first race was ~ 4:48 about 7 weeks ago), which I know is higher than the threshold for Tier I recruits.</p>
<p>Grades are excellent. Prestigious private school. First crack at SAT with no prep was ~ 2100. Then got a perfect score in Math PSAT. About to take the ACT. Will retake ACT or SAT depending.</p>
<p>Goal is either an Ivy, a LAC like Williams or top D3 school like Chicago.</p>
<p>So, my thinking is that we should wait to contact coaches until his outdoor time comes down after Spring track. I'd be surprised if he wasn't at ~ 4:25 or below in 3 - 4 mos. And, he'll probably have even better SAT / ACT scores. </p>
<p>Am I right or should we be contacting coaches now? I've never done this before so I have no clue...</p>
<p>This is an excellent time to start contacting colleges regarding your son’s track aspirations. We began in the Spring of 2012 promoting my son and by the fall he was getting considerable attention.
We took four steps, all of which resulted in some level of attention. First, his high school coach sent letters of introduction to our top 10 school’s track coaches. This was just an email with stats and some personal reflections. There was immediate feedback from about 1/2 the coaches.
Second, we went to each college track website and filled out the recruit questionnaire. This resulted in getting added to some schools recruit mailings.
Third, my son sent email correspondence to the coachs at the respective schools updating them on his season. At the end of the season he sent out a final email package that included all his stats, his ACT/SAT test scores, his transcript, some pictures, etc. He did a real nice job on it and the coaches seemed to notice. This was particularly helpful with highly selective schools.
Finally, we opened up a free account on berecruited.com. A couple of coaches found my son on the website and initiated contact with him. </p>
<p>We had excellent results from this process. But in the end, it’s the numbers on the stop watch that will catch the coaches attention!! Best of luck.</p>