Our experience is that they look at milesplit and athletic.net. Obviously sports like track that are not subjective are easier to recruit than other sports that depend a lot on evaluations and the competition.
As @SD1820mom stated, New Balance Nationals is good exposure if she is at that level. My D went, we did not know what to expect but she placed well and was seen by multiple D1 Coaches that were watching the events. The college coaches are not supposed to talk to the athletes or parents and our experience is that they do stay away and are quiet but they are watching, talking to each other and taking notes. I was chit chatting with another track coach/trainer that was there at NB and I was surprised that he knew who my D was and told me the college coaches were talking to each other about her, so good exposure. Later on several college coaches told me they saw her at the NB Nationalmeet.
My son went through the process at three of the schools you list (Bowdoin, UChicago, Williams) and ended up picking UChicago and was successful in being accepted in ED1.
In all three of these, he made first contact with the coach. I think for DIII that is most often the case.
At those three, here is the process which I think is standard at most DIII
a> Contact the coach through email expressing interest during the summer of your rising senior year. Include test reports and transcripts to save the coach the hassle of asking you for them. Also put together a resume of your athletic results, including your best times in every event you run, every HS year you ran. This helps the coach know if you’ve plateaued or still have some improvement.
b> The coach will review all this and get back with you. Hopefully with encouragement about continuing the process with them. They will talk about visits (they will try to get you in during a real school weekend to meet the team). They will also tell you about next steps. If a visit isn’t possible (not advisable, but it happens), they will communicate to you and your parents about how the process works at the DIII level. They will tell you that you need to decide where you would like to run. They will say they would like it to be here, but you have to decide before the ED timeline.
NOTE: This was stressful for my son. You only get one ED and if you use it, you want it to be to the school you’d like to be a student. But, if that school happens to be very selective (like the three listed above and most on your list), being a great student and great athlete might not be enough to get you in). It also forces your hand to make a commitment before you know if you can pay for the education there and you know that it is DIII so there will be no scholarship.
c> You decide where you want to use the ED
d> You let the coach know you are using the ED at his/her school and you ask WILL YOU ADVOCATE FOR ME? If s/he says “yes,” great. If s/he hedges his/her answer with things like “we don’t get a lot of pull with admissions” then you should really consider how much you want to use your ED there.
e> The admissions office will do a pre-read and the coach will let you know where you stand, if it is good, formally apply.
f> Hopefully you get a likely letter and then an admittance.
My son was also recruited by a couple D1 schools (Lehigh, Colgate, etc.) He felt that at these schools there would be more emphasis on the athlete and less on the student. Not as much as say Penn St. or Pitt, but still it seemed to him that it was a bigger deal then at the DIII level.
NOTE2: on scholarships to DI schools for running sports. Unless you are ranked #1 or #2 in the nation in your event you most likely will not get a full athletic scholarship. I forget the number, but I do believe Track and XCountry combinded get allocated 12 scholarships to cover both teams. That isn’t 12 freshman scholarships, that is the entire teams allotment and since XC and T&F has a lot of crossover, they allocate the 12 across both teams. Since there are often more than 12 runners on the two teams, few full scholarships are given.
I hope that helps. If you have more specific questions, message me.
Speaking Div 1: NCAA Div 1 Woman’s T&F are allowed 18 scholarships, which assumes a fully funded program. I believe the top programs/schools are fully funded but not all programs are. These 18 scholarships are based on a team that may have 40+ on the team.
The XC runners are separate (different sport/season) which is why distance runners may get more scholarship $ as they can potentially get XC $ and T&F $.
As mentioned, contrary to what some common parents may believe or state around the high school, there is not a lot of T&F scholarships. The coach divides them up and usually reserves them for All Americas and team members that can score pts. at a college level.
However, even without scholarship $, the T&F coach does recruit and does have slots to offer students and support their application. Very helpful especially at the higher end academic schools (i.e. Ivys, Duke. Stanford, etc.)
^ yes the additional scholarships for women is an important clarification. Not uncommon for girls to get 50-75% while a higher or similarly ranked boy might get 10-20% at the same school.
Just to be clear though: At D1 schools, XC is under the T&F umbrella and all XC scholarships come from the T&F allotment. It’s often true that a program dedicates 2-3 scholarships to distance/XC and the distance coach gets to divide them as she sees fit. But that isn’t always the case, and if they do so that comes out of the total # of T&F scholarships. Then there are distance focused programs like Portland that put all scholarships in distance. I think those have different limits, but it’s not usually an issue bc they’re rarely fully funded.
Good points and correction on XC being included in the T&F Scholarship #s. I was mixing it up with XC/distance runners will sometimes get more $ than others, or so I have been told, as they can run both seasons, XC and T&F vs. some events that are only T&F.
It takes a lot of work, but there is money out there for T&F scholarships. Generally, we found that scholarship money was contingent on if the athlete had produced marks that would score in the conference meet. What we most commonly found was a percentage for each point they would have scored. We were blessed to find several programs that were fully funded and were able to offer significant scholarships to our daughter. That being said, we were not married to any particular region of the country or certain schools in general. She was willing to chase the money and find the best fit academically and athletically.
Thanks for all the info. She will be a junior this year, so it is time for us to start looking at good matches and reaching out to coaches via email and recruit interest forms. @jumpermom how do you find out if a program is fully funded or not? @politeperson Top 20 in state (Texas) or nation? D20’s best shot at big scholarship money was pole vault, and that is also where D1 coaches were already talking to her private pole vault coach, but she has decided that she no longer wants to vault (which we are very disappointed about). She was a competitive gymnast for many years and transitioned so naturally to pole vault, but it was just never something she really enjoyed. Sprinting, especially relays, is where she finds her joy and passion. But for that, her times are more in line with lower D1 or more likely D2. She did qualify for Texas Relays and finals at Regionals as a freshman/sophomore so is “competitive” within her region/state but probably not nationally. She is going to try high jump for the first time this year, so we will see if that adds anything to her recruitment profile 
Very late to start something new, but she seems to pick up anything athletic quite easily. We will also look at NB this year. And she is going to run indoor this year for the first time as well. Her 100m time is good with excellent starts, so hopefully she can post some good times in 60m.
@S18D20mom I meant top 20 nationally in her grade and event. It’s a rough number and not hard and fast but recruiting is not nearly as efficient as athletes expect. It’s a ton of work with low ROI for asst coaches to dig too deep into the national lists. At a certain point they start to focus on kids in their region…easier to follow, better chance of persuading them to attend than a kid five states away. For those who aren’t near the very top it is best to plan to reach out to coaches if they want to explore options beyond the local area. From what you’re describing, Maybe jumps, hurdles, or even multi-events are in her future. Good to keep trying new events if she’s a natural athlete.
@S18D20mom You can’t really ask if they are fully funded, but you can usually tell based on the quality of the offer they give. Only after signing and more candidly talking to the coach did we find out that the program our daughter is at is fully funded.
It’s too bad she doesn’t want to continue vaulting. I hate to say it, but sprinters are a dime a dozen. Programs obviously need them, especially if they are versatile and can do multiple distances. But, there is a much higher demand for jumpers and multi athletes.
Definitely look into New Balance Nationals. They have indoor and outdoor championships. We were put in contact with many coaches at NB. Good luck to her…sounds like she has a bright future ahead!
Will PM
Agree on looking at New Balance Nationals. Helped my daughter get attention as she competed well and was seen personally by multiple D1 Coaches.
Question on high jump being too late-it is not too late if she is competitive. As politeperson noted, need to be nationally ranked to be high D1 recruit, though that may depend a bid on the event.
Note: I have heard quite a few woman track athletes including coaches mention that they were a former competitive gymnast so great background for T&F athletes.
Good luck!
Thanks everyone for the advice. We have used those exact words “sprinters are a dime a dozen”. We will see how things play out. Definitely not expecting Top D1 money, but lower tier D1 or D2 would suit just fine. Going to focus our energy on Texas schools unless she gets better times/rankings junior year that may warrant some attention elsewhere.