"Worst" Ivy League Track and Field Teams

<p>Hello, I'm Emily and I have a strong desire to attend an Ivy League school. Now, this is less about chancing (I'm currently a junior) and more hypothetical.</p>

<p>My high school career has been all about improvement. I began at a low-competition, no budget school in New Jersey and I took the hardest classes available to me there (honors). Now I am in Florida, and the school district has the IB program which I began without taking the pre-IB course, and I currently have all A's. I plan on taking dual enrollment which is now offered to me, and taking basically the hardest courseload that I can give myself. I am also going to participate in several international volunteering programs.</p>

<p>I would say my situation is fairly average for ivy league appplicants but I do not have any extremely interesting push to get me accepted. I have been doing indoor/outdoor track since freshman year and cross country since sophomore year (JV). At my new school, I run varsity for cross country. I recently took up an extreme interest in running and think that I may be interested in running in college. I'm not very good at cross country, but in my first season alone I improved my 5k time by four and a half minutes. I moved over the summer and did not train much because of this so my junior year is starting off slower than I would have liked, but /assuming/ I can get a PR of early 20's or late 19's, which schools would I be able to run at (get recruited to, I suppose)?</p>

<p>I am referring to the slower girls on the track team, obviously. I looked at a couple teams and ivy league invitationals and saw that some girls were running as slow as 22 minutes. Also, specifically a girl who was from Wyoming on an ivy league team was running much slower in high school than girls from the Northeast, and my current location in Florida may play a factor.</p>

<p>Now before you answer this saying my goals are a reach or impossible or whatever, my sophomore cross country/track coach said I had more drive than anyone he had ever seen before on his team. He consistently exemplified me as someone who worked hard and I got the most improved award at the end of the season. I do not doubt my ability to improve by a lot.</p>

<p>I know this post is sort of all over the place, but basically could you tell me teams that I have a CHANCE at running at, the ivy league teams who tend to do the worst, what I could do to run in college, and if colleges would consider my improvement? Even if I wouldn't get recruited (per say), could my high school running career benefit me in admissions? Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>LAST NOTE- I say recruited extremely lightly because I am not expecting my phone to be ringing with coaches wanting me for their team. I know I would be on the low low end of the team, but I did see girls with slow times which is what brought me to ask this question.</p>

<p>If you are asking if you have any edge because of your running ability, then, to be brutally honest, I can say you do not. I am from New York and there are literally thousands of female XC runners from around here who run a sub-20 5K. But if you are simply expressing that you have an interest to continue running competitively in college, then I’m sure there will be opportunities for you, but probably not on the varsity level.</p>