As a junior, I've started contacting coaches and filling out recruitment forms to try to get recruited. I'm not interested in schools athletically, so much as academically, though I'd prefer to go D1, given that option. (Mainly the Ivies, or top D3 liberal arts colleges.)
How can I gauge a program's level of interest based on the messages they send me?
I think I've gotten some that were obviously form letters, but which stated explicitly in the letter that I could be a top recruit. I've had coaches which I have long email strings with, who've called me, and who've sent me letters in the mail as well. I've had messages that just say "BLANK is very interested in you," accompanied with some other information. I've also had ones that give me a little information, offer to answer questions and then ask me how my season is going. And, some schools have simply not replied.
My grades/test scores are very competitive for these schools, but obviously, they won't guarantee me admission. My times are decent, I've shown more than a minute of improvement in my two mile since sophomore year (my first year of running), but I'm still a little off the golden barrier of 9:20 for the Ivies. Also, during track, I ran a hilly 10K in trainers for fun without preparation, and my time was about a minute or two out of the D1s schools 10K times, so I'm better at long distances. I also didn't run very much mileage, 50 or so max during winter base and then 20-30 from February to the end of my season.
How do I know how interested these schools are, and further, for schools that don't appear interested, where do I need to be in XC, and how do I tell them that I can get there? (I'm planning on training very hard for my last season of XC.) I just don't want to find that I've run out of time, and all the recruiting spots are gone.