What colleges / level can I run for?

With those times you could definitely find a D2/D3/NAIA school that would take you as a walk-on. Just work hard on having a solid xc season and dip below the 20-minute mark and you will be more marketable.

You forgot to say anything about a JUCO. Heven forbid anyone try to better themselfs at that level!!

pondering patricia wrote:

Hi I'm entering my senior year of high school. I'm a thin girl and looking to run in college, I'm sure I can run somewhere I'm just not sure which coaches or on what level to contact? I don't wat h much college running. My person best in 5k xc is 20:23. In track I ran a 73 quarter. 2:38 for 800 and 5:36 for 1600 and 12:30 3200. Help or thoughts please? 1 more year of high school still

You are DIII material. And GOOD DIII teams (Washington University in St. Louis, Middlebury, etc.) won't be interested.

You might actually be able to run D1 for some BAD teams, but why do that? You continue to improve, and you could actually help a decent DIII team down the line.

Legit D1 times for girls (I use the Patriot League as a starting point) require ~5:10 for 1600 and ~2:18 for 800 -- except for Colgate...you could probably run at Colgate if you wanted.

Go to a DIII school...that would be my suggestion.

Thank you forr your response! I live on the east coast. To be specific Maryland so I have lots of schools around me, I was thinking D2 or a D3, my friends all tell me I can go D1 and even some of my teammates and I'm not sure where yo go. This helps a lot. I've been injured on and off for much of my high school career

My advice is go to a school for academics, fit, and financial reasons. You're a decent high school runner but unless you're seriously undertrained making your college decision based off running would be silly.

If you want to run D1 you'll need to train a lot harder and your propensity to injury doesn't help.

If you're looking to run D2, there are some smaller Division 2 programs in the mid-atlantic region not too far from Maryland, some just have xc but I know Chestnut Hill just added track.

The quality of D1 programs varies greatly. Many schools are D1 just for the "revenue" sports of football and men's and women's basketball, and that revenue pays for the other sports teams. There are good coaches, teams, and opportunities to compete at all levels.

As another poster said, prioritize academics, finances, location, campus life and the other standard criteria for picking a college. There should be a guidance counselor at your high school who can help you with selecting schools and the application process this Fall. Then, ask your high school coach to help you identify colleges that you can walk-on the XC and track teams at. If they can't help then maybe there's a coach at another school in your district or league who can be helpful. Otherwise, you can contact the coaches at the schools you are applying to about being a walk-on athlete on the XC and track teams.

With the programs at Colgate combining mens and womens under Coach McKinnon and the new women's head coming from a DIII program with a very successful women's distance team (Oberlin), the standards are probably going to come down more in line with the rest of the Patriot League over the next few years. I'm not sure if these times will get interest there anymore.

I went through this process 30+ years ago with times very similar to yours after my junior year, Patricia. I wrote to the coaches of all the programs I was interested in. The University of Oregon sent back a form letter with "Thank you for your interest in our program. Please fill out the form below if you are interested in Oregon track." The form consisted of what was my PR, places at state and national meets, etc. - beyond anything I had done at the time. They also had a list of times needed for "Possible Scholarship" and "Possible Chance to Compete." This ended my Oregon dreams. I did hear back personally from the coach of one of the smaller schools, though. They were also willing to work with me around my academic/major schedule (odd class times). I went to that school, ran all four years, improved each year, shaved a full minute off of my 3200/3000 time by the time I graduated.

The downside to this is that the school was a small private school and quite expensive. Private schools, though, tended to be pretty generous with their financial aid.

I would really recommend that you go ahead and contact the coaches. It shows you have initiative. The most you'll be out is a few postage stamps.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

It kinda depends on what part of the country your from. Some areas are more competitive than others. But with those times you should be able to run at just about any d3 school. The WIAC is a very competitive d3 conference (probably the most competitive in the nation) and i bet you could compete at most if not all wiac schools. To name a few UW-Eau Claire UW-River Falls UW Stout and UW-LaCrosse.