Do high school girls realize how inflated the NCAA scholarship market is for them?

My guess is that a typical 4:55 girl understands collegiate recruiting and expectations just as well as you. Go whine about the 88 football full rides if you really need something to whine about.

... that you are a mere 20 seconds in front of the top girl's 1500 from last year? Sort of puts it in perspective, does't it?

Someone sounds SO bitter... Not that many of us, male or female, are anything real special... Yeah, obviously not many of us will be champs, or even make it to NCAAs, but what's wrong with using one's talent and work ethic to get as far ahead in life as possible? Why do we need to "realize how f'n slow" we are? Sorry you're not where you'd like to be, but complaining about how girls have it so easy and aren't even that good isn't going to help your case.

DI Prospect wrote:

I'm not anything special anyway so I should just shut up and take out the loan.

THIS^^

HEAD your own advice. No reason for you to whine like a little preteen girl.

*HEED*

You didn't mention anything about academics. Are you a top student? I know some girls who received great offers with those times, but they were also at the top of their class academically. The combination of being a good athlete and top student is appealing to colleges.

DI Prospect wrote:

..... women who are supposedly getting full rides thrown at them left & right by mid-majors...& big money from some (not all) Power 5's ...

Full ride scholarships AND big money? For runner girls? Is that allowed now?

I think you have valid concerns but that's the reality of the situation.

Are your grades good? If so, you should be getting a lot of attention from D1 schools. I wouldn't expect a lot of $, but you should get some and you should get admissions help to get into a better school.

That should be your near-term goal.

With those times you should be getting some respectable offers from a variety of mid-majors. You may need to promote yourself better or get with your coach and do some contacting of coaches. If you are willing to widen your search a bit you should have no trouble grabbing a decent scholarship. I had an athlete who ran 4:16/9:18 as a jr and real solid xc and he had several offers in the midwest in the 40 to 50% range.

Its because of 1) football and 2) cheerleading not counting as an NCAA sport. Do what I do, don't watch football. If enough people realize how messed up the system is and quit supporting football, we could have true gender equality in sports, but this will probably never happen.

Yeah man, what IX does, good or bad, is makes non-football males compete with football for the same dollar pool. If you're female, there are however many $ that football just spent being available for other sports. Unjust, one could say, or one could say guys need to ditch a sport or two so their moolah isn't any more spread than the girls' is.

What you don't seem to have considered is running competitively, training hard, etc but not doing it for the glory of a school. Ladies of course can do the same but any decent one is getting paid so do it on your own competes with that. Guys, however, may as well still run, just don't tell any school about it and keep all glory for yourself and give credit to no one but yourself.

Any sort of mediocre high school girl can get a full ride. Meanwhile you'd better run sub 9 if you want money at all

I feel for you, but.... wrote:

What you don't seem to have considered is running competitively, training hard, etc but not doing it for the glory of a school. Ladies of course can do the same but any decent one is getting paid so do it on your own competes with that. Guys, however, may as well still run, just don't tell any school about it and keep all glory for yourself and give credit to no one but yourself.

Seriously. Just go to whatever college/university/trade school you want or get into the work force if you'd rather not go the school route. Do your own training and run whatever races you and want when you want. Find a couple "local elites" to train with if you like training with a group. Training isn't rocket science and there is literally an endless amount of information on this site and other sites from the best coaches in the world. Let Renato Canova, Arthur Lydiard, Jack Daniels, et al be your coach instead of some idiot at a university where no one gives two sh!ts about runners.

Sounds like they are better at what they do than you are.

Ok, but what is your testosterone level?

Do girls realize how inflated the dating market is for them?

If your marks are correct you should contact all the mid-major bubble teams. top 3-10 in their xc region who have international athletes. They probably spend the money on distance to give you a solid offer no matter what your grades/scores are.

so much whining wrote:

My guess is that a typical 4:55 girl understands collegiate recruiting and expectations just as well as you. Go whine about the 88 football full rides if you really need something to whine about.

Thank you! You took the words right out of my mouth!

You don't like it, improve your chances and run faster.

Track/XC get 12.6 scholarships. Lot more than 12 girls on a team.

I doubt any or many are getting "full rides" and certainly not "big money".