what kind of girls times equate to d1, d2, and d3 schools?

Generally, guaranteed full scholarships for d1 would be 4:50 1600, 10:20-30 3200, or 2:10 800. Also, placing well at footlocker or nike can get you good scholarship money depending on the school. Partial D1 scholarship would probably be around 10:40 3200, sub 5:00 mile, or 2:13 800 (for 2nd tier... sub 11, sub 5:05). D1 walk on is generally 11:30 3200 and 5:15 1600 (though this could be faster or slower depending on the level of the school).

D2 is a little outside my expertise, but I have a friend who got partial for a 19:15 cross country 5k. For D2 (and smaller D1) sub 21 will probably allow you to walk-on most teams.

As for D3... pretty sure you just have to express interest (again depends on the caliber of the program). I had another friend who ran 24 minute 5k's that walked on a D3 team.

Depends on the school. Some D1 programs don't even take walk-ons. If your times are worthy of any scholarship, the coaches will come to you. If they aren't, then pick some schools you're interested in for non-athletic reasons and contact the coaches, but don't expect a scholarship.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

Depends on the school. Some D1 programs don't even take walk-ons. If your times are worthy of any scholarship, the coaches will come to you. If they aren't, then pick some schools you're interested in for non-athletic reasons and contact the coaches, but don't expect a scholarship.

Scholarship numbers certainly depend on the school. Full scholarships at national programs are rare.

Disagree about the recruiting practices of D1 coaches. Maybe it depends on where you are, but here on the west coast kids have to take a more active role. My kid ran 16:40, 10:14 and 4:45, and all of her contacts w/ coaches were self-initiated. She received scholarship offers from several national quality distance programs (on the xc podium the last several years), but the coaches didn't come to her. The OP should definitely not assume that she could not get a scholarship somewhere simply because coaches are not lining up at her door.

To figure out possible schools, figure out what you want to study, where you could see yourself studying and running for 4 years, and check the HS times of the kids currently on the roster. If you're within a shout of the times for the top 5 or so, send the coach an email.

My Daughter was also a West Coast kid and we sent emails to the top 20 D1 schools. We got 17 reply's she ended up at one of the top schools in the country. Her time in HS were 5:15 Mile ( I know right) 10:42 3200 she placed well at Footlocker and got a very good scholarship. You need to do the work reach out to them!!! And good luck this is a very exciting time!

4:45, 5:05, 5:25

Necessary times for scholarships/walk ons can vary dramatically depending on the quality of the school's program, who else is being recruited that year, etc.

That being said, for solid D1 programs you'll generally want to be under 2:15/4:55/10:40 to walk on and under 2:12/4:50/10:30 to get any scholarship consideration.

Again, it really depends on the caliber of the school. A friend of mine tried to walk on at Stanford with sub 4:45/10:15 a few years back and was unable to do so.

State XC/track titles, FL placings, etc. tend to make a big difference.

It definitely depends on the D1 and D2 program, a good way to know is to look at the performance of that school's athletes in the past season (use trrfs.org) then you can gauge an idea of what they are looking for.

As for D3, a lot of schools will have requirements and some will let you walk on. It also depends on the coach and the caliber of the program and their success in the past. Sometimes your PRs play a big role but a lot of the time it's if you have a good attitude and are dedicated to getting better.

I coach in Division 1 and scholarships will vary depending on the Conference that the school is in.

Most coaches are focused on doing well in their Conference Championships and on the NCAA level. Typically, if it looks like you could score in the conference (top 8) very quickly, you will earn a sizable scholarship. Even more so if you could make NCAAs. However, for most recruits that is unrealistic.

That still does not mean they won't look to offer you scholarship. I offer money to girls based on other factors. These could be your upside if you were under-trained, your grades combined with good times, and your personality and how it might fit in with our team culture.

Thankfully, my athletic department is well funded. Your mileage may vary on this one. In terms of raw numbers, I typically offer money to girls who run 2:16/5:05/11:05. Since there is more money in it for girls, I give these girls my "standard offer" and typically get their tuition and books completely paid for. If a girl runs 2:14/4:55/10:45, I will cover their tuition, books, and most of housing. The top recruits we have brought in recently 4:48, 2:12, 16:50s in XC, will get their tuition, books, and housing paid for. We work with your financial aid situation too. I highly recommend your complete your FASFA on time.

However, I have given significant money to girls who have run much slower than that because I know they have a strong upside and want to get them in the early signing period before they run fast. Trust me, some end up running very fast (Footlocker qualifiers), while some don't pan out in HS like I hoped but we develop them her anyways. Also, girls have been given money who came on the team without any athletic scholarship. There is a "scholarship reserve" we keep every season in our budget to give to walk-ons who we think deserve it. Not every school does this though.

I STRONGLY encourage you to EMAIL the coaches. If they don't respond, do it again 2 weeks later. We get absolutely swarmed with emails regarding the recruitment issue alone. Seriously. As in, 50+ email in a given week just from HS kids alone. Keep the email simple and to the point so that they coach won't gloss over it.

A lot of HS kids think they have to sit around and wait for the coach to come to them. That is not always the case. Sometimes we don't catch every kid worth looking into for recruiting and need some help from your part. Also, don't be afraid to have your coach help you and don't be scared if you don't hit these marks or any other time requirements a coach may have. A lot of the time a coach will not play the recruitment game well and grab as many people as he can late in the game. So keep them in touch!

P.S. If you don't run fast, but are a gamer when it comes to championships, we really like that too. Also, we DO take in to account what state you come from and the level of competition and adjust accordingly.