What 1600 or 3200 time would I need to get into an Ivy League school w/ 36ACT and 4.0GPA + good extracurriculars? (Junior)

Ivies are full of kids with 4.0s and above - more than they know what to do with. Perfect ACTs - not as many, but still enough that you're not getting anyone excited.

Which brings us to running. Mile and 2 miles times necessary (assuming of course, your essays are great and your recommenders have good things to say about you:

4:15 mile and 9:05 2 miles.

kempanien'spuke wrote:

Ivies are full of kids with 4.0s and above - more than they know what to do with. Perfect ACTs - not as many, but still enough that you're not getting anyone excited.

Which brings us to running. Mile and 2 miles times necessary (assuming of course, your essays are great and your recommenders have good things to say about you:

4:15 mile and 9:05 2 miles.

Well, looks like I'm not going to be running there! I'd be lucky to run 9:40 this year.

Ivies look for athletes who are top in their state. I remember seeing guys from CBA in NJ going to Princeton and Columbia. They were 4:10ish guys who ran 15:30 at Holmdel. Probably 9:20 range on the track in the 3200.

But D1 isn’t everything. Plenty of academically elite D3 schools can provide quality coaching and training. One of my former runners went to Haverford and loves it there. He seems to be running better than his high school competition that went to D1 programs. You can consistently see Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, Middlebury, MIT, etc. well ranked nationally with sub-15:00 5k guys.

ivy hopeful wrote:

4yrs of Scholars' Bowl

What this?

ivy hopeful wrote:

Well, looks like I'm not going to be running there! I'd be lucky to run 9:40 this year.

With a 9:40 in the 2-mile, be glad your HS coach didn't cut you from the team.

Go to WashU. 9:40 will get you onto the team.

Email Ivy League coaches and see what they have to say for themselves. You don’t need a 410. Probably with a 420 and 920 by senior year they will let you on the team. Maybe even slower just email the coaches to see for yourself

Unlike most of our posters who are trying to make it onto various teams, this poster is asking about getting an admissions boost to the school via track. I think the responses are pretty accurate. Your times will not get you any advantage for admission and probably will not even get you on the team if you are admitted in your own academic merit. Schools like U of Chicago and WashU are equally difficult to get into as the Ivies but you could be on the team. It is not clear if you are currently a Junior which is what I am assuming. If you run 9:20 this year, most Ivy coaches will be interested.

I you run 9:35 you have a solid shot this year. people over estimate how hard it is to get a spot on an ivy roster. Columbia has like 60 kids on their roster. if you show enough interest and a solid rate of improvement with enough upside you can get a spot. Most ivy schools suck at track.

Don't waste your time going to an Ivy. You can be passionate about something and make a difference in any school you go to. Seriously, unless you just come from money I wouldn't worry about going to an Ivy. Unless you can get a full ride scholarship that pays for your room and board as well, or come from a rich family.

I would not take out over a hundred thousand dollars in loans to go to an Ivy especially if I can get into a state school with a state merit scholarship for free. Many states have those types of programs for HS grads who are residents.

Any school ranked in the top 100 in academics would be good enough. If you're smart, just get your 4.0 at cumulative GPA at the state school without having to worry about money. In fact, if it's less rigorous you'll have time to enjoy more of your life outside of the classroom.

kempanien'spuke wrote:

Ivies are full of kids with 4.0s and above - more than they know what to do with. Perfect ACTs - not as many, but still enough that you're not getting anyone excited.

Which brings us to running. Mile and 2 miles times necessary (assuming of course, your essays are great and your recommenders have good things to say about you:

4:15 mile and 9:05 2 miles.

OP won't be getting a scholarship with his times but can definitely be a walk-on to the team. But why bother. Go to state school unless your family can pay all of your tuition.

Taking out a huge amount of debt just to attend an Ivy League school is not worth it.

You're going to start at the same level in the company as the kid who didn't graduate from an Ivy unless either of you had done co-ops or internships. At the end of the day, you have to work your way up the ladder in your company.

Your degree isn't going to guarantee that you start off making twice as much as the state school guy. You have to prove your worth. With that being said, don't go to the Ivy if you can't get it paid in full by family or athletic or merit scholarship.

Says the guy who posts constantly about celebrity scandals and other high school gossip on a running message board. yeah. Go to state school if that's your goal for later on in life, don't go IVY!

ivy hopeful wrote:

With a perfect ACT score and a 4.0 unweighted GPA, I've got the academic requirements to be qualified for an Ivy League, and I have decent extracurriculars: 6yrs of Track/XC by senior year, 4yrs of Scholars' Bowl (looking to win national championship), and some other in-school things. From the school perspective, I'm all set, and I have just as good a chance as the hundreds of other kids with the same or better qualifications.

Hate to burst your bubble, but those stats are nothing when considering the pedigree of the top students admitted to Ivy's.

We're talking students who are already doing work that would be considered graduate level or professional in some field or another. Mathematics Olympiads, Physics Olympiad, IOI - (computer science Olympiad). Siemens, Intel Science Top Competitors, published researchers, prodigies at writing, art, etc..

Aside from the aforementioned, if you don't have any of that, you're a strong candidate if you have family members who graduated from the Ivy you're interested in, or you have your stats but are part of a very underrepresented minority group.

An African American with your stats is likely a guaranteed lock at an Ivy, based on the test scores and GPA alone.

If you're Asian, you're probably not going to get in without being in that first group I mentioned (Olympiad finalist, science talent search finalist, published researcher, or prodigy)....unless you're from an extremely disadvantaged background.

Just the facts.

keepingitreal wrote:

Says the guy who posts constantly about celebrity scandals and other high school gossip on a running message board. yeah. Go to state school if that's your goal for later on in life, don't go IVY!

I'm not tellin him what i heard. Im tellin him what I know.

You should look at nescac schools like Williams. Frankly, most kids who have the running talent to get any Ivy admissions boost already know it, and are competing at somewhere close to an all-state level. If you’re truly interested some of the schools list recruiting standards on the website.

If you have a 4.0, a 36 ACT, varsity running should be VERY LOW on your list of what you are looking for in college. It's like the tail wagging the dog.

If you pick Stanford, enjoy the climate and run with a club or by yourself. If you pick Harvard, maybe you can make the travel squad and then claw your way to varsity, maybe not and you end up going solo up and down the Charles. If you are poor, take your full ride to State U. and run varsity if you can make it, and don't if you can't.

The people that pick a school based on a athletics program are better runners than intellectually gifted. With a 9:40, I'd put the breaking point at about 3.6 and 32 ACT.

How do you factor in people who experience huge spikes in improvements once they start taking running more seriously in college?

Say he's 9:40 now, but gets in some heavy volume and has the talent to run sub 9 at the end of his freshman year of college.

That would justify the scholarship. Do athletic programs take into account current training vs future training potential?

If I were a coach at Harvard and had a scholarship spot, I'd take the chance with a 9:40 guy if there was that one spot remaining, especially if he is only running 40 or less miles per week now.

^ivies don’t have scholarships.

markschultz40 wrote:

How do you factor in people who experience huge spikes in improvements once they start taking running more seriously in college?

Say he's 9:40 now, but gets in some heavy volume and has the talent to run sub 9 at the end of his freshman year of college.

That would justify the scholarship. Do athletic programs take into account current training vs future training potential?

If I were a coach at Harvard and had a scholarship spot, I'd take the chance with a 9:40 guy if there was that one spot remaining, especially if he is only running 40 or less miles per week now.

... mark knows nothing about Ivies.