Top D3 or mid-major D1?

If you want to be in finance you must go to business school, preferably as a finance major. Business is a little less inclusive for the second-rate positions. But, you will never find mid-upper management roles without a business degree. Also, undergrad does teach you quite a lot. It is not intensive, but you will have learned the fundamentals.

Oh to be young again and think you know everything.....

Determine what career field you think you want to pursue and choose a degree accordingly....

Now look at those potential employers in those fields and see where they went to school...

Yes interning and networking is important.

I still stand firm.....whatever school you can get the most money from is the school you should choose.

There is no telling where you'll be in 2 years or 4 years. Maybe you'll change majors who knows.

Get what you can get now.

Alan

JohnCubed wrote:

If you want to be in finance you must go to business school, preferably as a finance major. Business is a little less inclusive for the second-rate positions. But, you will never find mid-upper management roles without a business degree. Also, undergrad does teach you quite a lot. It is not intensive, but you will have learned the fundamentals.

Wrong. The top schools where Wall Street recruits and that produce tons of execs (Ivies, Etc) don’t usually have Finance as a major. They have economics. But major doesn’t matter anyway, especially at good schools.

What you mean is that you aren't really good enough to run D1. I agree. Head to D3.

Transfer, dude. Plenty make it this way. Trump himself transferred to Wharton.

Big Joe wrote:

How fast did you run? Most 9:20 guys top out at 14:30 and never get to compete at the conference track or cross country meet unless they run at a crappy school in a crappy conference. That seem worse than D3 to me.

Not related to this topic but what 3200/2 mile time in HS do most people have that end up running around 14:50 - 15:10 (on the track) in college.

Not related to this topic but what 3200/2 mile time in HS do most people have that end up running around 14:50 - 15:10 (on the track) in college.[/quote]

945:-10:00

Alan is giving the best advice here, much more wisdom - pick the school which offers the most money. You want to minimize debt and stress. You know how many kids I lost as teammates because they could no longer afford tuition or room or simply college? Life changes, you don't want to graduate with debt if you don't have to.. thankfully I was naive in this regard as my choices were P5 SEC - books P5 ACC - full tuition (no room and board) G5 - 100% full athletic D3 CC - 100% full aid I chose the G5 because I didn't have to worry about finances and actually got cash each semester. Graduated with no debt and was able to race the best in the world week in and week out over 4 years. Improved over 90-seconds over 5000m from my FR year to my SR year. Icing on the cake is now my alma mater is great in football so prestige of school has skyrocketed.. and that matters when you work in a Fortune 500.

Runningart2004 wrote:

Oh to be young again and think you know everything.....

Determine what career field you think you want to pursue and choose a degree accordingly....

Now look at those potential employers in those fields and see where they went to school...

Yes interning and networking is important.

I still stand firm.....whatever school you can get the most money from is the school you should choose.

There is no telling where you'll be in 2 years or 4 years. Maybe you'll change majors who knows.

Get what you can get now.

Alan

That is very odd. What school gave you a full academic scholarship while SEC schools gave none? I know kids at Georgia and Georgia Tech paying very little and those were their best deals. They were far better than any D3 schools offered. Your situation doesn't make sense.

The other part that is implausible is getting a full athletic while having room to improve by 90 seconds. That is impossible unless you ended up at 12:50.

Unless your name is Ed Cheserek or Galen Rupp, you 100% did not receive full tuition for running. There isnt a school in the country offering full rides for distance runners, especially not ones who comment on LR threads at 5:45am.

yeah basically. the funny thing is that I am running way better than I thought I would this semester and am actually getting to travel with the top 7 and have finished pretty high in some of the smaller meets. running just isn't my highest priority, so there's no reason to stick around and sacrifice education. maybe I would run a few seconds faster if I stayed but that means nothing to me. it's just something I want to do on the side of my studies.

There are many more factors than just what level of competition the school is at.

As has been stated, make sure the school has what you are looking at academically, and what also might interest you should you change your major. How important is academic rigor and challenge for you? Again, those in your potential field of work, what have they done to get ahead and succeed? Is there a significant difference in reputation among schools in that area of study, and how does that play in terms of getting internships, first jobs, networking, all of that.

As for running - with any school, see how you compare to those who are incoming freshmen since the current coach has been there. How many of their runners actually compete in meets. How many meets do they compete in? What does it take to travel, be on a conference team, maybe compete at a cross country regional (fun fact: not all teams even compete at it). What has your high school running experience been like? What are the things that motivate you in running? What de-motivates you? I've coached at a few different levels and schools now, and if you come from a successful program with motivated coaches, a lot of structure, and well funded, going to a program that is poorly funded, hasn't experienced much success, or where the coaches are just mailing it in will be frustrating for you and suck the life from your running. Are you more motivated by group success than individual success?

Of course, the other questions involve financial considerations. If you're already well set, or anticipate going into a field where you can pay back your college expenses, chasing various forms of aid might not be the most important decision maker. However, if you're already financially struggling, or choosing a career path that isn't very lucrative, then maybe the financial aid is a major factor. It does suck to get to a school, only to get burdened significantly with constant costs.

To be honest, you can probably find a great fit at either a top D3 program, or a middle of the pack D1 program and enjoy your time, experience improvement, and look back on your competitive days in college fondly. Just do a lot of research, ask questions, and remember you're recruiting them as much as they are recruiting you.

Probably can't go wrong with either. Some really great academic schools that are probably in the mix. You should think about your future. Find a school that feels right and has a strong academic program for what you want to do. Consider the coaches and what current people on the team say. But also know that coaches leave and current guys are there to get you to commit. Take your visits, narrow down your list, you can get better either route.

For me if everything else was pretty equal I'd go for D1 mostly because I'd like to race 10 km rather than 8 at Regionals and Nationals (if I got there) and because I'd expect watching my school's basketball games would be more interesting at a D1 school. But really it would probably come down to the schools themselves, which ones have campuses and locations that I like, majors I want, and for me, which ones cost the least.

Runningart2004 wrote:

What is your personal financial cost? D3 has no athletic scholarships. What about D2? NAIA?

Go where you can get the most money.

As long as you have teammates to chase and competitors to chase you will be just fine.

In 99.99999% of cases where you go to school means absolutely nothing to an employer.

Athletically it's all up to you. What feather do you want to boast about in your late 20s? "I was a D1 Athlete, etc etc I'm so cool".

/End Thread.

Alan

Totally wrong about the employer. I cannot speak for every industry, but in high paying jobs on Wall Street and consulting, where you go to college is extremely important. Those firms recruit at the top colleges; it is hard to even get an interview if you don't go to one of those schools (unless you know someone).

Now once you have experience or go to grad school, college is much less important. But you have to get that experience and get into that grad school, and the college you attend impacts both of those.

Given that maybe 99.999% of the jobs in the US are not high paying jobs on Wall Street it is possible for it to be true that where you went to school does not matter to potential employers after all. So maybe you go to a place that Wall Street will be impressed by. Maybe you need to take out massive loans to go there and maybe that works out just fine because you actually get that high paying job. But you may not get that job and you may end up selling cars or insurance or in the Verizon kiosk at the mall making a very modest salary and needing to service a huge loan debt with that salary.

No, actually it's not possible. If where you attended college was only important in 1 in 100,000 jobs,, then of the 157MM jobs in the US, only 1,570 would be ones in which the college one attended is important. That is clearly false.

I am not saying everyone should forego a good financial package to go to a "better" school. For some people, it is better to get the more affordable degree. But to tell someone that 99.999% of jobs in the US don't care about where you went to college is just bad advice. Give the kid the correct facts and let him decide, based upon his own circumstances, what is right.

OP, it matters where you go to college. Not for all jobs, and you need to weigh how much the caliber of the college means for your future job against the debt you will have. But depending upon what you want to do, how smart you are, how much debt you will incur, and how driven you are to overcome disadvantages, it can be meaningful.

i mean its important to pick a school that fits your major and educational values, but a top d3 school clearly has the ability to develop runners, and its cool to be the big prospect at a school like that