Colleges for a 4:12-14 kid (as an 11th grader)

Furman?

“I have had and currently have kids talking to Butler, Purdue, and Miami Ohio. None are being offered scholarships.”

I assume strong times - care to share?

This is what I posted earlier. I currently coach high school.

"I used to coach at the collegiate level and I have many friends who currently do. I had 6 kids from the track team go D1 last year, 3 were distance runners. All 6 were walk-ons. The fastest distance runner ran 4:17 junior year and 4:13 senior year. I had a kid the year before run 4:14 junior year and 4:11 senior year."

This is correct. A 4:11 will be offered a walk-on. A 4:07 is money and a roster spot. 4:14 fleeting chances at D1

Even if the OP doesn't get an athletic scholarship or is a walk on, is it possible that he could get merit aid to a few schools? If he showed interest wouldn't a coach want a 4:14 walk on?

The OP didn't mention his grades but stated some schools would be reaches. But if he's a good student would schools such as Miami U or Butler find academic aid?

Those are competitive teams but they are also the definition of MEAT GRINDER programs. They will suffocate you with high mileage and probably wouldn't develop you well as a middle distance specialist.

I agree that UMBC is an excellent option as an up-and-coming middle distance program. They just won the IC4A 4x8 in 7:28 without their top runner, and they have a 1:50xx freshman to add in. It looks like all those runners will be even better at the mile as they get older. They've done it all with American guys that they develop, they have no international athletes.

Other schools will try to make you a 10k specialist.

Of course he can get merit aid. Many coaches are interested in a guy of his level. Some are not. Top 30 programs won't respond.

How fast does one have to be to get admissions assistance getting into a school like Stanford? My daughter is a top student and developing great talent in running. Not looking for a scholarship necessarily but looking for help to get in. I know it happens because my teammate transferred into Stanford way back when Vin was there. What 800/1600/3200 will get a coach to get you over the edge with admissions?

The biggest open secret of collegiate running is that the "meat grinder" programs are far, far more successful than a school like UMBC in an average year. UMBC had one good year and still couldn't get a single guy under 1:50 in their best event, meanwhile their top 1500 time was 3:54. That's basically what OP ran at 16-17 years old.

The truth is OP will run in college for 4-5 years and then likely be done competing at a high level. If he is lucky he will run a sub-4:00 mile or a sub-14:00 5k and have a cool accomplishment for the rest of his life. He is not going to get that going to an "up-and-coming program" that has never had a guy go under 4:05, he's going to get it by going to a program with a history of success and a large pool of talent to train with and push him to be his best.

A friend of mine received a fair amount of admissions help, don't know her exact numbers but GPA around a 3.8-3.9 and SAT around 1300 to the best of my knowledge. She was around 4:40 and 10:00 (pre-COVID) and a 3x XC All-American including a couple top 10 finishes.

Just look at the recent commits. De Brouwer was given a roster spot ant Stanford and she is a 4:50/10:10 runner and Foot Locker qualifier who just ran 16:30 at Woodbridge.

That's what I figured but you never know when someone is there if they got in for some other special academic reason. My daughter's counselors say even with perfect grades, perfect SAT, and being class president, etc you have 3% chance of getting in. She's going all in on track to try to distinguish herself athletically so I figure 4:45/10:00 is what she'll need. Figure 5:00 is too slow. 4:50 maybe. It's getting tough out there!

Wouldn't it be more memorable if the athlete helped build a program and maybe became the schools first sub 4? He would be a legend.

UMBC ran a faster DMR last year than all the schools you listed except Pitt, Cincy, and Providence and those schools wouldn't give him two pennies of scholarship money.

One good year? Their entire DMR is back, and some of those guys might lose their spot to faster runners. They might break 9:30 in a couple years.

They have a stacked freshman class with the fastest 2 freshman XC runners in the conference. That doesn't include their stacked middle distance freshmen, one has split 1:49 and run 4:13 with a 57 last lap.

I ran for Binghamton years ago. I saw how van Ingen became a hero to that community and helped set the stage for Garn, Holt, and Schaffer. van Ingen is now in the Hall of Fame.

Unfortunately Binghamton has been hit with budget cuts and are much weaker now. Lowell is going to dominate in XC and UMBC is going to dominate distance events on the track.

Former college coach of 20 years here. Coached at many levels including Power 5 at the end of my career. Here's a dirty little secret of the best college coaches:

NEVER RECRUIT AN ATHLETE BASED ON THEIR MILE TIME.

If he can run a good 1600 but doesn't excel at the 3200 or cross country, he is worthless to the top teams in the NCAA. The odds of someone with his PRs of running 3:52 in the mile in college is close to zero percent, especially if he isn't sub 1:50 in the 800 already.

If you need a miler, you should move an 800m runner up in distance. If a high school miler isn't willing or able to run a good 10k in XC, that miler is of extremely little value to even mid major teams in 2024.

This is called the Steve Magness Principle.

This is the worst advice ever.

Meat Grinder programs are more successful because they have far, far more scholarships + bigger budgets + are bigger name schools to attract better talent. It's NOT because of the extreme mileage and extreme workouts.

For every 1 guy that runs fast at a meat grinder program, at least 4 equally talented guys are severely injured or burned out by that program. Only 1 in 5 success rate at best. The rest basically have their running careers ruined and lose their passion for the sport because they are constantly injured.

12.6 is the max. Nobody is describing NAU or BYU or Wisconsin or ISU or UNC as meatgrinder programs but they will all finish top 10 this year.

I coached in Conference USA before retirement and although we weren’t fully funded at 12.6, we did had 10 and that would get us between 17-25 guys on scholarship. I am looking forward to the roster spot limits and no limits on scholarship in 2025.

You are the only person looking forward to it. CU cut 4 minute guys and sub 14 guys already this year. Expect entire programs to be cut and many teams will have to cut rosters in 1/2.

I understand your point but you are too literal. If a kid runs 3:59, I don't need to look at his XC times or his 800 times. I will take him.