D1 confusion

1:47 and 3:54

hmm, tactical 1500?

The standards have all changed due to roster limits.

Not the conference meet, the conference marks.

So tired of people doing this. They look at a meet rather than season. Like saying I could have beaten Centro for gold. No wonder they all think their kids are entitled to a roster spot.

I don't have any advice in this new world of limited roster spots and things. All I can say is I don't envy any solid (but not exceptional) high school kids graduating these next few years and trying to find a spot at a 4 year University.

If your son's dream school has had runners that are consistently get to race and are finishing in that 4:05 to 4:10 mile range the last few years, I'd say you have a chance with him getting on the team there. Just keep up the communication with the coaching staff so they feel like they aren't having to put much effort into recruiting him and hopefully they'll pick up on the fact that your son won't be an academic or cultural issue for the team.

So your child wants to run in the SEC

It's possible the team is prioritizing their funds for sprinters. In that case the standard for distance events might be higher than you'd expect.

My son was in the category, possibly like your son. He was pretty darn good his junior year, but not in the exceptional category. He had to choose to sign early or wait to see if he'd have a breakout senior season. In the end he decided to sign (earlyish) with a coach that was really excited about him and truly wanted him on the team (and of course he was into the school itself). He did end up having a breakthrough senior year and probably could have signed with a much more prestigious school - if they had room/money. We've asked him how he feels about it now and he says no regrets. He had his senior season relatively stress free - which he thinks contributed to his breakthrough season. He is going to a school where they were happy to sign him before, and now they're extra pumped. He feels great! He also had friends go the other way, and risk it for better times senior year. One worked out (VERY late) and the other has not yet, but the stress level for both of them was off the charts all season.

you're just pouring the same zero-coach-contact research-driven argument into a new glass. before it was how is my kid not minimum qualified for this team at its bottom. now it's this team isn't very fast at the top. same diff. thing is your kid is nowhere near the top and behind the coach's idea of his bottom standard -- whether it makes anaytical sense or not. you tried contact. your coach got woodshedded to not send people his way unless they are faster than your kid is. your HS coach unfortunately gave him hope with this of the "so you're telling me there's a chance" (dumb and dumber) variety. this was meant the opposite.

i think you're way out over your skis on this. on current times he might squeak into brown and that's about it. assuming he has the scores. he would be bottom half of even williams' kids. he would be a good runner on a mediocre d3, and a squadie at a top one. he might or might not even score points at d3 conference.

now, to be fair, that type runner is at a venn overlap between the back of d1 and d3. but for d1 and top end d3 you would need to contact a lot of people to find the acorns on current times. and y'all sound fixated on a favorite, which is the way to get shut out entirely. the way to do it is blast everyone ivy and nescac and uaa and see who nibbles.

i think his window for d1 is more like patriot eg colgate. not good enough for big east and barely any ivies. that he might be faster than their weakest in the spring doesn't get fall recruitment done.

if he wants to fight the law, the law usually wins. go with the flow and chase the ones who answer. and if he wants d1 or top end d3 he needs to paper everyone at the nice schools and see who answers. he's not analyzing it right or getting the messages. so do quantity over quality. the whole conference gets an email. see who responds.

unless he's willing to slum down at a no-name d1 with weaker academics.

This is the crux of the "misunderstanding"; 3:54 was tenth at conference so their 4:19 scrub of a son should get admission? What?

Here's a reality check, sucka: 115 kids in D3 alone ran faster than 4:19 last year. Cherrypicking one result from an incredibly slow tactical race to try and prove your point is either stupid, trolling, or both.

Your kid is D3, and mid-tier D3 at that. I don't know why this is so controversial.

115 ran faster than 3:54, my bad. Point still stands.

Anyway, the next phase of this thread is OP starting to talk about how much faster his son would have been if he wasn't injured or the weather was better or if the coach wasn't a clown or whatever.

And then someone else will say that because Alabama State or some other HBCU that doesn't fund distance at all's best miler ran a 4:15, that this kid is D1 material all the way.

It's just so tiresome.

Thank you to all for taking time to respond, I learned a lot. We will see what happens! He has a couple phone calls this week, so that's promising.

How about listing the actual times from the conference now rather than the conference meet? Betting 1500 is something like 3:39 for 10th best. That's sub 4. Your son isn't close to scoring which means he isn't of value.

Speaking as a parent of a runner, I had no idea what to expect in terms of the recruiting/scholarship process. It's all very confusing. Let's try to show this parent and child a bit of grace. Clearly they're being coy to maintain anonymity, which is understandable

Here is a helpful rubric: if your child being recruited by a D1 school, then they are a D1-level athlete. If they are not, then they are not, and no amount of willfully and egregiously misunderstanding basic things like performance lists to support your denial will change that.

online commercial standards, meet results, and performance lists are theory proxy guesses at what the coach might be thinking. which we don't usually know. this kid has an actual concrete answer with a standard. he's just not taking it, and wants to go back and argue about theory and proxies.

or at least initially wanted to argue about things. later posts seem to be veering towards "my kid has a chance" as opposed to i am confused why this didn't work out. i half wonder about trolling as they seem to get more stubborn the more we point out holes.

last, the parent has never said if their kid even has the scores to get this done. ivies have tiny admissions rates for regular students. their kid isn't being considered and would get no admissions help. a lot of these parents who are desperately wondering how to change a "no" or non-response seem to have hoped that being a marginal runner would overcome being a marginal admit on academics. that's not how any coaching influence on admissions works. if they are sneaking kids into the school it's the really fast ones. if this parent thought track was the back door into an ivy their kid loves, their kid isn't fast enough for the front door much less the back one. if his academics aren't good enough, he's toast.

the irony is i think dumber kids take it better if told no for either academic or sports reasons. they have no cooked up some scheme to get in some school. they just want to play someplace. so they are hearing "yes" or "no" clearrer.

He to date has failed to provide a ranking or cutoff of times for 1500 or mike for the conference. I suspect that the lightbulb went on when he looked. He started by complaining that there were kids on the roster who had run slower in HS than his child which is meaningless. The Big 10 has expanded. Roster cuts are happening. People are getting faster. So a 4:16 kid may have gotten into Michigan State 3 years ago but now they only take 4:06 next year for example. I suspect that his kid is literally 20 seconds slower in the mile than the 10th best runner in the conference and he realized that his kid is therefore of no value. Every athlete takes up time and resources.