MIT Track distance

I love all of these posts. The OP says the kid is too fast for the best D3 school so other posters decise to recommend other schools that are slower.

Can't really think of a decent MIT MDR or LDR

A couple hundred that went to Ivy League schools. Harder to know the count of smart public schoolers (more subjective so harder to check on Linkedin / elsewhere)

It is likely that the people who you claim to be smart and stuck up for saving money at public schools are average students.

Where do you work that you know hundreds of Ivy grads? And how do you know them well enough to find out where they all went to school and to know them well enough to form an opinion of them?

Don't forget WPI in Worcester MA. My wife went to WPI and had a very positive experience. What she's said is that WPI is better for undergrad, and then MIT for grad school. She has a number of friends who went on to grad school at MIT, Harvard, Stanford, etc.

I’m not sure if the original poster is even interested in Williams, but since it’s being discussed I can share a bit from my experience as a Williams CS major now at Caltech for my Ph.D.

Upsides of Williams/LACs: The lecturers are good. If you ever struggle, there are resources to fill in the gaps. Research-wise there are more opportunities to get fully involved because professors don’t have grad students. Undergrad at research-focused places is usually more menial.

Same at LACs and Larger/More prestigious places: Jobs - companies recruit at all of them. The people posting about Jane Street don’t know what they are talking about. Jane street sent in-person recruiters to Williams.

Downsides of Williams/LACs: If you want to go to grad school (Ph.D) and you are able to do research with a famous researcher, their letter of rec will hold more weight. Small LACs have fewer famous researchers. Class selection is also not as good - you’re a little bit at the mercy of what the professors feel like teaching that term. Also, if you choose to get an advanced degree in something quantitative, LAC students have taken fewer classes and need to play catch-up. Ivy grads will have this problem too. State school students will often be ahead, as will students from tech schools like MIT, Caltech, and Georgia Tech. Usually, the tools you developed in your liberal arts degree make this catchup easier, but it’s still going to be a rough first year.

Lol you act like Williams isn’t the #1 lac in the nation. It places better in finance but still has quite strong math/cs programs. I’d also add Cornell, Penn, and maybe Duke and Berkeley to the colleges elite companies recruit from. Lower t20s don’t have no chance, but it’s much more difficult for students from there to get those jobs - but I’m sure that’s partially due them having lower caliber students.

I ran for a public D3 school in a small state. After failing high school physics and getting a D in humanities, I opted not to apply to MIT, Stanford, or the Ivies. (I didn't want that kind of pressure.) Started part-time as a commuter and gained 10 pounds that first (ineligible) semester. Quickly realized what I was missing out on and got motivated again. Got two Bs and an A and talked my way into full-time status with the help of an assistant dean, who was also the XC coach. Wound up with about a B average after 5.5 years, and qualified for track nationals 3x. No regrets and a very successful financial career and wonderful family. Still competing decades later and loving every minute of life. (Go to MIT if you can get in. Walk on to the team if they'll take you. If running matters enough, you'll find your opportunities, in school or otherwise.)

Yeah. After running 13 seconds in the 100m I too decided I did not want the pressure and opted not to try to make the US Olympic team.

This thread has run its course.

Did you read what I said? With the coach’s support, which virtually only happens if he has academics equal to a normal accepted student, he has about a 50% chance of admission. While that’s much better than an average applicant, it’s not a guarantee. Because of this, many fast runners who care about their future career choose the 99% chance of acceptance into one of HYPS.

The poster who stated the most elite jobs only recruit at about ~7 colleges (if you're not female / a non-Asian minority, in which case they'll recruit from almost all of the T20 or so) is basically. I'd argue there are about 11-12, since Cornell, Penn, Berkeley still place quite well, and Duke and Dartmouth are great for the "elite" finance jobs, but that's just being nitpicky.

However, is this more due to correlation or causation? If you had USAMO gold in high school (and had a good GPA), you're almost guaranteed an acceptance to at least one of HYPSM, and you'll likely do very well on the Putnam as well. What 'm saying is that the average MIT student, let alone someone who's one of the top students there, is almost guaranteed to be smarter and more accomplished than a student at a random state school.

Bumping this due to recent developments.

Just an 11 second PR and NCAA D3 record, out of the sixth heat. No big deal.

What happened?

Ryan Wilson new D3 record in 3:55.29 (previous pb 4:06)

Since I don't think I've seen a source for the 50% (or any other percentage) chance of an admissions offer, I don't feel comfortable assuming it's accurate, but from what I've read, you are right that the MIT coach is expected to voice support only if the applicant has an academic record consistent with "normal" accepted applicants.

What I'm not sure about is why a strong candidate with the desire to go to MIT would choose not to even apply to MIT merely because the candidate already has been assured of a 99% chance of acceptance into one of HYPS. (I know that NCAA rules allow D1 schools to put some pretty tight limits on the length of time within which a coach or athletic director's endorsement can remain open, but I'm not aware of what, if any, such limits are use by any of HYPS. And considering that a high percentage of MIT's successful applicants apply and receive offers of admission in the fall, it seems to me that there's no big problem in adding MIT to the list of applications.

Receiving coach support at Ivies and MIT typically involves applying EA/ED and committing to attend if accepted. You really can only apply ED/EA to one of these schools and even if you could take a shotgun approach with apps, no coach is going to support the app of an athlete that is getting support elsewhere. At Ivies, those apps can be in early and a likely letter received as early as Oct. 1. At MIT, one has to wait until Dec 15 to hear, with a roughly 50% chance (that number is what the prior coach suggested the odds were).

So it isn’t as if these Ivy recruits are just submitting a bunch of apps like a typical applicant. They’re taking visits, narrowing to one, getting support and a likely letter by November, and then they’re done. The MIT recruits are sweating it out past the point where they could get support from an Ivy coach. That’s why it’s pretty rare for an Ivy-recruited athlete to opt for MIT and the related uncertainty. But most MIT recruits don’t have Ivies as an option, so there’s less opportunity cost.

he ran 1:50.16 in the 800 last year. it's not too surprising to be able to run 3:55