Big fish, small pond (D3) vs. Smaller fish, big pond

Who are the 3 that have committed? I am curious about their times and their schools of choice.

I am talking about the relevance with regards to prestige. And after you take out the Ivies, Vanderbilt, and Stanford, none of the rest on this list have anywhere close to 35 ACT averages or under 10% acceptance rates. Again, that doesn't make them bad schools. My point simply was the sheer number of schools, not the number of students. You listed 10-15 D1 top schools. I can list 30 that fall into those metrics at the D3 level. Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, NYU, Swarthmore, Claremont, Tufts, Vassar, Wash U, Middlebury, Caltech, Bowdoin, Haverford, Carleton, Colby, etc. The list is very long. None of these have amazing XC programs like Oregon or Colorado, but they all are under 20% acceptance rates and top academic institutions. I'm not questioning the amount of smart and successful kids that your list produces. I'm saying that there are more options as far as locations and types of schools for elite kids at the D3 level than at the D1.

Nowhere close? You must not know what those words mean or you are ignorant.

Northwestern 34 and 9% acceptance

Rice 34 and 9%

Duke 34 and 8%

Cal 33 and 16%

NotreDame 33 and 16%

UCLA 32 and 12%

G-town 33 and 14%

Northwestern is a fake school. They don’t even have a track team!

I have no intention of getting into a semantics argument with you. If you truly did get a 36 on your ACT, then you know what I am talking about. All of the schools you listed are great institutions. But yes, a 32 or 33 on the ACT is nowhere near 35. And Northwestern doesn't have a team, so let that one go. In general, if you are an elite academic student and a good runner, you are most likely looking at the Ivies, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice, and possibly a few others. The west coast folks will consider the Cali schools which are all very competitive as well, but don't hold the national prestige levels of the others on this list. And I will still argue that while the Ivies are Div 1, they really don't act like they are in terms of recruiting, and after Harvard and Princeton, their programs are really not at a D1 level.

My original post was about the lack of options for good runners (sub 9) who are also elite students who want to go to one of the top academic schools. You really only have the Ivies which are all NE, and Stanford in California and Duke in Carolina. Its not a lot of diversity of schools, location, type of education, etc.

D3 on the other hand offers more top tier colleges. Not in terms of number of students but rather the number of schools and their diversity. Hopkins and Tufts are very different schools than MIT and Caltech. Just as Wash U in St Louis is a completely different experience than Pomona in California. I know you don't believe it, but there are certain sub 9 runners who view academics as their primary focus, and have the financial means to not make their choices solely on cost. It is not a large amount, but they do exist, and in those cases, they may choose a D3 over a D1 based solely on the type of school and not because they couldn't cut it at the D1 level.

big skolly wrote:

Nowhere close? You must not know what those words mean or you are ignorant.

Northwestern 34 and 9% acceptance

Rice 34 and 9%

Duke 34 and 8%

Cal 33 and 16%

NotreDame 33 and 16%

UCLA 32 and 12%

G-town 33 and 14%

Can you remind me what we are arguing about? The schools on your list are fantastic for sure. As a sub 9 runner I’m sure you would not want to be on any of them other than ND and maybe Georgetown? All I’m saying is that if you list the truly top D1 academic and running schools, the list is short and not longer than the list of outstanding academic D3 programs with great running programs. There are many other D1 schools that are great for academics, but suck at running (Northwestern) or mediocre at best (Rice) and many that excel at running, but not likely of interest to top students (NAU, Arkansas, Iowa St). If you want an elite education and an elite running experience and you can run at Stanford or Harvard or Princeton, more power to you. Pretty quickly you are compromising a bit on one or the other and if your biased towards academics and not eying a pro career, you might find places like Pomona or Williams or Hopkins to be a better fit. I get it, as a sub 9 runner you have ambitions to run really fast in college (sub 14, sub 13:30??) and feel that no D3 school can get you there. I’m just saying that most/many HS runners at 9 for 3200 end up settling out above 14 min for 5K and D3 would prove to be more than challenging enough. As for the money, yes, that’s a huge difference and if you can get a scholarship, especially to a top running and academic school like Stanford, ND, Michigan, then hard to pass that up. Some fast runners will get need based money, so the scholarship is not critical and others do not need financial help.

That. The list of great D1 institutions with great running programs is much longer than that for D3. You haven't listed 10-15 D3 schools with their ACT and acceptance rates and their track times. We would all like to see them. Claiming that smart runners aren't dying to attend Duke or Michigan is silly. And I don't understand what point you are making about the Ivies. Several have great running programs better than the best D3 program.

big skolly wrote:

That. The list of great D1 institutions with great running programs is much longer than that for D3. You haven't listed 10-15 D3 schools with their ACT and acceptance rates and their track times. We would all like to see them. Claiming that smart runners aren't dying to attend Duke or Michigan is silly. And I don't understand what point you are making about the Ivies. Several have great running programs better than the best D3 program.

I don’t have time to look up all the details, but traditionally strong D3 programs that are academic powerhouses include: Pomona, MIT, Williams, Wash U, U Chicago, Hopkins, Amherst, Haverford, Carleton. There are others too, Tufts, CMS…

I would put these D3 schools up against any in D1 in terms of student quality based on any metric you choose, and they all have great running programs. Many are as hard or harder to get admitted too than any IVY or other D1 school. I think MIT and Stanford were the two most selective schools in the nation last year.

As for the quality of the runners, maybe you would walk in as a freshman and be #1 at all of these schools, but I doubt you would be near the very top before being an upper class men. In general the 3200 recruiting time is more in the 9:15-9:30 range (our HS sent a 9:20 boy to Williams and one to Hopkins in recent years). My impression is that the quality is going up and times are dropping. As for the top schools vs the Ivy League, I fairly sure Pomona would have beaten every team at heptagonals this year other than Harvard and Princeton. They would have crushed Cornell, Yale and Brown.

Wise Old Man- Agreed, the top 3 teams at D3 nationals were Pomona, MIT and Williams. All three are sub 10% acceptance and 1500+ SAT. Pomona had two sub 9:15 recruits, and Williams had a sub 9:00. MIT uses grad school runners and does more the pack approach so they don't have any super low recruits. I would add that Middlebury had a 9:02 hs runner, and Wash U had a 9:10. Any of these programs can compete or beat most of the Heps minus Harvard and Princeton. Yale for instance has literally had 1 runner under 14:20 on the track in 10 years. Williams has 3 on their team this year alone, as do several other D3 schools. The top D3 schools are every bit as competitive with the top D1 schools academically and athletically once you get past Stanford, Harvard and Princeton.

Nescac Dad wrote:

Wise Old Man- Agreed, the top 3 teams at D3 nationals were Pomona, MIT and Williams. All three are sub 10% acceptance and 1500+ SAT. Pomona had two sub 9:15 recruits, and Williams had a sub 9:00. MIT uses grad school runners and does more the pack approach so they don't have any super low recruits. I would add that Middlebury had a 9:02 hs runner, and Wash U had a 9:10. Any of these programs can compete or beat most of the Heps minus Harvard and Princeton. Yale for instance has literally had 1 runner under 14:20 on the track in 10 years. Williams has 3 on their team this year alone, as do several other D3 schools. The top D3 schools are every bit as competitive with the top D1 schools academically and athletically once you get past Stanford, Harvard and Princeton.

+1

Not much else to say. I wish big skolly much success going forward!

I think it depends on the school and what your goal for school is which you stipulated as being equal.

If you can get into Princeton or Penn (and that time would help you) you should definitely go for it as you can a great mix of a good regional track program with good coaching and a school with great academics and with that time you probably aren't looking at a pro career but even if you progress and go that route, an Ivy league education won't hurt you at all.

if quality and cost were a wash your D3 comparables would be Amherst, Williams, maybe UChicago or MIT. All good schools but none have great track programs. Holding the DIII 5000K record and $3.00 will buy you a cup of coffee, sure it will feel good to win meets and the D3 championships but from a running standpoint that is not going to provide the best chance of maximizing their track potential and if the quality and cost of schools is comparable I'd go DI all the way.

Where this would become interesting is if the quality and cost of schools were not comparable. If you got into a better DIII school due to your track prowess or got a scholarship that would make a compelling difference. If a school were close to home, your significant other went their, it's near your grandparents etc.

However, if you are looking at running a 13:51 5K then I would look for the best track program that meets your academic needs i.e. are you going to study engineering or liberal arts, or science, do you want to go to a school with an amazing location like UCSD or Pepperdine or one with great academics or one that allows you to ski in the winter like UC Boulder or Dartmouth.

Meant to add none have greater track programs compared to top academic DI schools like Princeton, Penn, Stanford, Harvard, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt.

Again if you are choosing between Williams and middle of the road academic D1 school that's probably a no brainer but apples to apples D1 seems the way to go

Notre Dame

What is the no brainer? 99% of smart kids who are fast, choose the D1 option. Smart kids have smart parents so they make smart decisions. Paying nothing to run for their state school as opposed to paying $300k to attend a D3 school that only academia types have heard of, makes sense.

I am not understanding what some of these D3 guys are trying to prove. D3 is much slower than D1. There is about 1 guy per year who could make the top 100 in D1. There are some good academic schools in D3 but there are more in D1 and they are much larger. Therefore, they educate thousands more students in elite schools than D3. And once you get past about 25 schools in D3, the schools are not good while the 25th best school in D1 is something like a UVA or Georgia or Wisconsin.

Karo Syrup wrote:

I am not understanding what some of these D3 guys are trying to prove. D3 is much slower than D1. There is about 1 guy per year who could make the top 100 in D1. There are some good academic schools in D3 but there are more in D1 and they are much larger. Therefore, they educate thousands more students in elite schools than D3. And once you get past about 25 schools in D3, the schools are not good while the 25th best school in D1 is something like a UVA or Georgia or Wisconsin.

I’m not a D3 guy, I went to an elite D1 school for academics and running. Most D1 schools also don’t have anybody on their roster who would finish in the top 100 at xc nationals either. There are way more than 25 high quality D3 schools, hell, there are 5 in Claremont CA alone. Yes, feel free to debate if you’d rather go to school and run at Claremont McKenna or Georgia. Sure they are very different, but your not seriously going to tell me Georgia is better? Nor is UVA. If you are a woman distance runner, the running experience is not better either. As for finances, elite D3 schools are full of kids who could have received scholarships academic or athletic at many D1 schools. Are these kids and their families dummies? No, the D3 schools are providing ample NEED based aide or these are kids from families that are so successful they don’t need the aide.

Not comparing Georgia to Claremont McKenna unless it is that far down the D3 list. Nobody has bothered to list these top 25 D3 schools and the associated ACT scores and acceptance rates. And so many of you can't seem to understand how larger schools with equivalent ACT scores and acceptance rages to small schools mean more because they provide so many more opportunities for students.

Instead of Dhruvil Patel, maybe Matt Wilkinson is a better example. Ran 9:15 in high school, finished second at D3 XC Nationals as a Junior at Carleton, Senior XC was canceled by Covid but won the D3 Championship in 13:55, then took a spot as a graduate transfer at University of Minnesota and finished 2nd on the team and 72nd at NCAA XC this fall. The best pure comparison I could find between the divisions. Maybe someone who knows him can ask him to weigh in, but I'm guessing he wouldn't trade the Carleton experience/education for a top 50 or top 25 finish at D1 Nationals.