HS Girl track recruiting getting more serious - any insider insights this year Ivies / NESCAC

My daughter went through the process but for soccer. I can add more later. In the meantime, you might find the info here useful…

https://www.tier1recruiting.com/

I realize now that my post looks kind of spamish. I thought the site I was going to link to was a different one that is useful. I’ll try to find it and will post it.

Have her keep racing like you’re saying. My oldest didn’t get picked up D1 until her senior track season and I found it interesting because I signed D1 after my SR XC season… she basically had to prove out her XC success on the track and then was fine with four offers (three in-state).

Any interest in CMS or PP? Or is she excited for an East Coast adventure (understandable!)?

PP is on the list. CMS told her practice was every morning at 6am, which was not a plus in her mind!

I'm sure "Wise Old Man" will comment on PP, but as my name suggests, I would advocate for the Nescac's as my child had to make the choice between the Ivies and top D3's last year. As for updates, there were quite a few coaching changes at all the schools in 2020-2021, but I haven't heard of too much shifting this season. I believe next year will be Pete Farwell's last as the Coach at Williams, but he has long standing assistants who look to be taking over, so I'm not sure much will change there. And as for needs, I'd bet all of the schools you mentioned would find a spot for a potential sub 5 miler.

There have been quite a few threads on Ivies vs Nescac, and in the end, it will be up to your daughter to make her decision based on whats important to her. None of these schools will give her any merit based aid (academically or athletically) so make sure you weigh that in your decisions. And in our experience, the Ivies were more forgiving of a lower SAT score than Amherst, Pomona, or Williams. But that was before the SAT went optional, so who knows. I will also add that early decision does play a pretty active role in getting into the schools. My child pretty much had their likely letters from the Ivies and commitments from the Nescac coaches the summer between junior and senior year. Your daughter should be asking the coaches about doing pre reads in the next few months. That will give you a pretty good indication of wether a school is interested. And on my child's team, all but 1 of the recruits came through the early decision process. That doesn't mean your daughter has to go that route, but it will make it easier.

Finally, try to get out to the schools for visits. Spending time with the teams, going on runs, and potentially sitting in classes will make a huge difference. No amount of watching YouTube videos, or reading letsrun comments will accurately describe the vibe and culture of any team. And ultimately your daughter needs to find the right fit academically, culturally, and geographically, and that will make her far happier than basing it off wether a particular coach is sticking around. Since there are no scholarships involved, most of the kids at these schools are running because they love it, and school comes first, running second. Also, as it looks like your daughter is from CA, make sure she really wants the NE winters. The weather is a bit different in Massachusetts and Maine:-) Good luck to your daughter at Arcadia and with her school choice, and if you want some specific advice about a particular Nescac or Ivy, please ask.

What other track events does she do and the times? If she is running xc, that are the pr(s)?

Here is the website I was looking for when I posted yesterday. The author states that he is no longer actively maintaining the website but some of the info is still relevant.

I have a kid that played soccer at an Ivy and another that is currently at a UAA school. Both used info from the site to help them.

http://www.tier1athletics.org/

PP practices at 7am.

This is great advice but I do want to correct one thing on the timeline. Ivies don’t do prereads until July 1 prior to senior year and the likely letter can’t be issued prior to Oct 1 of senior year after a complete application is submitted. Most of the nescac schools follow the same rough timeline. You might be conflating the prereads with likely letters at Ivies in your memory. No big deal but I didn’t want re ruins to panic that they might be behind.

Typical timeline is conversations throughout junior spring, prereads in July, invitations for official visits made in the summer, OVs in September/October. Coaches narrow the list throughout those stages and typically offer support in summer or fall. ED application submitted September/October, likely letter sent a few weeks after application but not before Oct.1.

I’d keep the conversations going with all the coaches. It’s still relatively early. Unofficial visits in the summer might be good to get a sense of the schools and meet informally with coaches to stay on their radar.

All the Ivy programs have pretty good distance coaches these days, the difference is more in who they can recruit and quality of current athletes. Big difference in mid-d training partners between Brown and Harvard right now for example. But a runner can enjoy either program if the fit is right. (There are limits on how many can compete at the conference meet so be aware that at the better programs competing at conference isn’t a given).

Yes, as referenced by Nesac dad, my daughter is a freshman at Pomona and runs on the team. As a HS junior she also ran 5.0x 1600, and she was better at xc. To date she’s had a great time on the team, and by all accounts the coaches, Kirk and Emma, are outstanding. At her talent level, the competitive environment is more than enough for her to be challenged and to improve. There are many young women on the team and in the conference faster, but she can score points and contribute and if she sticks with it, she has a reasonable chance to be a leading runner as an upperclassmen. Pomona is an awesome liberal arts college, and the academic environment also has been great. Lots of super smart people around, challenging, but very supportive students and not overtly competitive or pre professional vibe. During recruiting, she garnered a lot of top D3 interest. She was borderline for 2nd tier (with respect to running), Ivy schools, but she was nowhere near being recruited at Harvard or Princeton. No interest at all from any D1 school of note, but she also had zero interest in that sort of environment. So far her decision to attend a strong D3 school, both academics and athletics, has been spot on for her.

As to process, my daughter was an A to A+ student with well over 1500 on the SAT, so there was no issue with academic qualifications at any of these schools. All coaches who were marginally interested had her pre qualified so to speak by the admissions office. She stayed in touch with multiple coaches by email through the spring, summer and into fall of senior year, and she updated her times and accomplishments. Some coaches were constantly emailing and others were more relaxed or not as interested. Whether or not the coach was highly engaged and reaching out was not necessarily a reflection of interest though. Some just seemed more laid back. I think some of the more aggressive coaches were a turn off. One sent her a sort of creepy birthday card for example!! My daughter visited all the campus and met with coaches (often they met too with the parents) and team members of interest and in several cases stayed overnight. This was pre Covid. Most of these visits were unofficial and occurred during spring of junior year and she set them up and we took her. Senior fall she went on a couple of official visits on her own where other recruits were present too. Ultimately it narrowed down to PP. The coaches then were willing offer a spot if the applicant applies ED. That’s how it goes with D3 at least.

For T&F at least PP only practices early one day per week, otherwise practice is in the afternoon and long runs are on Sunday mornings. I forget what they do in xc.

Yes, you are correct that Ivy likely letters do not officially come out until Oct 1st, but I can assure you that the commitments are made long before then. Granted this was all going on during COVID, but my child did all of their pre reads in June and had heard back by early July. I can still remember the comment the coach said on July 5th when we did a zoom with them that we could be done with the process now if we agreed to move forward with early decision. At that point we had done 7 prereads (3 Ivies, 3 Nescac, and PP) and had answers back from all of them.

I 100% agree with you that our timeline is not correct for everyone, and there are several people who wait until after their cross country season or even their track season is over in order to get into the school of their dreams. But in a lot of cases with these elite schools, the early bird does get the worm and going the early decision route does tend to give you a leg up with regards to coaches and their level of commitment to you. I wouldn’t wait to do visits until your senior year if you are capable of doing them this spring. They might not be official, but if you have the means, the ability to visit the school and run with the team and talk with the coaches is still on the table to you and would be very beneficial.

Yes, Nescac dad is pointing out that the timeline varies a bit based on the program and the child’s talent level. I suspect my daughter was not in quite the same demand as his child, and there are lots of others being recruited too, so lots of moving parts and musical chairs. For my daughter the PP offer did not happen until after an Oct recruiting visit, and just a few weeks before ED, and I do think her success early in senior xc helped. As a CA runner, her good performances on well known CA xc courses are probably meaningful to CA college coaches who know these courses well, more than they might move the needle for an east coast coach. I believe the coach said that he knew that such and such time at Woodward park was as helpful to him as a track time. Maybe coaches at Williams or Amherst or the Ivies would not feel the same way.

Sure, some commitments might be made by the coaches prior to Oct 1. Those are commitments to support a recruit through admissions. That’s not the same as a commitment from the admissions office, which is what the likely letter is. The result of a preread is not the same as a likely letter. The former is a signal to the coach that a recruit is probably okay for admission; the latter is a letter from admissions that a recruit *will* be admitted. As for prereads, the Ivy rule is none before July 1. (Sometimes coaches will look at the stats and call that a preread because they are limited in how many “real” prereads they get; those can happen earlier but aren’t the same as an admissions preread).

With official visits out of the picture during Covid I think some of the coach decisions were moved up. But I think with things getting back to normal we’ll see a return to official visits for Ivies in the Sept/Oct range and most coach decisions on who to support being made after OVs. In the past most of these commitments were made around Oct for Ivy recruits.

I don’t know about D3 but those coaches are usually hoping for disappointed Ivy recruits so they really can’t jump the gun too much as some of their recruits are still waiting to hear from Ivies. Ivies have to wait on recruits deciding on P5 or Ivy, then which Ivy. So it’s a big game of musical chairs and can be unclear until the end. But the good news is there’s a limited number of kids who are both fast and with great academic stats so as long as a recruit is keeping options open and flexible, and is realistic about athletic fit, she’ll find a spot. The key is not getting too attached to one school unless you’d be a major impact athlete (and even then a coach could leave in July or another better athlete emails and scramble everything).

Yes, ED is pretty much a given if one wants support from the academically selective schools, at least for most runners.

PP practices at 6:45...just FYI.