Do recruits actually care about "development" when they're choosing a school?

In my opinion, there are 3 main types of recruits:

1. People wanting to get into the best college they can who don't care much about the team environment
2. Wannabe pros
3. (Actual) middle class kids who want the most aid

I don't know if I agree with that completely but I'd call it "mostly correct."

In my experience, it's all about options. The nice thing about track is most kids control their aid by how fast they can run. The kids with a lot of options are going to be harder to lock down than the kids without any options obviously.

Where I was at before we would talk about development and what our plan was for them over 4 years. Some kids bought into that and some kids asked, "that's great, but do you have an indoor track facility?"

My point for this thread is to hear what coaches on all levels see from their athletes. From the high school perspective, what are your athletes talking about? From the college perspective, what do you find that works and how do you feel about what I mentioned in my first post?

FWIW, daughter looked at schools which aligned with her intended major (medicine/nursing) first, then the track program. She did her research on the coach/coach's history as well as the athletes progression who ran the same event via tffrs and milesplit. She didn't want to be the best in her event the first day of campus; she wanted a program, not be the program! The coach shared his vision for the team/program, and our daughter was on board. To that end, her event event group has been at/near the top during her time.

No they care about what school would look best for their Instagram post.

Then with new transfer rules, they transfer to a shiny new school that looks even better on Instagram.

Your situation is the same as mine. I almost laughed reading it. We lose out to big D1 programs and programs who are good in XC (even if they do nothing on the track or if they are weak academically.)... and now with some teams throwing NIL deals in it's even harder.

To answer your question, (and you already know the answer), no, the majority of recruits do not have the foresight to realize that they may actually benefit from a system like yours. They like the sound of being on team X because of the perception that goes with that school... looks good to their peers Some of them do well at schools like that others languish.

How I handle it is to be very up front with what they will get. No school is perfect... all have pluses and minuses. I'm upfront with things.

The bad thing about that is I lose a lot of recruits with that approach, however, those who identify with that approach are happy to be at the school.

My observations have been there is a lot of interest among the "average" recruit on the visuals of schools they're looking at. By "visuals," I mean how recognizable the name is, how nice the facilities are, the prestige level of the school (division level, how competitive the team is), and overall just how his/her friends are going to perceive them going there. So basically, like others have said, it's all about how much they can flex to others they "went d1" or whatever. All of that I lament greatly.

TBH, I wouldn't spend much time trying to pull those recruits. Looking for maturity, which is scarce among people that age, is a big factor in my opinion. You can be all in on investing in an athlete, but if they don't want to invest in the program, what does it matter? Developing an athlete can only go as far as the athlete is willing to take it. So, if the athlete only wants to go as far as it takes to transfer to the big name school, then that's where it's gonna go. If he/she wants to go all-in on your program, the sky is the limit.

Again, this is a select few number of people in any given recruiting class. But, they're out there. I'd rather have a program full of fully-committed athletes with moderate talent than a program stacked with a bunch of mega talent that's willing to jump ship at a moment's notice.

My experience is only with my kid personally.. but she looked at all the factors including major, location and also the team. She was offered a full ride at a school w a team that wasn't super successful and chose not to go- but the location (the middle of nowhere) also played a very large factor. She also could have gone to a power school but decided she didn't want to be just another runner the coach would train as hard as possible then discard if she couldn't produce results fast enough the first year. SO she chose the middle- a team that had great potential - the team was showing huge promise with recent results and being part of getting a program up a few notches in the national standings and playing that pivotal role was exciting, and has been. The coach is patient and develops kids long term. Shes made huge progress and PR's every year.

Her best friend wanted the opposite. She wanted to show up and be the best in her event group, get all the attention from coach and so chose a school that matched that for her- they are not a power school but she loves the feeling of being a big fish in her small pond.

so just my experience. some want to be instantly the best in their world- others do see the big picture and also some want to be the 9th runner but on a national championship team.

I think the other part that plays a factor is travel. Does the team go to the big fun meets? Do they only stay local? My daughter loves the travel portion. Seeing other parts of the country and being able to mix it up with the best out there. Not just staying local and running small dual type meets.

Don't forget about the 4th option. Kids and parents that only care about D1 and won't even give a look at other choices. We knew a javelin girl from the midwest that only looked at D1 schools and was decent in high school but the 140th girl nationally at D1.

That's nice to hear. There's definitely a lot of kids who consider all of their options like this and have a great perspective.

With that said, I don't fault a kid for wanting to go big and take a chance on themselves.

Thank you! She did, and will be competing in Austin next weekend at the NCAA Championships.

I always see it as a 4 part breakdown in this order.

1. Cost- both for the athlete and school. If they don’t have the money or you can’t afford it, no deal.

2. Fit (major, distance from home, event group etc) they don’t have a pole vault coach on staff but a volunteer and that’s your event? Pass

3. will I get better, with the transfer portal I will leave if I don’t get better.

4. Stuff- cool campus, gear, swag, football games etc.

For what it's worth: my junior daughter has been talking to a few D1 coaches for a couple of months now. Her priorities are: 1. the quality of the school, 2. the area of the country, and 3. whether they have a good distance program. Perhaps there is a better way to do this, but the only way we know how to gauge whether a school puts money into distance is by looking at the top 25/30 XC teams at the NCAA finals. Put all of these together and that's how she chose which programs to contact. Although some of the very top running programs are alluring, she knows its likely she may never even race at these schools. She is looking for a program where she can stay and develop, race at some point, and not get so burned out that she actually still likes to run recreationally after college.

I agree that high school runners (and high school students in general) care a lot about the "visuals" of the college they choose. But this isn't primarily their fault; it's how we as a society have chosen to treat our university system: as primarily a vehicle for prestige.

The name of your college follows you around the rest of your life: when applying for jobs or graduate school, when meeting new people, when helping your kids through the college process. And the system is set up so that this name alone has a massive effect on how you are perceived.

From a running perspective, imagine you meet someone, find out they used to be a serious runner decades ago, and ran varsity for _____ university. You're going to have an immediate opinion of that person, which will be very different depending on whether the school was Oregon vs. Stanford vs. Maryland vs. Iona vs. North Central vs. Yale, or any other school. Maybe it's subtle, or quickly pushed out by other evidence, but first impressions matter. And this person encounters some variant of your reaction with every single person they meet.

So again, I agree with your post, and I agree that it's a problem. But the whole mess that is college choices is one that we as a society have created and maintained, and we shouldn't blame high schoolers for living in the world that we've set up for them.

That's mostly true, but prestige doesn't matter. I attended a non-ivy college and at both of my internships (including one at a bulge bracket bank), under half of the cohort attended one. This wouldn't be the case if you had to attend an Ivy

I disagree. Other than a very few schools once you get a bit beyond school no one cares. (There are a few schools that the name does mean something beyond your first job but it's not a lot.)

A lot of it is absolutely name brand. If you are a mid-major program, expect yourself to basically be a farm team for larger schools. For larger programs, don’t waste your time developing talent when you can easily purchase it from the transfer portal.

Look at St. Louis. Just had an Aussie kid go 13:30 and finish 11th in the East to qualify for nationals in Austin. So then he hits the portal. They brought him in, made him not a bust at the NCAA level, so they go elsewhere.

The game has changed. Kids don’t have to settle. Coaches don’t have to settle either. I think your name matters more than it ever did before.

I don't think this will answer your question, but in my experience as a college athlete I learned there are two types of successful coaches - good coaches and good recruiters. There are coaches whose athletes consistently improve and can often take sub-par hs athletes and make them scorers at the collegiate level, and then there are those who buy the top recruits. I wish someone had told me the difference before I chose my school.