Ivy answer is easy. No athletic scholarships at the Ivies. So unless you qualify for financial aid or have a spare $400k floating around, it's not a good value choice.
Stanford takes about 3 ladies each year, and basically has their pick of the top recruits. Stanford in theory should win ncaa xc every year, but the recruits often don't pan out as college runners, despite their stellar hs careers. If you can't get one of those 3 slots, you must look further.
The next group of ladies are now picking NC State as academics not as bad as this board likes to claim. The pack has a future MD, engineer and Veterinarian from recent teams. Team environment is excellent, recent results quite good, and Raleigh a fun warm place to live.
As a guy with a degree from an Ivy, I see no issue with choosing a non-Ivy. there are a lot of things to consider when picking a school and there is no reason to think that an Ivy League school is automatically the best fit over NC State or anywhere else.
Ivy answer is easy. No athletic scholarships at the Ivies. So unless you qualify for financial aid or have a spare $400k floating around, it's not a good value choice.
Stanford takes about 3 ladies each year, and basically has their pick of the top recruits. Stanford in theory should win ncaa xc every year, but the recruits often don't pan out as college runners, despite their stellar hs careers. If you can't get one of those 3 slots, you must look further.
The next group of ladies are now picking NC State as academics not as bad as this board likes to claim. The pack has a future MD, engineer and Veterinarian from recent teams. Team environment is excellent, recent results quite good, and Raleigh a fun warm place to live.
I know vet school is a graduate program, but US News & World Report rankings for 2025 has NC State's tied for 5th-ranked in the US (and yes I realize that the Ivy League is represented by 2nd ranked Cornell and tied-for-5th-ranked Penn in this list):
1. University of California at Davis
2. Cornell University
3. Colorado State University
4. Ohio State University
5. NC State, Texas A & M, U of Florida at Gainesville, University of Pennsylvania, University of Wisconsin at Madison
I realize that such rankings sometimes seem way off, can get gamed (recall the fraud from Columbia University a few years ago), and can rankle, but NC State does reportedly have a top vet school.
You think top national runners pick a school solely based on a subjective academic ranking?
There's academics, team culture, coaching reputation, weather, proximity to family, overall fit of the top of my head. NC State probably beats the Ivies on most of those factors and its still a top 50 school for academics unlike BYU, Oregon, Alabama, New Mexico etc. Stanford is the clear choice if you're a top runner on the west coast but for those on the other side of the country, NC State has developed a strong program (what shocked me was Sadie Engelhardt choosing to go there but again she must have liked something about their team culture/coach).
Out of curiosity I looked up the college acceptance rate for some of the top XC schools: Stanford 4% Notre Dame 12% NC State 38% Wisconsin 44% Penn State 61% BYU 69% Alabama 77% New Mexico 79% Oregon 88% NAU 91%
So if you're a runner focused on academics, Stanford is a no-brainer for the west coast and Notre Dame might be preferred if you're in the upper midwest but its a Catholic school which may not appeal to everyone.
Academically there are many other schools in between Stanford and NC state
Clearly you are not very bright and you are not an elite runner. How many top 10 running schools are in that group? Clearly Stanford is the top academic university in that list. But Harvard, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt have mediocre running programs that won’t develop a top runner. At least NC State is still respectable academically unlike the majority of the running schools.
Easy answer, they want to win title. My kid would say the same thing. You don't need a degree from a school to be successful, but how many kids can win a ncaa title?
If you aren't one of the 3 for Stanford and want top academics AND a competitive program (and aren't Mormon), look at the top 30 teams at NCAA year in year out that are the so-called "Public Ivys" look at Univ of Washington, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. Even if you aren't getting a full scholarship, it's not crazy expensive while having great academics, strong alum networks, etc.