Does anyone know about recruiting in the ivies,I know football uses the band system. Does XC do this as well? Or in other words how good would you have to be to get in with these stats: GPA unweighted: 3.5(in AP and honors classes at a school that is consistintly ranked in the top 100 schools in the country) SAT:2050. Ethnic minority(if that helps).By the way I meant to say this earlier but I am asking for times for a male distance runner.
They rank highschools now? Seriously?
Your class rank matters if you're looking for automatic admission, I think it helps to be in the top third(?) of your graduating class.
What is the band system?
What times have you run?
band system- something that I know they use for football players, it's really complicated. It's like the coach rates how good the kid is and usually the better the kid the lower the AI.
times-9:50 4:28 as a junior
I really think there is little consideration for academics as long as you are at an acceptable level academically, which you are. Granted, that level is very high, and you are below average statistcally for all those who will be accepted.
The coach is trying to field the best team possible and will create a list of those highly interested and get you to make an official visit, look at Freshman recruits for the last couple of years for a specific school and figure out the range. I would shoot for 1:57/4:20/9:15. Slower maybe acceptable, but if you look at incoming Freshman you will see a lot of 4:10 guys.
I don't think a 1:57 will get you much, but maybe I'm wrong. What's a 4:10 convert to? 1:53-1:52.xx
I don't think you're up to snuff for "automatic-in", unfortunately. Your times are equivalent to mine my senior year, and I ran D3. My grades and test scores were better than yours (3.7 and 2250 if I remember correctly, that was a long time ago). Ivy schools can land 9:10 or 9:15 talent fairly consistently, so I'd guess that you'd have to be under 9:20 to get your foot in the door no matter what.
If you get into an Ivy, it won't be for your athletic abilities. 4:30 milers are a dime a dozen. Being an ethnic minority is a big help, however, in terms of getting in. I don't mean to be politically incorrect, and I can't say "being a minority is worth X points on the SAT or your GPA" but it DOES help a lot. Your grades are decent, and if you can write a good essay and get good recommendations, you might stand a chance at some of the lower-tier Ivies (i.e. not Harvard, Princeton, and Yale).
My kid is running at one of the Ivy League colleges this year, and just went through the recruiting process. But even so, the details of the system were never spelled out for us - maybe because we never asked, not sure. They may differ from college to college as well - again, I'm not sure.
The rough system as I understand it is that the coach is allowed to rank a certain number of recruits - the number will differ with each sport - and within this rank list, he can specify which athletes he most wants, down to the lower priority ones. This list is then submitted to admissions, and they review the files in the context of the list. I'm sure there are a lot of details missing here but that's basically how it works.
The admissions office reviewed my child's file in October, and we were notified shortly thereafter with a likely letter. My understanding is that the higher the rank assigned by the coach, the more leeway the admissions office will give the applicant in terms of grades and SAT scores -but there was a minimum academic floor below which they would not accept someone no matter how much the coach wanted them. Whether there is some complex formula for determining the exact cutoffs for all this, I really don't know. I don't think that's really public information.
You can get an idea of recruits times by looking on Dyestat - I assume they still have the list of recruits up there from last year, though you may have to dig around some in the archives.
I don't mean to be pessimistic, but your times seem very slow. The Ivys actually attract some very high level talent. Your best bet would be to directly contact some of the coaches by filling out their recruiting forms, and then following up with emails. But almost all the 3200 times I am familiar with were in the 9:20 range or lower. Some were considerably lower - see Princeton's and Harvard's recruits. 1600 times I am familiar with were generally 4:20 or better - again, some a lot better, depending on the school.
Your academics also appear marginal to me - your SAT scores are acceptable, as long as one of them wasn't very low - but they are certainly not outstanding in the context of the Ivys, and your GPA seems very low for Ivy League. Almost all the recruits I was familiar with were much closer to 4.0.
There is variation - admission standards at Harvard, Yale and Princeton are going to be the toughest, but the others are not far behind.
I wish you all the best.
When you say 'ethnic minority' that really isn't enough. The question would be are you an underrepresented minority? If you are an overrepresented minority, say Asian, it will actually be something of a hinderance.
haha no I am not Asian. I am Hispanic, so that is kind of underepresented.
Are you in contact with any of the coaches currently? I know many of the coaches in the Ivy league and I will tell you now, getting them on your side is a big hurdle in getting admited to an ivy. So, if no one is recruiting you, or only a couple are, get in touch with the other coaches you have not heard from. The pool the Ivy league recruits from is enormous, larger then any other recruiting pool in the nation as far as I am concerned, so they often miss people who do not recruit themselves, and many coaches have a tendancy to feel far busier then they actually are, so they get lazy and recruit on easily available scores instead of potential or the proverbial diamond in the rough.
Being hispanic helps, but only if the ivy you are looking at "needs" hispanic students. They go through waves, some years needing many to maintin their "diversity", sometimes not needing many at all. Also, you need to figure out what school within the ivy institution you want to apply to. Each ivy has multiple schools that make admissions decisions seperate of general admissions like at most other higher learning institutions. Some are easier to get admited to then others within the same institution.
Do you have ANY C's or worse in your Junior or Sophomore year, AP/Honors classes included? If so, your chances drop drastically. Also, look into taking subject ACT exams, some programs really like seeing those, like if you want to be an Engineer, look into the Math subject exam.
Finally, seriously look into doing early decision/action. It increases your likelihood of being admited drastically. Call and talk to one of the coaches about it. They can fill you in.
Good luck.
Email coaches. Seriously, this is common-sense stuff and you claim to be smart.
Start with Penn and Yale, I'm sure they're desperate.
Ivy recruiting help wrote:
band system- something that I know they use for football players, it's really complicated. It's like the coach rates how good the kid is and usually the better the kid the lower the AI.
times-9:50 4:28 as a junior
Yeah I don't think that's how it works. For XC/Track, the coach basically flags the kids he wants, and if the grades are good enough he gets him automatically. "Good enough" means his SATs are above a certain value (1950 or 2100 I think? can't remember) and he's in the top third (I think?) of his class. If the academics aren't there, the kid may be able to get in anyway, especially if he's an exceptional runner, but it isn't guaranteed.
Your times don't seem to be fast enough yet to be recruited. But talking to the coaches would definitely be worthwhile, and depending what else is going on in your life, it sounds like you have a chance of getting in to at least one of those schools and walking on to the team. Good luck :)
Um, a 3.5 GPA is really, really low for high school, especially if you are looking at Ivy League schools. I'm at an Ivy and don't know anyone who got a GPA that low in high school (well, nobody talks about it, but most people were valedictorian or salutatorian at their respective schools). If you are a National Merit Finalist or did extremely well on the national level for academic contest (Intel Science Search, American National Chemistry Exam/Olympiad, Scholastic Writing Award, etc.) you have a chance.
Also, your times aren't that great. Why are you considering D1 schools?