Could I get into Stanford or Princeton?

foreign hs runner wrote:

I did some research and figured that those are the places I would be the happiest. Great combinations between athletics and academics (I'll probably study engineering or computer science or math or something) along with beautiful enviroments that are great for distance running. What other universities offer that?

What about Dartmouth College? Distance coach Mark Coogan has been instrumental in helping Abbey D'Agostino to being a national champion as a sophomore and helping Ethan Shaw to a conference XC title as a senior. He's been at the schhol for two years now and I believe he would be very receptive of someone of your current standing.

Also, Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering is very good as well. Check out the links below.

And the Hanover area is gorgeous: plenty of hills for a scenic long run.

FYI: I am not a Dartmouth alum

I don't have a lot of experience with 800 recruits but again I think some of the times being thrown around are perhaps too pessimistic. I do know that 1:54 will not get you recruited by P or S, but I'm betting that a 1:51 would get some attention, especially if you have shown good progression and improvement with your running. There are not too many 1:47 or 1:48 guys in the entire nation out of high school, so I don't think those are the numbers. They would love to have them, but they just aren't there.

For your SATs, you can make some rapid and substantial improvement with study. My kid used Barrons flash cards - they have a lot of the rules of grammar for English and you should really study those a lot. Also a lot of SAT type vocabulary. And then the College Board practice tests. Do a lot of them. You don't need to 'simulate' taking the test, like they suggest. Just practice over and over - you will definitely see patterns between the tests - they test the same material over and over. You can also get SAT vocabulary lists free online. Study them as much as you can - they will also help with the reading comprehension sections. My kid went mid 500's to mid 700's on the reading and writing sections using this approach.

Best wishes.

Thanks a lot guys! I'll definately check out Dartmouth!

My age progression looks something like this:

13: 2:34

14: 2:11

15: 2:05

16: 2:01

17: 1:57,8 (Injured. Could probably have been 1:55 healthy)

18: 1:54,12 (going for 1:52)

As for the SAT, do you think I should invest in these:

http://viewitem.eim.ebay.no/BARRONS-SAT-FLASH-CARDS--IRA-K-WOLF-PHD-SHARON-WEINER-GREEN-PAPERBACK-NEW/360474173596/item

I've already bought the Barron's SAT 2400: Aiming for the perfect score, and the collegeboards SAT guide at like 900 pages. This is gonna be a boring summer, but hopefully it'll be worth it.

Your times are good enough to get help at Princeton but not Stanford. You need to bump that SAT up to 2100. For an aspiring engineer, 700 is way low. Get online and do tons of prep tests. Your English writing seems ok here, and as a Norwegian haven't you had years and years of English? Tell them that you live on a farm, or in a little fishing village, you were raised by a single parent, you started running to recover from bone surgery, you were nearly a victim of the recent massacre on that island, anything to make you stand out from everyone else. I think you have a geed shot at Princeton, get in touch with the coach soon.

Lykke til.

The best SAT book is "Cracking the SAT" by Princeton Review. Check out the Princeton Review website.

Yes, I have had years of english. Not as much as american kids, but I realize now that that's no excuse to do badly on the SAT writing and reading.

Hahah, that could be the plot of a good book someday, but I think I would be going to far by using it to get admitted. And thank you! I'm preparing some e-mails to send to coaches right now.

Tusen takk! Det skal jeg gjøre!

Gjør ditt beste.  Hold på dine drømmer.

Of course, you shouldn't lie on your admissions applications, but you need to think of anything and everything that is unusual about your life. You will be competing against thousands of other foreign kids for only a few places. Help from the track coach is going to make it a lot easier, probably your only chance at those schools.

Do you run for a club in Norway? If so, there is a good chance that someone in the club will have a connection with an American university of the caliber you are interested in, especially if it is an Oslo based club

foreign hs runner wrote:

As for the SAT, do you think I should invest in these:

http://viewitem.eim.ebay.no/BARRONS-SAT-FLASH-CARDS--IRA-K-WOLF-PHD-SHARON-WEINER-GREEN-PAPERBACK-NEW/360474173596/item

I've already bought the Barron's SAT 2400: Aiming for the perfect score, and the collegeboards SAT guide at like 900 pages. This is gonna be a boring summer, but hopefully it'll be worth it.

Yes, these are the flash cards my kids used. He found them easier to use than the SAT books - went through them and marked the ones he didn't know, and then studied, and then went through the smaller pile, etc etc until he knew pretty much all of it.

In terms of the SAT practice tests, he would pick and choose the sections from different tests - he was weak on grammar so he ended up doing all of the tests in the entire book that had to do with grammar. It really worked - I think he got virtually all those questions right on his second try - he said the actual test was so easy after doing all the practice ones.

I second what C/M runner wrote about Dartmouth - it is a nice program and I have known a lot of students who have gone there - it offers excellent undergraduate education, and has a reputation for attracting students who enjoy outdoors activities. Any you will have no problem adjusting to the snow and cold winters....

The better 8th graders (e.g., age 13) were getting scores of 1900+ with 700+ in math, most of whom are not going to get into either place. Thus, score-wise these are weak. There are websites that have accepted and rejected SAT scores/GPAs so that you can see what the distributions look like. I would guess that there are kids with 2400s being rejected at Stanford.

Back when I was going to college I knew people that had 4.0/1600 (only math and verbal scores then) that did not get in to CalTech.

That said, if you are from a non-English speaking country, especially one where English is not common (e.g., exclude all or most of Europe), then the non-math scores will look better, but you did not indicate a TOEFL score.

As for marks, 49.7/1:54.1 are good but not great running times, but Wisconsin probably has kids with those marks that are not even on the track team.

Drømmene skal helt klart bli virkelige!

I've talked with the coaches in my club and it doesn't seem like they have a lot of contacts in the USA. I'm not from Oslo, btw, but from some smaller city longer south. But if I see a situation where my track coach would be able to help me get admitted, I'll definately let him know!

I have already bought the Baron's critical reading book, as that was my weakest score, but maybe I'll invest in the grammar book aswell. I don't think the math will be a big problem as I got 700 without any preparation.

I've thought about it and I'll definately contact the Dartmouth coach as well. Cause it's right that I'm pretty used to running in snow in cold temperatures.

I haven't taken the TOEFL yet, but I'll do it as soon as possible.

And once again I'd like to say thank you to all of you! You are of great help!

Bor du i Tønsberg?

As others have pointed, if you also have cross country times, that could help. Even cross-country ski times could indicate some good overall fitness that might interest coaches at places you mention.

Vil helst ikke avsløre hvor jeg bor, men det er ikke i Tønsberg.

I actually do a fair amount of cross-country skiing during winter, as part of my base training. I don't have any times though..

hopefully future olympian wrote:

Vil helst ikke avsløre hvor jeg bor, men det er ikke i Tønsberg.

I actually do a fair amount of cross-country skiing during winter, as part of my base training. I don't have any times though..

Hah, sorry, that was me. Just created another thread and forgot to change names.

I do not know how it affects athletic-team considerations, but in general schools look for some 'mix' of students. Sometimes, having students that are good in idiosyncratic ways fits in to what the school is looking for at that point in time. However, it is very difficult to forecast what those unusual elements are since it is a little like a soccer team that one year takes a goalie that they would not ordinarily take because they were short on goalies, while the next year they are no longer short on goalies and that is not the unusual element that they are looking for.

By the way, I do think that the Dartmouth-type school, still very good but where the level of athletes would make you further up their list of candidates - is a very good notion to follow up on. There have been a number of good athletes that have gone to the Ivy League schools, then gotten very good and used their last year of eligibility to run at a star school (like Wisconsin and Colorado). Wisconsin had a transfer from Dartmouth a decade or more ago that ended up running 29-flat and I think his marks going in were not as good as yours, and might not have been much better when he transferred to Wisconsin (and Wisconsin is one of the best distance/XC schools in the country year-in, year-out).

Jeg kan hjelpe deg med dette problemet.  Hvis du vil at råd, vil jeg gi deg min e-post.  Mange år siden, kjørte jeg på Princeton.  Etterpå, jeg var i gradsstudier ved Stanford.  Jeg beklager, men jeg snakker ikke norsk godt.

Synes norsken din er helt grei! Og det blir satt utrolig stor pris på! Oppgi e-posten din, så sender jeg deg en mail.

And I get what you're saying, 26mi235. I'm crossing my fingers that these universities are looking for a student exactly like me! And I'll clearly follow up on Dartmouth.

Send to:

Run.tiger12@gmail.com