If you could choose...Stanford, Georgetown or Princeton

I will contribute to the Ivy League obsession of these boards and say Princeton.

Wait, her grades/scores are not good enough for Princeton, but they're good enough Stanford? I've always thought Stanford was harder to get into.

Anyway, you might also tell her to consider location...

Stanford = Palo Alto... awesome. The environment is a little "sterile," but it's still great. Perfect weather. you get the picture.

Georgetown = D.C... awesome. Hot in the summers, but great city. Tons to do. An hour from the mountains... I could go on.

Princton = New f#$%in' Jersey. Ugh. Gross. Pretty close to the Jersey Shore, I guess.. if that's your thing. Plus, I've never met anyone from here who wasn't a huge prick. I'm afraid my opinion is biased by that somewhat.

just your below average guy wrote:

Wait, her grades/scores are not good enough for Princeton, but they're good enough Stanford? I've always thought Stanford was harder to get into.

Anyway, you might also tell her to consider location...

Stanford = Palo Alto... awesome. The environment is a little "sterile," but it's still great. Perfect weather. you get the picture.

Georgetown = D.C... awesome. Hot in the summers, but great city. Tons to do. An hour from the mountains... I could go on.

Princton = New f#$%in' Jersey. Ugh. Gross. Pretty close to the Jersey Shore, I guess.. if that's your thing. Plus, I've never met anyone from here who wasn't a huge prick. I'm afraid my opinion is biased by that somewhat.

"Here's my opinion based on an MTV show + a guy I knew once". Princeton and the surrounding area are beautiful:

and the people are no worse than anywhere else.

Stanford is having major coaching issues right now..it might be wise to avoid Palo Alto until it gets resolved.

Georgetown has Chris Miltenberg. 400m track or not, she will thrive under that guy. Really really awesome coach.

Princeton has Peter Pharrel. Been there forever. pretty respected.

if you think Princeton is ugly and near the shore you're obviously not from the area. It is pretty, a nice ivy league campus. Georgetown might be hot in the summer but will she be there in the summer or back home. Great choices, this is why we visit the schools.

All your questions regarding getting in will be answered by the coaches as soon as she emails them. I doubt she will have trouble getting in to any of them with help from the coach but it doesn't really matter what I think.

Obviously a diploma from any of these three will set you up well for the future but Princeton and Stanford are a bit better than Georgetown.

As for coaching, Georgetown just won the NCAA cross championships. It may have been a bit of a fluke but they peaked at the right time and took advantage of some down races by other teams. I would think that they have the best thing going. Patty Sue Plummer doesn't impress me and there seems to be a revolving door for coaches at Stanford. Princeton has certainly had some good individuals but probably the weakest team of these three.

I don't see any of her concerns being much of an issue. Princeton doesn't have athletic scholarships but they do have a ton of financial aid which tends to find its way into athletes hands unless their parents are loaded. Palo Alto doesn't strike me as particularly boring but I suppose I can see where she's coming from, that said when she's studying like crazy, running 80-100 miles a week and doing whatever else college students do... I doubt it will matter, if she must do something interesting it would take no more than an hour to get to downtown San Francisco on public transit. Also fancy facilities are over-rated (particularly when winning NCAA titles).

I would recommend also looking at Villanova!!! and maybe Dartmouth.

Contact Dartmouth, you'll thank me later.

Freelove wrote:

"Here's my opinion based on an MTV show + a guy I knew once". Princeton and the surrounding area are beautiful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL05e5xn0eo

and the people are no worse than anywhere else.

Thanks for the video. It does look pretty beautiful. You're right, though, I shouldn't have opened my mouth about something I knew nothing about...! Forgive me.

I agree with the Dartmouth guy, she needs to consider more schools anyways, exapecially if she is serious about running - dartmouth, UVA, Washington,

She will freeze to death at Dartmouth. Go with Georgetown.

Physically, geographically, and especially culturally those are three pretty different schools. She should visit. (In other words, the choice between these three excellent programs is largely individual.)

> She has decided that these are her "dream schools".

That sounds just a teeny bit immature - perfectly understandable for a 17-year-old. Can you work with her to uncover her underlying motivators?

Academically those SAT scores put her in or close to the bottom quartile at all three schools, which isn't always a great place - some rise to the challenge, others don't.

just your below average guy wrote:

Princton = New f#$%in' Jersey. Ugh. Gross. Pretty close to the Jersey Shore, I guess.. if that's your thing. Plus, I've never met anyone from here who wasn't a huge prick. I'm afraid my opinion is biased by that somewhat.

Well Princeton is pretty much as far from the guidofest jersey shore people as you can get. But yes, everyone there is an enormous prick. EVERYONE.

Stanford! Bay Area is a great place with great weather about 9 months of the year. 12 months a year when there is a drought.

And should have mentioned:

Georgetown is in the cesspool of DC (nice part of a cesspool is still a cesspool)

Princeton is in Jersey. Yuck.

agneshelga wrote:

She will freeze to death at Dartmouth. Go with Georgetown.

Really retarded Abby D'Ag's developement

Mark Coogan coaching, training with Abby , how can you miss?

A lot of people have a very idealistic view of Stanford. Palo Alto is an upper middle class suburb with NOTHING to do...hence the 'Stanford Bubble'.

I'd try anyways, but be forewarned that if she is Asian then she won't have a fair chance at Stanford and Princeton which has racial discrimination quotas against East Asians and Central Asians. Eastern-Europeans, and Middle Eastern people are not part of the Anti-Asian quota.

Really can't go wrong with any of them. It should all come down to fit and where she feels most comfortable. I think from a purely track/cross country standpoint, i would go with Georgetown. Miltenberg is doing one heck of job with the Hoyas.

Sub 4:50 mile/1600m, or 1500m?

I don't know much about Georgetown running, but they aren't on the same level as Princeton and Stanford academically. I'm not sure why she would want to go there if she could go to the other two.

I've spent some time at Princeton and Stanford. The running at Stanford is a dream. The weather is great almost year-round, tons of trails, great teammates, great school. Princeton has a few running options, but it gets kind of boring and the weather can be miserable at times. Princeton has a bit of a reputation for not developing its runners fully -- they get awesome recruits but don't always do as well as maybe they should.

If you think Palo Alto is boring (I don't, but I haven't lived there, only spent a few afternoons in town), Princeton is worse, there really isn't much there aside from the school; the town itself is quite small and shuts down pretty early in the evening. The student population of Stanford is larger so there's more going on there. On weekends or for special events, Palo Alto is a fairly short cheap train ride from San Francisco, Princeton is a fairly short cheap train ride from NYC, so I think they're comparable in that sense. One difference is that Palo Alto has forests/state parks/open spaces nearby that the word "beautiful" doesn't even begin to describe. Princeton has... rural New Jersey. If she's at all an outdoorsy person, Stanford is the much nicer choice.

I don't think Princeton is a stretch if she's being recruited, recruited runners have much lower academic standards and based on what you've told us she probably fulfills them (is she in the top 1/3 of her graduating class?). *If* the coach wants her, she's probably in. Same for Stanford.

Princeton doesn't offer athletic scholarships, but it does offer generous need-based financial aid packages. If her family doesn't make a lot of money it may even be free. It would be prudent to look into that before making a decision.

There's also a significant cultural difference between east and west coast. People on the east coast can be more... intense(?) -- and it can be tough to adjust to that environment if she's from the west coast.

Princeton also has a higher percentage of recruited athletes and other types of "hooked" students, which annoyed me as a student (I wanted bright classmates).

Overall, I would go to Stanford for cultural reasons, better weather, and coaching, but different people may have different opinions.