as others have said, you need to look at D3 programs. That said, don't give up. Work your asss off and you might be competitive with mid pack d1 runners by jr or sr year. At that point, you could transfer or work on making d3 nats. Being all conference and on a conference winning team in d3 is a lot more fun than finishing 20 places from last and 2nd to last team in the conference in d1.
Edumacation foist! Get accepted to MIT and have a good time running D3
Nicks Feet Hurt wrote:
Edumacation foist! Get accepted to MIT and have a good time running D3
He wouldn't make the MIT team.
Rick Grimes wrote:
The best college program to run for (assuming coaching staff is decent) IMO is one where you can walk in and be top 7-10 right away and with some improvement in 1-3 years be in the top 5. This will challenge you and give you good workout partners but not so fast that you'll always be on the verge of injury/over training. Any program where you'll be basically racing every day to make the cut will probably burn you up, there are notable exceptions to this rule but they are few and far between. You also don't want to be invisible to the coach and if you do happen to make the team at a school and are the last runner you'll probably never have a meaningiful conversation about training with them.
Look at your PR's and look at where you could run for a school TODAY with those times, not what you think you'll hit next year, or with good training, right now. Might mean D3, NAIA, D2 or obscure D1.
This is exactly what I did. I was a 1:59/4:35/16:50 guy in HS. I was able to walk on to a D1 school and worked my butt off to be 7th man my freshman year. I was 7th again as a sophomore (there were 2 red-shirts who came back that year) and managed to be 5th man by my junior year. I dropped my PRs from 16:50 to 15:30 and 4:35 to 4:19 in less than 2 years this way. The biggest thing I had to do was force myself NOT to run my easy/recovery days with the scholarship guys. I just couldn't hang with them and give a quality effort on my hard days if I ran with them every day.
I think you should set your sights lower. Rutgers' recruiting standard is 4:20 just to be a walk-on. There is no way you can run for them. Rutgers has paid a lot of attention to sports over the past several years, and they are doing their best to recruit better and better athletes. They have a frosh right now who runs sub-4:20.
Also, don't use the division number as an indicator of academic strength. D3 schools, in general, are much stronger academically than D2, and many of them are stronger than D1. There are many D3 schools which are pricey liberal arts/science schools that are not easy to get into. Sports is almost an afterthought. For example, Muhlenberg is a very good D3 school, but if you can run 4:47, you'd be in their top five right now. Something like that might be better for you; you can go to a good school and enjoy running on a team without feeling like the team consumes your whole life.
Do what I did: get a list of all the schools that have track programs, in the states you are interested in. Visit the track team's Web page. You'll see their schedule and the results. You can get an idea of what caliber runners are on the team.
Nicholls State LA ... Trust me. theyll give you a scholarship ,, they suck.. my brother has been the the XC mvp 4 times in a row. his 8k PR is 27:12 . theyve come dead last in their conference 14 years in a row. only 2 guys break 30 on the reg
Why assume the OP is male?
OP, I have to strongly encourage you to NOT try walking on to an "easy" D1 school. The only way I can recommend it is if you don't really care about improving or taking running seriously. And if you care at all about academics, definitely think more about a D3 school.
Why do I have a right to suggest this? I made the very mistake you are about to make. I walked onto a very weak D1 program with times that gave me no business running D1. My high school PRs were 16:41 5k, 9:57 3200 and 4:38 1600. I made the top 7, but I got SMOKED at the big meets. I finished no better than middle of the pack in smaller races. I lasted one year and quit running for 6 years after that. I was training with guys who were so much faster than I was and I was pushing too hard on recovery days just to run with the team. The academics were nothing to write home about either.
With that said, are there D1 schools that would take you? Yes. A ton of posters here think you NEED to run 9:30 and sub 16 to have a shot, but that is just if you want to run for a mediocre or semi respectable team (as a walk on). There are actually some D1 teams out there that are embarrassingly slow, but would you really thrive there?
If this hasn't changed your mind, here are a list of terribly slow D1 schools out there that would take you (just off the top of my head):
Tennessee State University (I would venture to guess that this is the slowest D1 team in the nation)
Robert Morris (A guy I went to HS with never made our top 7 and was in RMU's top 7 by his jr year....he never broke mid 18s in HS)
Wofford
Seton Hall
Tennessee Tech
Evansville
Presbyterian College
Because if she's run 2:07/4:47, she's not the one having to reach out...
Add Florida Gulf Coast for the women and the weather !
Vurzaa wrote:
I would like a good training program that will have me improve each year. My times are...
5k: 18:22,
1600m: 4:47
800m: 2:07
I'm hoping to get faster since i'm currently in indoor season.
I know I can't walk on any of the great teams but what about Ohio State, Michigan State, & Rutgers? What are some other good D1 schools I could walk on to. And I don't have a problem with D2 schools like Malone, Ashland, or Grand Valley State but they are the top dogs in their division.
Side note: I prefer D1 because of the academics and experience.
2:07?
A female, maybe.
There are thousands of high school runners fater that have no intention of running in college