What schools could I get recruited by/ run on?

CruiserTom,

Middle of the road D3 is the best you will get unless you drop your times significantly. And wow, with your GPA, stay the hell away from those colleges you mentioned (though Findlay actually has a good Computer Science program with close ties to Marathon Oil so that good students get jobs coming out of college, but Findlay is D2 and you are way too slow for that.).

I know a guy who didn't break 17:00 in HS CC and ran for Wooster and turned into a pretty good D3 runner.

For D3 in Ohio (considering academics first) with your GPA, I would try these top 4 in order of academic greatness:

Oberlin (if you can handle the liberalness)

Kenyon

Denison (leans conservative)

Wooster

Case Western (better in some ways than the others, but overall I say it goes here)

After that in Ohio I would go with second-tier colleges:

Ohio Wesleyan (very nice coaching staff for CC and track these days)

Wittenberg

BottomsUp wrote:

Completely disregarding your other idiocies, you put Ohio State in the same category as Stanford? And think it's a better school than ANY D3 school (including MIT, Pomona, Amherst, etc.)? Really? Also, it's been established you're a lying troll, so I wouldn't be too proud about your invented resume.

1) No, it's not established anywhere, but thanks for trying to change the narrative.

2) What a moron. I never said the schools I listed are a "better school than ANY d3 school". Quote me where I said that and I will leave this forum forever. Oh guess what, I didn't say that. Oops!

Sometimes you have to hit knuckle-dragging low IQ idiots like you with a sledgehammer to get the point across, since nuance and subtleties often go missed.

If OP attended any of the schools I listed, he would be set-up for success. All of them are fine academic institutions (certainly not all on par with each other but that's not the point) and OP can make the most of his talents/hopes at any of them.

Flagpole wrote:

Oberlin (if you can handle the liberalness)

Kenyon

Denison (leans conservative)

Wooster

Case Western (better in some ways than the others, but overall I say it goes here)

OMG seriously?? The kid has a 4.0 in HS and the best you're telling him to shoot for is Kenyon, Oberlin or Case Western??? He may very well have a legitimate shot at attending a top tier academic institution out of state. Why are we limiting the discussion to 2nd-tier Ohio schools?

You are leading OP down a potentially life-ruining move, sacrificing a top-end education in order to pursue a meager D3 career running fro Oberlin!

The lack of common sense here is staggering!

George II wrote:

Lol.

THE OHIO STATE!! Yippee OSU going wild they're compared to Stanford and Vandy!

btw Amherst, Williams, Wash U, Harvey Mudd, and MIT are all horrible![/quote]

Would you really pay full price for out of state Wash U tuition if you got into OSU for in state tuition? That's an incredibly massive difference in price, especially if he has to take out interest bearing loans to fund his D3 Wash U adventure.

formerD1 wrote:

Rocket surgeon wrote:

And yet you couldn't understand a simple comparison post. Are you one of those people who fancies himself highly intelligent but doesn't have the sense God gave a horse?

First, I think you forgot to login to your regular username. It's pretty pathetic you need to use 3 separate accounts to respond to someone you deem is lacking in common sense.

This shows that you really DON'T have the sense God gave a horse. Even horses can count past one. I'm a different guy than the one you think you're responding to. There are at least 2, probably many more, people here who think you're a joke and a blowhard. Stop spending so much time patting yourself on the back so you can comprehend what's going on.

Again, this kid is not D1 material athletically so shut up about D1 schools. HE wants to know where HE has a chance to run collegiately, not what D1 schools YOU think are good academically.

formerD1 wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

Oberlin (if you can handle the liberalness)

Kenyon

Denison (leans conservative)

Wooster

Case Western (better in some ways than the others, but overall I say it goes here)

OMG seriously?? The kid has a 4.0 in HS and the best you're telling him to shoot for is Kenyon, Oberlin or Case Western??? He may very well have a legitimate shot at attending a top tier academic institution out of state. Why are we limiting the discussion to 2nd-tier Ohio schools?

You are leading OP down a potentially life-ruining move, sacrificing a top-end education in order to pursue a meager D3 career running fro Oberlin!

The lack of common sense here is staggering!

1) This kid was targeting schools in Ohio, and really bad ones at that. I gave him better options in Ohio. Had he said he would consider other states, AND we had more academic info, I might steer him elsewhere.

2) Just an "above 4.0" isn't enough to send him to just any school. Lots of "above 4.0" students get a 29 on the ACT or an SAT equivalent which keeps them out of a lot of schools, even Oberlin and Kenyon. He has a 34 on the ACT and doesn't mind working hard and leaving Ohio, then I would suggest some other schools.

3) Oberlin and Kenyon are elite liberal arts colleges, both in the top 25 nationally. And, if you are a musician, Oberlin is even greater, and if you want to be a writer, Kenyon is even greater. Both of those schools are excellent. Case is a step down in my opinion, but for some areas of study, it is still pretty good. BUT, all of them are worlds better than the crap schools he mentioned initially. I know several people who graduated from Oberlin, and they are all successful people, and all of them have graduate degrees. Excellent school.

Try again.

Rocket surgeon wrote:

This shows that you really DON'T have the sense God gave a horse. Even horses can count past one. I'm a different guy than the one you think you're responding to. There are at least 2, probably many more, people here who think you're a joke and a blowhard. Stop spending so much time patting yourself on the back so you can comprehend what's going on.

Again, this kid is not D1 material athletically so shut up about D1 schools. HE wants to know where HE has a chance to run collegiately, not what D1 schools YOU think are good academically.

1) Again, do you have any clue what D1 material is? Did you run D1? Answer that question. Not all D1 schools are Stanford and Oregon. There are D1 schools with strong academic programs with shoddy XC teams that would welcome a walk-on running in the 16s and 4:30s for the mile if he would be fine not getting a roster-spot. There are a LOT of D1 schools out there. But thanks for ruling that out for the OP.

2. He is a HS student. Not only does he have no idea what he wants in life, he also has no clue what questions he should be asking. Any HS kid who claims to have his whole life planned out is a fool, and you are treating him like a fool.

If you want to give the OP some real, honest advice, it would probably look something along the lines of: "go attend the best academic program you can get into, and consider giving up running if it comes to that because a D3 running career will never equal the value of a great education."

Flagpole wrote:

3) Oberlin and Kenyon are elite liberal arts colleges, both in the top 25 nationally. And, if you are a musician, Oberlin is even greater, and if you want to be a writer, Kenyon is even greater. Both of those schools are excellent. Case is a step down in my opinion, but for some areas of study, it is still pretty good. BUT, all of them are worlds better than the crap schools he mentioned initially. I know several people who graduated from Oberlin, and they are all successful people, and all of them have graduate degrees. Excellent school.

The fact that he listed those crap schools in the first place should have raised immediate alarm bells for you.

The kid appears to be so misguided that he is contemplating attending such schools for the sole purpose of being able to run D3!

He needs a good smack in the head. He's never going to be an Olympian, so he needs to chase the best education he can get. If he works hard and is lucky, heck he could even walk-on a D1 team. D1 should never have been out of the question at all. And out of state D3 schools (like Wash U) should also be seriously considered, instead of confining our misguiding OP to looking only at Ohio schools.

He needs guidance, not a shopping list of D3 schools in Ohio that may let him run.

You have excellent grades, I'd find out which elite school -- be it any athletic classification -- accepts you with the most non-student loan financial aid and go from there.

If you don't make the varsity track team, there are often some good intramural/club options at bigger schools.

There certainly are some excellent D3 schools in which you could run at and get a good education. But I'd keep academics No. 1, you have the grades that dictate a promising future.

The man has a point - he could probably walk-on to a D1 XC team in the SEC as many of them are absolutely horrible.

Not very strong academically, but respectable enough, and certainly better than the options he initially listed.

formerD1 wrote:

He's never going to be an Olympian,

How do you know he's never going to be an Olympian? Were you ever an Olympian?

Gotta admire your persistence, and the way you work the fact that you were D1into so many posts where it has nothing to do with the discussion, but give it a rest already. Now you're contradicting your own logic, such as it is.

Rocket surgeon wrote:

How do you know he's never going to be an Olympian? Were you ever an Olympian?

Gotta admire your persistence, and the way you work the fact that you were D1into so many posts where it has nothing to do with the discussion, but give it a rest already. Now you're contradicting your own logic, such as it is.

You're right, I don't know for sure. But what I do know is that improving from a 17:40 5K runner to a 16:00 5K runner is very possible, even if it takes a year of running unattached/club team XC. I also know that with a 4.0 GPA, assuming he has decent test scores, he can get into some fine undergraduate schools. Which is why I'm recommending to OP the best possible (and most reasonably likely) path: 1) top academic D1 school that he can try to walk-on later or 2) top academic D3 school that he can try to walk-on now. The kid has a 4.0. That already puts him in a top percentile for his peer level. There's going to be some school in the nation that has solid academics that will let him run. He just has to find that school. That school could be D1, D2 D3, could be in Ohio or Florida or Tennessee. We don't know, he has to look, and keep his options open.

Regarding the Olympics, going from a 17:40 5K to a 13:25 needed to run at the Olympics is a different order of difficulty - so what are you suggesting? Just because it may be possible that OP should go all-in on that minute possibility?

1) Walk-on D1 is not a realistic thing for this kid and silly to consider. Besides, there is no reason for him to look at D1 schools for academic reasons as they aren't necessarily better as a group. He wants to go to an in-state school because it's cheaper and then run on the club team, then he should do that, but as far as being on a D1 team with those times, that's really out of the question for anything other than the very worst of the worst, and he'd never score points for the team in that case unless he has some very rare improvement.

2) That list of D3 schools in Ohio is hardly just a shopping list. Again, Oberlin and Kenyon are two of the best liberal arts colleges in the country. Case is great too for things like math and pre-med.

3) WashU is VERY hard to get into, even for a 4.0 student. I know a kid who had above a 4.0, a great SAT score and was a National Merit Scholarship WINNER, and he was waitlisted at WashU. I'm not about to recommend Williams or WashU or Pomona just to any kid with a 4.0 GPA. Need to know WAY more before reaching up that far. Oberlin and Kenyon are great choices that are a little easier to get into, AND they are in Ohio which is what he was targeting apparently.

formerD1 wrote:

Regarding the Olympics, going from a 17:40 5K to a 13:25 needed to run at the Olympics is a different order of difficulty - so what are you suggesting? Just because it may be possible that OP should go all-in on that minute possibility?

LOL, man, you really are dense. To answer your question, no. I don't think he's D1 material, why would I think he's got a shot at the Olympics? Let me spell it out for you. I said he wasn't D1. You said (paraphrasing) "How do you know. Were you D1?". Your implication was that one has to have been D1 to know D1 talent. (I bet all those D1 coaches who never ran D1 will be embarrassed to learn they are unqualified to recruit). I turned your lame logic back on you after you mentioned that he's not a future Olympian. Get it know, slow wit?

For all of your shitposting earlier in the thread, your later advice, especially about looking at all good academic options instead of limiting himself to Ohio, is actually pretty good. Just want to point out a few things:Academics being equal, wouldn't running for a good d3 team still be a much better option for the op than running for a bad to decent d1, even if he improves? I would think being an average runner on a team that knows academics is the primary focus and still has a history of making its runners better would beat being the worst person on a decent d1 team and not getting attention or being an average person on a bad d1 team.I do think he should consider going to some d1 schools that have good enough academics to make giving up running for a team worthwhile, but if he wants to run there are enough great d3 schools that primarily choosing from that pool won't limit him too much.And regarding this:

formerD1 wrote:

Would you really pay full price for out of state Wash U tuition if you got into OSU for in state tuition? That's an incredibly massive difference in price, especially if he has to take out interest bearing loans to fund his D3 Wash U adventure.

You know he means Washington University in St. Luis, right? Not some washington state school that could give in state tuition. I'm sure plenty of students from Ohio go there over in state OSU every year. It'd also be a way better team for a 16:00 incoming freshman to be on than OSU's team.

Here's an important question: what do you want to study?

FormerD1, you are the most obvious troll, but you've done a good job of convincing yourself otherwise.

Didn't you once claim that you had trained with formerD3 runner Nick Symmonds?