9:04 for D1 scholarship?

It depends on where you go! At Wisconsin, Oregon, Stanford, Oklahoma State, etc. a 9:04 would barely get 33%. At some rinky-dink school trying to make a name for itself, 9:04 might get a full scholarship.

As others have alluded to...where did you run that & what's your background? If you're a Southern Californian running 70 miles a week all year long and ran that out of the "also ran" heat at Arcadia...so what. That's a walk-on mark at many P5's...maybe a token books scholarship and/or a little further pocket change at the lower end P5's. And yes, I'm serious, this is my job.

Now, if you ran that by yourself through a snowstorm in Kodiak Alaska off of 30 mile weeks when all the trails aren't covered in a foot of snow, that's a completely different story. Say you have a comparable 1600 (let's call it a 4:10 to show versatility) & qualified for NXN or FLN individually & competed in the top 15 - 25 at one of those meets as a senior (what I'd expect out of a mid-range 9:04 guy), now we're talking! This is all assuming those track marks are junior-year marks.

Outside of a very compelling story that would suggest you have a lot more upside than even that 9:04 would suggest (no coach, crappy place to train, no competition, altitude, etc), you would need to look at a non-P5 if you're looking for big $. Hell, I'd look at Lipscomb or Furman if that's the case...they'll make it rain for those marks! But they don't have to compete in track & field in the Pac-12, SEC, Big Ten or ACC...

And regarding that full athletic ride talk for that slow (4:20+/9:30+) kid to Penn State...I don't believe that for a second. They're not suckers over there.

DI Coach - I Would wrote:

I would give you one right now unless you had below a 3.0 and weren't dedicated to improving yourself and the team.

GPA is 3.75. 1400 SAT Ran several times close to the 9:04 as a junior.

Yes, University of Hartford would. So would Fairfield University

This entire things goes back to the equation of "full ride" and what it truly is. With 12.6 scholarships available, virtually nobody gets a true "full ride" on athletic aid alone. You can and will absolutely get aid with that time but it doesn't really mean you will be going to school for free. You may receive athletic aid equal to "full tuition and books" or however it works at that school but the true "full ride" doesn't really exist beyond football and basketball in men's sports.

Keep working hard athletically and bust your tail academically and you can come pretty close to a complete "full ride" package.

Having been around the block quite a few times as a long time coach 9:04 would definitely get a full athletic scholarship. The difference would be the quality of the distance program you are interested in. Of the top 31 teams at the NCAA DI cross country championships you would get anywhere from 10% to 50% depending on their needs. Of your second-tier distance programs (conferences like the MAC) you would get 65% - 100% based on whether the program is fully funded with 12.6 scholarships. So the easy answer is yes, you could get full athletic scholarship, but the type of program may vary. Your grades are good which will help greatly. At the school I presently coach at, which is a top national program you would get a full scholarship but it would be a combination of academic and athletic aid. Good luck in your pursuits.

Yep, I'd take the chance on you. You'd have a full ride between athletic/academic aid, but you'd be joining my program essentially for free.

And you look at the kid. Everyone doesn't have to run like Rupp, but say you're Hunter with another oddity or two, you know you're not getting even two years out of him.

Here are my 100% Full Athletic Scholarships. The rest are a mix of partial scholarships, financial aid, and walk-ons. We finish mid-pack in our Conference, bottom percentage of NCAA Regional XC field.

Men

Runner A - 3200m, 9:37 / XC, 15:17

Runner B - 1600m, 4:24 / 3200m, 9:54 / XC, 15:40

Women

Runner A - 1600m, 5:18 / 3200m, 11:17 / XC, 18:08

Runner B - 1600m, 5:16 / 3200m, 11:44 / XC, 18:39

Runner C - 1600m, 5:08 / 3200m, 11:08 / XC, 17:49

At "a" D1 school, yes. It helps if you do it your junior year as opposed to doing it at State track your senior year. My buddy ran 9:07 as a Junior and ran well at state xc as a senior and got full ride offers at multiple schools, but others offered him half scholarships, etc.

9:15 and 4:14 and a top 3 finish at the Nike Meet of Champions earned someone I know a full-ride that only included in-state tuition - room and board - books. Because of his academics that covered the out of state cost, but this was 10 years ago.

lihfoaeibfes wrote:

^haha I was there. I remember it because it was a pretty hot and embarrassing for him. He lost to a sophomore and a kid with a man bun. It was about 20 seconds off his pr, and everybody was saying that he was having a great season. But he's only 5'2 senior, so I'll cut him some slack.

Shoutout to my boy. Biggest stud in the state of NJ right there. Reppin mo county leggooooooooo

I'm a bit surprised to hear top end programs are more interested in sub-elite high school runners with terrible HS backgrounds than those with solid training and competition fundamentals.

My experience is the kids from some podunk town with no real coach and no competition through high school is they need years to develop the base that everyone else has coming into college, they are more injury prone, and they're the most likely to quit due to stress or competing interests, since practice and meets were more of a fun diversion than one of their central focuses in HS.

High School performances being equal, I'm most exited about a kid with a decent training history whose coach never pushed the limits, then I'll take the nascent talent, and last priority would be the also-ran from a big school/state whose coach thrashed them with workouts for four years.

I guess the luxury of 5-6 years thanks to redshirting and the added motivation tied to financial aid plays a major part in alleviating the above concerns, though.

I have zero D1 experience, but you should be able to get a full-ride, especially if you run well at the big meets where coaches are watching. This isn't football or basketball, so you will likely have to initiate contact with coaches outside of your local colleges and not be picky, as full-ride scholarships aren't as common as most people think.

A DIII Coach wrote:

High School performances being equal, I'm most exited about a kid with a decent training history whose coach never pushed the limits, then I'll take the nascent talent, and last priority would be the also-ran from a big school/state whose coach thrashed them with workouts for four years.

I would agree the balance is best...I was using two extremes to illustrate a point I suppose. 9:04 alone is DEFINITELY walk on at many P5's...even the mid-to-low caliber ones depending on where they allocate their scholarships & what demographic pool they're drawing from. But I DID want to highlight that not all 9:04's are equal.

Sort of fast wrote:

GPA is 3.75. 1400 SAT Ran several times close to the 9:04 as a junior.

Assuming that the 1400 is out of 1600, and that "close to the 9:04" means something below 9:10, I'd certainly recommend a careful look at the Ivy League.

As mentioned in a previous post: unless your family is pretty well off (and I realize they may be), your actual net cost of attending college could be less at an Ivy than at a school that offered a "full" (so-called) scholarship. Ivy coaches can also give you a boost in admissions--and with those times, most would!

Which Ivy is a separate question, and would depend on your academic interests as well as the environment you're comfortable in. For instance, Cornell is a large university in a college-town setting that's very strong in STEM (but other stuff too); Brown is more urban and known for humanities (but other stuff too). And so on.