Walk on to Ivy League Team

Email the coach and ask. Also check the roster to see how close your time is.

https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/EventRecords.aspx?SchoolID=20680&S=2017#/women

Have the person interested send an email with their grade in school, general academic information, and running PRs. Racing video is helpful, as is a very succinct summary of training background (ie, other sports, whether she’s a year-round runner, etc.). Some college programs are pretty cut and dry and look just at PRs for tryouts or walk-ons; in this case, studying the roster would be helpful. But also, some programs look at athleticism, ability to train successfully, ambitions during college outside of school and running, etc., so times may only be the beginning.

Here’s the info for the Brown coach:

Mitchell Baker

Mitchell_Baker@brown.edu

Consider also schools in the NESCAC, UAA, and conferences containing Johns Hopkins and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, respectively.

Good luck!

A girl from my HS several years back ran for Brown. She had run 2:20 for 800m & 5:15 for the mile. A lot of times walk on standards are online or you can just email the coach for them,.

Some excellent advice in the posts above.

In general a candidate on the women's side seems to have a better shot at walking on, but definitely check with the coach(es) of the teams that you're interested in.

NOTE: The term "walking on" can be confusing. To some people it means getting on the team without a scholarship; to others it means just showing up on campus, and making the team without being recruited.

Given that the Ivy League has no athletic scholarships anyway (all financial aid--very generous in the Ivies btw--is based on family need), by the first definition you could argue that everybody on the team is a walk-on. That's not very helpful.

It might be more realistic to call the people who get in through the regular admissions process, without using up one of the coach's "pushes" in the admissions office, walk-ons.

In any case you would definitely want to be in touch with the coach well before showing up on campus. Just going to the track office on the first day of classes and presenting yourself might not be very successful.

Some programs have mandates from administration not to cut women. I dont know if Brown is one of them, but another gender specific benefit of Title IX.

Ivyguy - great point. With the absence of scholarships, the term "walk-on" is kind of splitting hairs. In my experience, "recruited" Ivy athletes are just that - ones that have contacted/been contacted the coach and have been recruited - extended conversations with the coach, campus visit, put on the preferential admission list, etc. These athletes are generally guaranteed a roster spot.

Walk-ons may have had some communication with the coach, but any participation with the team is contingent on a) the student being accepted, and b) them hitting some sort of qualifying time. The difference is that even if a recruited athlete has a crappy day at the team time trial at the beginning of the season, they aren't getting cut, because of context - they either have the pedigree or undertrained potential that the coach values.

I tried to walk onto the Princeton XC team in my senior year. I'd started training the year before and had run about 40 mpw over the summer. I roomed with three XC guys that fall: Bruce Bond (8:57 two-mile), Paul Suslovic, and Malcolm Pringle.

I knew I was in trouble the day my roomies and I took our first run together. They were running 7-minute pace like it was a jog. I was in pain.

I ran one workout with the team. Coach Larry Ellis took me aside afterwards and said, "It's not gonna happen." And that was that.

Except it wasn't. I kept running after graduation and within four years I'd run a 2:53 marathon and could easily keep up with the track guys when I ran into them in Central Park.

Still running. Still friends with Bruce.

Talk to the coaches. Apparently Coach Baker is a really great guy and I'm sure they'd be willing to talk to you. Brown is as far away from a cutthroat program that you can get and they definitely have a lot of room for walk ons. I personally don't know the walkon standards for girls but I asked the coach and for guys its 1:56, 4:24, and 9:30, so not ridiculously fast. I'd assume it would be something equivalently difficult for the girls team.

Hopefully we'll both be there next year!

KudzuRunner wrote:

I tried to walk onto the Princeton XC team in my senior year. I'd started training the year before and had run about 40 mpw over the summer. I roomed with three XC guys that fall: Bruce Bond (8:57 two-mile), Paul Suslovic, and Malcolm Pringle.

I knew I was in trouble the day my roomies and I took our first run together. They were running 7-minute pace like it was a jog. I was in pain.

I ran one workout with the team. Coach Larry Ellis took me aside afterwards and said, "It's not gonna happen." And that was that.

Except it wasn't. I kept running after graduation and within four years I'd run a 2:53 marathon and could easily keep up with the track guys when I ran into them in Central Park.

Still running. Still friends with Bruce.

Are you a woman? Because if you are a man, running 2:53 definitely does not suggest to me that you were anywhere near college running material.

If you are a woman, it suggests you had the ability to be top 10 on their team, but likely not the top runner.

Dont get me wrong, I think it is great you found something you enjoy and are pursuing it. But your marathon time is equivalent to roughly 18 flat in the 5k.

Can someone give exact times? I am interested to know too!

Just ask wrote:

Have the person interested send an email with their grade in school, general academic information, and running PRs. Racing video is helpful, as is a very succinct summary of training background (ie, other sports, whether she’s a year-round runner, etc.). Some college programs are pretty cut and dry and look just at PRs for tryouts or walk-ons; in this case, studying the roster would be helpful. But also, some programs look at athleticism, ability to train successfully, ambitions during college outside of school and running, etc., so times may only be the beginning.

Here’s the info for the Brown coach:

Mitchell Baker

Mitchell_Baker@brown.edu

Consider also schools in the NESCAC, UAA, and conferences containing Johns Hopkins and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, respectively.

Good luck!

Coaches actually want race video? I'm not all that far removed from the recruiting process and never heard that. Had low level D1 attention and ended up at a top tier D3.

I can't imagine why a race video would be helpful or why anyone would spend time watching it.

Sdfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:

Are you a woman? Because if you are a man, running 2:53 definitely does not suggest to me that you were anywhere near college running material.

If you are a woman, it suggests you had the ability to be top 10 on their team, but likely not the top runner.

Dont get me wrong, I think it is great you found something you enjoy and are pursuing it. But your marathon time is equivalent to roughly 18 flat in the 5k.

My point wasn't that I was collegiate running material. It was just the opposite. I clearly wasn't. Didn't I make that clear?

My point was that the post-collegiate runners quickly devolved to the point where I could easily keep up with them.

Sometimes there's no clear cut time to make the team. Usually if you can train with the team and not die you should be fine. When I lived in a providence I went for a run on blackstone boulevard with the men's team and was fine but I'm sure it was an easy day for them. Talk to the coaches and be honest. Some colleges coaches get bombarded with emails and just won't give 2 shts and won't respond (sometimes not intentionally). If you can get accepted to an IVY just be grateful and go (that's what I'd do). Then if I couldn't run for the team, I'd hire a private coach and train myself to shoot for OT qualifier in the marathon upon graduating from college. There is plenty of completion in USATF New England anyway so not a big deal if you can't compete for the d1 college team

Competition*** [damn iPhone spell check ]

KudzuRunner wrote:

Sdfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:

Are you a woman? Because if you are a man, running 2:53 definitely does not suggest to me that you were anywhere near college running material.

If you are a woman, it suggests you had the ability to be top 10 on their team, but likely not the top runner.

Dont get me wrong, I think it is great you found something you enjoy and are pursuing it. But your marathon time is equivalent to roughly 18 flat in the 5k.

My point wasn't that I was collegiate running material. It was just the opposite. I clearly wasn't. Didn't I make that clear?

My point was that the post-collegiate runners quickly devolved to the point where I could easily keep up with them.

I disagree. I ran for a D3 and a D2 team and I knew many sub16min 5K males who never ran much faster than that time for the marathon as post-collegiate. I'm not sure if they just didn't care - they have broken 16 min for a 5K but they just train like idiots for the marathon. They generally run way too little mileage and do all of it at sub7 pace. They are probably capable of a 2:30 but they don't have proper guidance/coaching and lack IQ points to prepare successfully for the event.