Great Academics, Fair Runner but super passionate - Who Would you suggest your kid run for in college?

Outside Cali, think UAA for great academics and competitive D3 programs - Emory, UChicago, WashU, Carnegie Mellon, Rochester, Johns Hopkins, case Western. Many of these schools will give merit-based scholarships as well.

Thanks guys. She would probably love UCSB or Cal Poly SLO (I know the strength coach there). Chico State, I heard that is a wild party school no?! This girl is like my daughter hah, I would be worried if its a hard core party school.

Thanks for the D3 list, Hopkins, Case Western, Carnegie Mellon, and Emory are all schools I have told her to look into already so that is good confirmation.

Here are the results from the NCAA D3 XC 2018 nationals.

http://results.deltatiming.com/xc/2018-ncaa-d3-xc-championships/results/1

About half of the schools in this meet are among the top schools in the US -- mostly liberal arts, but a few more nerdish (e.g. MIT). A couple of them -- Pomona and Claremont -- are not far from you. Take her to visit them.

Fill out the net price calculator at Harvard, Pomona, Princeton. Those are some of the most generous schools out there and will give you an idea of best case financial aid. Typically tuition free if income is under 125k. The deadbeat dad may be an issue as some of those have policies to exclude that income, but most will include it. Right now she’s probably D3. Check out Claremont colleges, NESCAC schools in the northeast, Carleton, UAA schools. Some of these coaches can help with admissions and some have pretty good need based aid. She’ll need to get faster for top ivies but it’s going to depend on track times this year so she has time. Tfrrs.org is the place for college performance lists. Be aware that CA kids are notorious for being over trained so she might need to let coaches know she isn’t.

Thanks former D3/Professor and "____" no name. I did not know about the net price calculator so that is a big help.

I will put all these schools on her list to investigate....been difficult to get her to do these things. I realize how fortunate I was that my dad started introducing me to colleges at a very very young age, priming the pump, taking me to football games, taking me to sports camps, making me think about my future. Not everyone grows up with that preparation. And again being a football player made it so easy, especially since I was in an area in Western PA that was/is a hotbed for college football recruiting. Plus five free visits where you get plane tickets, wined and dined for a 3 day weekend...and even when I decided to transfer got to do that all over again being recruited. This is a challenge! I really want her to narrow down a list of schools, so we can email the coaches and try to get the ball rolling.

Deadbeat dad I do not worry about being a factor, if the state cannot locate him and get the who knows how many tens of thousands of dollars he owes mom and the kids, how would a college prove he had any income?

If we eventually get around to emailing coaches, I will be sure to have her include her lack of training...she is no where close to over trained!! I have heard stories of other schools she competes with that their kids do get beat up bad. There is a school Bishop Amat that has girls who absolutely CRUSH IT in the XC meets. I am not talking just one or two, I am talking in a race having six of their girls out in front by a big gap of anyone else. But I hear schools like that do log the miles and can wear kids down before college.

I would not assume that "D1 is everyone's dream," or that a D1 school will provide either the best academic experience or the best financial package. In fact, for a "fair" but "super passionate" runner with "great academics" and a middle-class financial background, a top academic school with a solid DIII distance program may very well provide the perfect mix of academics, athletics, and financial aid. In the midwest, Washington University in St. Louis (2018 women's DIII cross-country champions) and the University of Chicago are obvious candidates. On the west coast, I would check out the Clarement Colleges (Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Scripps, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer). (I have great respect for Cal Tech, but I've never heard much to get excited about regarding its sports programs.) The mother lode of excellent academic schools with DIII cross-country and track programs is the northeast (New England and mid-atlantic), with schools like M.I.T., Haverford, Tufts, Amherst, Williams, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, Bowdoin, and quite a number of others. (You can check out the DIII cross-country rankings and results to get an idea about the ones with more competitive distance programs.) Although many of these schools have high sticker prices, financial aid at some of them (particularly those with big endowments, like M.I.T.) can bring down the cost for students from middle- to lower-income households to levels that are significantly lower than the cost of many private schools or public schools with out-of-state tution.

If I were looking at private DI schools, the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Rice, and (I suppose) Duke would be on my radar, but only because they are strong academic schools that will probably provide generous need-based financial aid; I'm not sure that their athletics programs -- particularly at an athletic powerhouse like Stanford -- would be ideal for a "fair" but "super passionate" runner. Among public DI schools for a California resident, UCLA and Berkeley ("Cal") are obvious candidates, but I have no idea if they're a good match on the athletic side.

I've never been impressed by the offerings in DII . (Maybe the Colorado School of Mines, but . . . .)

College of Charleston sounds like a great fit and an opportunity to contribute to a D1 program at a public school price.

We are a bit quick to jump to the Ivies and other highly selective schools without having a test score or race. Those are two of the most important factors. The other two we have, gender and legacy. If she scores 33 on the ACT and is black, she will be admitted to all of those schools. If she scores 35 and she is white, she has a 10% chance. If she scores 35 and is Asian, she has less than a 5% chance. If she scores 28, she won’t be admitted no matter which race.

If you're going DIII route in NE and she has excellent academic record, check out Brandeis U. What is her SAT score?

Thanks for the continual feedback.

Never heard of College of Charleston but requested info, campus looks nice and that area is known to be popular.

No word on test scores yet, she is taking ACT in a few weeks. I will request info from Brandeis though for sure.

She is white, so no help there. A kid (white male) on her XC team scored a perfect SAT (literally), and has something absurd like a 4.8 GPA or whatever with all AP/honors classes, community service, etc etc...and did not get into MIT, and a number of other schools I forget, while the kids girlfriend did get into some of the same schools he was denied with a significantly lower SAT and GPA. So maybe there is some help for being female??

What is the deal with each of these colleges asking if you are the first one to go to a four year college in your family when I request info? Do kids get brownie points for that as well over kids whose parents did go to college?

Oldjock wrote:

What is the deal with each of these colleges asking if you are the first one to go to a four year college in your family when I request info? Do kids get brownie points for that as well over kids whose parents did go to college?

economic diversity, probably gives a kid who does not have college educated parents a leg up vs. one who does

what is her sat score, BTW

She has not taken the SAT, scheduled for ACT in a few weeks. So I have no test scores to report at this time.

Should she be taking both the ACT and SAT? I encouraged her to utilize her school resources, where they will test you or somehow determine which of those two tests might be preferable based on whatever individual variables....but I only have so much influence on these matters as I do not live with them. I wanted the tests taken last year, so she could get a few chances at improving if need be before reaching out to colleges.

I am doing my best to get the ball rolling. I started two years ago urging the ACT or SAT be taken along with a prep course, and for mother and daughter to start searching colleges online to see where she might have an interest to go, and the ability to make the XC/track teams based on the times of their athletes. We even did a free intro phone call for one of those paid recruiting service advocates, and he even admitted everything I was encouraging was what they do but will cost thousands, and its up to the parents to hold the kids accountable to the steps of looking into schools, sending emails, posting up times, signing up for the tests, etc. Procrastination on the part of the mother and daughter, perhaps due to unfamiliarity with all this college stuff, and especially unfamiliar with college sports, has me feeling like she is behind the curve. Hence finding this site with seemingly knowledgeable folks, to get advice on schools to pass along to them and get info from hoping it may finally light a fire under them before its too late.

I don't know what it is with the procrastination or lack of experience of the parents, that creates these situations with kids who have great academics and/or might be great at sports, but aren't doing any of the legwork to get to a good college. Last year at the last track meet of the season, one of her senior teammates started talking to me about college stuff and asking questions. Here this student was a senior, great grades, and amazing track times. He didn't even know where he was going to go to college, and just basically said he was going to a community college for a year or two to figure things out. Then because of my experience at a service academy, he proceeded to tell me the Naval Academy wanted him, but he was unfamiliar with it so didn't follow up on the coach repeatedly reaching out to him. I was like my gosh, if the Naval Academy is actively recruiting you, obviously the kid has the grades and/or athletic ability to be going somewhere better than a community college/junior college! Since he and his parents had no clue about the service academies, they did not respond... After speaking to me he called the coach, but obviously it was too late to get a congressional appointment.

There are other coaches I know in the area that actively hold the kids hands through the college process and helping them get recruited. This is not the case at my girlfriends daughters school...

Oldjock wrote:

A kid (white male) on her XC team scored a perfect SAT (literally), and has something absurd like a 4.8 GPA or whatever with all AP/honors classes, community service, etc etc...and did not get into MIT, and a number of other schools I forget, while the kids girlfriend did get into some of the same schools he was denied with a significantly lower SAT and GPA. So maybe there is some help for being female??

At top schools that emphasize science and engineering (so-called STEM schools), female applicants are offered admission at a much higher rate; at MIT, Cal Tech, and Harvey Mudd, the acceptance rate for female applicants was recently more than twice that for male applicants. Some will say that the female applicant pool to those schools is more self-selecting, which may be true in some sense, but I think it's hard to dispute that, with various other things being (more or less) equal, a female applicant has a better chance of admission.

Also, since you've asked about the influence of coaches (or athletics departments) on admissions decisions: When I was at MIT in the 1970s, the athletics department had no say whatsoever in admissions decisions. Coaches generally didn't even know who was applying for or offered admission; their teams the following year would consist of whoever showed up on the first day of practice. For better or for worse, things are different now, and the athletics department at M.I.T. can now flag applicants for conisideration in light of their athletic background. I don't know how much weight is given to that input from the athletics department, or what level of athletic accomplishment or promise will trigger such consideration. Other schools, including the Ivies and many DIII schools, have a much longer and more aggressive history of athletic recruitment. But others here should be able to provide you with better and more up-to-date information about specific schools, athletics departments, coaches, and procedures.

Thanks Avocado, that is all very helpful in understanding some of this game more. It did just remind me that I read a book on masculine psychology in recent years, that highlighted stats on how much aid is given to females for colleges compared to males, and that from every level of college from AA, BA, masters and doctorates (maybe even med and law school), women outnumber men (I think from what I recall). I guess it does not pay to be a white male in this society if you want to get into a good school.

Lots of options! Generally STEM students are more likely to succeed at large public schools than humanities/business majors, so if she is in the latter group it may be more worth it to "pay up" for an Ivy, Patriot League or NESCAC type school.

Most coaches in all three of these leagues will have admissions pull, but the degree will vary. It sounds like your daughter is a top student but would be a midpack runner at many of these schools. I went to one of these schools and the coach was able to "pull in" students with lower grades but better times by including academically inclined (but slower) students in their recruiting class. Essentially they had to hit an average gpa/SAT for the whole class.

You can't go wrong with most of these schools academically, but you can financially and athletically. If your child is going into STEM or planning on pursuing an MD or JD, it might make sense to send her to a state school so that you can save for those programs.

Good luck!

Cal Poly also has a club team. I believe Mando Siquieros (Jordan Hasay's HS coach) is still the club coach.

Thanks doctoroflaw. Yea I am familiar with what you are speaking of, it may or may not still be called the "Ivy Index" but you had to balance out your recruits grades and test scores, so you might take some so so athletes with amazing grades, so you can take those stud athletes who without the sport would likely have zero chance of getting in on academics alone.

With her times, she would not be one of those athletes the coach would push to get in....but perhaps if she has a killer senior year in track, she might be one of those students they consider bringing in to boost the teams academics...

Read this before jumping into an expensive school. If she is a high achiever and earns a very high test score, the study concluded that it does not matter where she goes. Her earning potential will be the same. Many people on this site will disagree but that proves that you need to be cautious about taking advice from people here because most are advising with bias or from the heart instead of basing recommendations on facts and the results of research.