D3 Women’s program (PA, NJ, NY, MD, DC, CT)

PAD3 wrote:

York College of Pennsylvania is a great program. They have an excellent nursing program. Most nursing students have a job 6 months after graduation. York also has an amazing engineering program that requires 3 internships as part of the curriculum.

Athletically, the York women won 3 straight Capital Athletic Conference titles from 2016-2018. This year they finished 2nd by 4 points. They’ve consistently put at least 3 women All-Conference since 2011. At the NCAA Mideast Regional, they’ve finished top 10 the past 2 years. They’ll be moving to the Middle Atlantic Conference in the fall. Their young coach Stephen LoBianco has done some great things with the program.

Their men have become contenders in the Mideast since 2016.

Back to the academics thing, York most definitely does not have an amazing engineering program. Ranked 333 in the nation.

Lets look at large D1 state schools with strong running club programs- Penn State is 16, Maryland is 22, Virginia Tech is 13, Pitt is 47. Even an "amazing" D3 doesn't hold a candle to just an average D1 state school. Not to mention more opportunities, bigger alumni network, more name recognition.

Here is the NIRCA Club Nationals results last year to get a feel for things-

Amazing? Are you trolling? The average ACT is 21. That is about as low as you can go.

I would think there was a good DI school where she'd have a shot at the (non club) team. Maybe Patriot League--Lehigh, Bucknell, Colgate? I would have gone to one of those over my large state school if I had the chance..

Check out the NESCAC conference, strong academics and a strong conference (women's xc) sending a handful of teams to nationals.

Community College and then transfer.

Wasting ten of thousands of dollars on Gen. Ed. Credits is just silly.

p.n. wrote:

the profit wrote:

SUNY Geneseo - it’s the Harverd of the SUNY system . I should know, I am a alumni .

I think an *actual* Harvard grad might know that "alumni" is a plural noun. A single individual is either an alumnus or an alumna.

I'm not even going to bother with the a/an thing.

I happen to know this person. They are a conjoined twin, sharing organs and some cognitive functions.

sammy, you really need to give her desired major. Many D3 schools have 1 or 2 majprs that they excel at and the rest are a joke. For example, if she wants to do mechanical engineering I could bring up RIT or RPI, but if she's looking at teaching those shouldn't be considered. Off the top of my head and can't think of a D3 with a good running program that is a good fit for every major, even well known ones.

Maybe Wash U.

HS_HERO wrote:

sammy, you really need to give her desired major. Many D3 schools have 1 or 2 majprs that they excel at and the rest are a joke. For example, if she wants to do mechanical engineering I could bring up RIT or RPI, but if she's looking at teaching those shouldn't be considered. Off the top of my head and can't think of a D3 with a good running program that is a good fit for every major, even well known ones.

This is one of the problems with D3 schools in general. My sister went to a D3 school with a pretty good biology program which was a great fit because she intended to major in biology! After one semester bio was not a good fit and she had to change her major. There were only a few other degrees and almost all of them jokes. Other than bio they had more or less nothing.

At a large D1 state school you not only have many different degree programs to choose from, chances are they will all at least be solid.

What d3 college only has one non-joke program? Doesn’t doubt legit. Most have hundreds

100000 wrote:

shootpost wrote:

This is one of the problems with D3 schools in general. My sister went to a D3 school with a pretty good biology program which was a great fit because she intended to major in biology! After one semester bio was not a good fit and she had to change her major. There were only a few other degrees and almost all of them jokes. Other than bio they had more or less nothing.

At a large D1 state school you not only have many different degree programs to choose from, chances are they will all at least be solid.

What d3 college only has one non-joke program? Doesn’t doubt legit. Most have hundreds

I would consider any program ranked outside the top 100 a joke program.

No they don't. They literally only have hundreds of majors so they can't have hundreds that are not a joke because that would be every major they offer.

shootpost wrote:

Back to the academics thing, York most definitely does not have an amazing engineering program. Ranked 333 in the nation.

Lets look at large D1 state schools with strong running club programs- Penn State is 16, Maryland is 22, Virginia Tech is 13, Pitt is 47. Even an "amazing" D3 doesn't hold a candle to just an average D1 state school. Not to mention more opportunities, bigger alumni network, more name recognition.

Here is the NIRCA Club Nationals results last year to get a feel for things-

http://crossroadstiming.com/results/2019/NIRCA-Track/index.html

Not a single person, just using Pitt as an example, would turn down CMU to go to Pitt. Just like nobody in Boston would turn down MIT to go to BU.

It's true that a lot of schools listed in here are complete jokes academically (York, Behrend, etc.) but the upper-end of D3 is better than most large D1 schools you mentioned, and it's even really all that debatable.

Guess again. $300K or $125K. Many kids would choose Pitt.

crap is not good wrote:

Guess again. $300K or $125K. Many kids would choose Pitt.

Forbes has the net price of CMU as $31,000

Pittsburgh $28,000

Coast Guard Academy in CT. Great academics, interesting opportunities, graduate debt free, well-paid afterwards. Solid running program that regularly rolls out quality athletes. Could be an interesting school to look into.

Why do you care what the average net price is? Poor people pay nothing which significantly impacts the average. A poster on LR who is inquiring is not a poor person. $300k for the average LR poster.

shootpost wrote:

Kvothe wrote:

Look at odac conference results. The schools that routinely finish in the top half of the conference will improve runners (w&l, roanoke, bridgewater, lynchburg). Beyond those, NYU, Mary Washington, CNU, Haverford are very good.

Except most of those school are academically terrible. There is more to college then running for some mid level d3 school

They've got honor colleges and some of them are very good. If the answer is top 25 or even 100 academics only, the athlete in question will probably have to make a D1 team. After your first job, no one even cares where you got your degree anywhere and top grades at the worst tier 4 will still get you into harvard grad school if you've applied yourself. If someone wants to give up running so they can pursue dreams of being a doctor or going to a t12 law school or doing research, etc. I'm all for that, but they'll find they have classmates post undergrad who went to these "Academically terrible" institutions.

Division 3 NCAA XC Top 10 Results the past 5 years:

2019

1 Johns Hopkins

2 Washington U.

3 Williams

4 U of Chicago

5 Carleton

6 Wartburg

7 MIT

8 Tufts

9 Dickinson

10 SUNY Geneseo

2018

1 Washington U.

2 Johns Hopkins

3 MIT

4 Wisconsin Eau Claire

5 SUNY Geneseo

6 Brandies

7 Williams

8 Middlebury

9 Wisconsin La Crosse

10 Carleton

2017

1 Johns Hopkins

2 Wisconsin Eau Claire

3 Washington U.

4 MIT

5 Carleton

6 SUNY Geneseo

7 Tufts

8 Williams

9 Ithaca

10 RPI

2016

1 Johns Hopkins

2 Washington U.

3 SUNY Geneseo

4 Williams

5 MIT

6 Wisconsin La Crosse

7 Oneonta

8 Tufts

9 Calvin

10 Hope

2015

1 Williams

2 SUNY Geneseo

3 MIT

4 Johns Hopkins

5 Washington U.

6 Oneonta

7 Tufts

8 Middlebury

9 RPI

10 Willamette

Based on the past five years a few conclusions to be made:

Perennial top 10 teams include

Johns Hopkins (3 NCAA Team Championships the past five years, wow!)

Washington U. (1 NCAA Team Championship + 2 runner up finishes!)

Williams (1 NCAA Team Championship + 2 additional top 4 finishes)

MIT (3 top four finishes)

SUNY Geneseo (1 NCAA runner up + 1 addition top 3 finish)

Each of the five teams have been top 10 in the country for the past 5 years

Tufts has been in the top 10 four of the past five year. Carleton has been in the top 10 three of the past five years, with all three coming in the most recent years with finishes of 5th in 2019, 10th in 2018, and 5th in 2017.

So in conclusion, Johns Hopkins, Washington U. Williams, MIT, SUNY Geneseo, Tufts, and Carleton appear to be some of the best cross country schools in the past five years, with a number of other great schools listed in the top 10 for each year as well.