I’m just starting my junior year and suddenly there’s been a push to start looking at colleges. Last year my times indoor/outdoor were 400m: 50.1, 600m: 1:26.7, 800m: 1:56.8, 1000m: 2:40 and 1600m: 4:32. Before now I’ve have not looked at any colleges or really cared about looking at colleges. I’ve just sorta been floating through high school. Based on my times and potential to get better within 2 more years of track does anyone have suggestions about 1. What level might I want to run? and 2. At that level what are some reputable colleges I might want to look at/contact in the future? Thanks for any help because right now I’m basically clueless!


d1 for sure, those are solid sophomore year times, mostly the 800, I would definitely working on lowering that. Your 1600 is weak in comparison.


yeah i know. i ran it about 3 times last outdoor season and took large amounts of time off every time i ran it. i plan on running it more this year. same with the 1000. i ran it twice indoor.


Certainly some very solid running times for a sophomore, so with improvement you could have the option to look at any level of running. The reality is that you probably wont be a professional runner, so you might want to think about what else you will be doing at college (ie academics…). As much of a buzz kill as that is, it is important that you find some place where the running and the studying can both fit what you want/need.


how are your grades? here are some awesome academic and running schools:

the ivies
university of virginia
haverford college (D3, but their coach has coached sub-4 milers, and their D3 team is ridiculous)
william and mary

i hope thats a good start, i know theres plenty more schools, but these are the ones hitting me right now


Cal, UCLA, USC, W+M and most of the Ivies are not “awesome running schools.” Georgetown is a stretch too.

To the original poster: I’d consider Villanova, UVA, Stanford, and whatever else tickles your fancy.


For a mid-d guy, it would be pretty cool to have American Record-Holder Johnny Gray as your coach, so I’d keep UCLA on any list. My two cents: Go for a good degree, so don’t go to a running factory with mediocre academics if you have the grades to get into an elite academic school, and unless you’re a winter guy, go to a warm-weather college.


thanks for all the help so far guys. as for my grades i maintain about a 92 gpa in all enriched/ap level courses. im definatley looking for a solid acidemic school as well because like thegacfish said im not going to be running for a living


i’m not gonna flame you, since back home we worked solely with percentage as well, so im gonna guess you mean a 92% average. not gpa


yeah for my freshman and sophmore years I had a combined overall average of 92%. That includes quarter grades, midterms, finals and state exams. Our school calls that our “gpa”. Sorry for any confusion.


Just a suggestion, but if you can get a full ride to a university you might want to take that over a more prestigious one.

You’ll be happier when you graduate debt free from college.


Probably the biggest QFE I’ll ever give on this website.


You’ll be happier with a greater starting salary, options for obtaining better connections while at school, and probability of getting a job over someone else (almost as if it was job security).

If he will get a full ride to a state school for running, he will get close to that at a prestigious one. I think the $5-8 Thousand dollars a year increase in price for an $8k increase in starting salary is worth it…

I’m pretty sure Cal just had at least 3 guys sub-1:50 this year.

Georgetown had a 7:16 4x8 two years ago along with a 3:58i/7:50i mile/3k guy, and a kid who ran 4:02y his senior year of high school (the name might sound familiar… Andrew Springer). GTown also had a Penn Relays come-from-behind winner/semi-pro runner in Boylan-Pett his 5th year.

W&M has a great xc team, consistently ranked among the best in the NCAA. Also has quite a few low 14 guys for 5k on the track or faster.

USC has had an amazing 800m runner in Duane Solomon, who must have done something right there.

With the exception of Dartmouth and Yale, all of the Ivies have good distance/middle distance programs. Brown had a 7:30 4x8 last year with massive PRs from several of those kids (including a 1:51 split who PRed by 2 secs). Princeton’s distance team needs no explanation. Cornell’s distance team shouldn’t need an explanation, but ask and you shall receive. Columbia has had 1:47 guy Moriarty, 3:58i guy in Kyle Merber, few more guys right around 1:49/, including a sophomore who had that as an official split in high school. Harvard has a good distance team where they can put at least 4 guys under 25:00 for 8k in xc. UPenn might also be lacking slightly in this department, but has had good teams in the years past.

Come at me bro, and explain your shit if you’re gonna try to tear what I say apart.


Boom! Down for the count! I actually agree with you, that other dude was way wrong. He doesn’t know anything.


Penn’s xc team is definitely in the upper half of the ivies at the moment. Not so much mid-d. Also, I strongly doubt that Harvard will put 4 guys under 25:00 this year.


Sorry but I’m kinda in the same boat as him (not even close to that good but anyway). I’m a junior also My times are
800 - 2:08 (sucks, should get very close to 2 this year)
1000 - 2:49 (not great either)
1500 - 4:25 while I had a stress fracture. looking to get into mid to low teens this year
3k: sucks 9:48 never had a good one
5k: 16:36 (that was the first race my junior year. And I’m in much better shape, considering I paced a kid to 17:06 and it felt like literally nothing)

So probably DIII? Idk. My grades are decent. I’m 12th in my class at the moment. Cumulative GPA is 3.7 I believe but I’m taking an AP course this year to get it up hopefully. Also, if anyone had suggestions about colleges in the Mid-Atlantic Region (New York, Penn, etc). I live in RI but am looking to get as far away as my parents are letting me. Just looking for a change. And I’m interested in something related to science, possibly biology or biomedical engineering or something.


John Hopkins is renowned for biomedical engineering if you can get in. They’re a mediocre DIII program and you could definitely end up being one of the fastest guys if that’s something you’d be interested in. That being said don’t go there if you want to have fun and/or do things other than study.


First things first:
As of those times, you might be fit for a D2 school, as well as D3.

As for the major, it might interest you into finding a good liberal arts school. Is your GPA out of 4.0 or 5.0 (meaning they can give you 5.0 for AP classes, if you’ve received a 100%)?

EDIT: I just want to note that UCLA beat #3 Northern Arizona this past weekend at the Aztec invite, for the poster who says UCLA is not a good distance-oriented team.


Ehh thats all extremely debatable in more ways then one my friend. If you can get a full ride to a school it’s probably worth it to take that and do as well as you possibly can at that school. Just because you went to Princeton or some other prestigious school doesn’t mean you are better then the kid who graduated from Rutgers. You get what you put into your college education so if he went to Rutgers for example and worked his ass off I’m pretty confident he’d get a good job and a good starting salary as opposed to the kid who just coasted by at some “prestigious” school. My uncle is more apt to take the kid from Rutgers who posted awesome grades and worked like crazy then the kid from Princeton who just did the absolute minimum to graduate. But in the end do whatever floats your boat.


Alumnus and this is pretty much true if you are a BME major. If you’re looking for a high quality academic school in the mid-atlantic, I’m not sure there are a ton of options at the D3 level. I suppose you have Haverford (great team), Carnegie Mellon and Swarthmore (excellent academics, small team). In New York, perhaps NYU, which is a decent school? Your best bet for high-level academic schools with good D3 programs is probably the NESCAC schools like Williams, Amherst, Tufts, MIT, Bates, Bowdoin et al. That probably won’t get you very far away from home, however.