Average college runner wrote:
if you have serious d1 dreams take a gap year and train your butt off. if a D1 school takes you as a 9:40 guy they are a bottom of the barrel program and your running career will go to die. If they are a good program offering you a spot you will get no attention and be cut at the very first inconvenience.
You could also do a year at community college with a solid running program, get great grades and bring your times down, and if you stay healthy and progress accordingly, you can always be a transfer recruit. There are a number of professional athletes in all major sports who followed this progression - it's far from the most common approach, but you have a chance to get a cheap first year college education while using an awesome facility and program to get yourself in D1 quality (if you truly are able to level up to that performance standard).