Is Runcruit accurate?

If you want to run at a school, reach out to the coach. If they don’t reply, there’s your answer. If they do reply, ask them what it takes to be on their team or get academic support or get a scholarship. It’s not that hard. These websites are just guessing based on who knows what formulas they have. Schools needs and priorities in recruiting change constantly, coaches change constantly, and everyone is getting faster. A few schools im familiar with on there had walk on times listed that I’m pretty confident would not make their roster.

I have a son and daughter at Power 5 schools. They reached out to close to 50 schools each. I plugged their times into this tool. It is way off. It says recruit next all the schools that they contacted but they received replies from only a handful. Both walked on at the schools that they attend. I assume that somebody compiled this using the slowest times run by anyone on the teams. People get slower. People have bad days.

Runrecruit is a great preliminary tool and I think gives some accurate guidance. What it doesn't tell you is if the team is limited to number of spots. We're starting to see the team only has so many spots and the good teams will fill those up with all "recruit" times. There might not be any opportunities at the "walk on" level and there are certainly no tryouts. Other schools seem to take as many bodies as they can get.

Short answer no.

i don't think it's very useful. track is a team sport. your recruiting usefulness relates to how you compare to the current team. that moves around over time. that tool doesn't seem to spit out very accurate of a recruiting picture.

here is how you go. given your GPA and SAT, research a bunch of schools that you have a shot at being admitted. figure out ones with your major and in areas you'd like to live in -- a while or permanently. then research their track teams on TFRRS. TFRRS has all their meet results.

you then compare your times to the times of the current team. you don't want to know some vague standard. you want to know how you would stack up in a race with the current team. if you are faster than everyone, pick a harder team. if you are slower than everyone, go down the pecking order. you want to find the sweet spot and ideally you don't want to be the slowest guy the coach will let on the team, as you will spend 4 years fending off new recruits.

but short answer, that site is bonkers, and even when the school gives a standard sheet it may not get updated. you want to know what someone in your event runs right now and how you compare. research their race times, and only use the standards as guidelines.

last thing, if you are looking at D1 and several seconds behind their worst runner i would save my approach until i am competitive with them. D3 is different, but don't waste a bunch of time contacting schools you aren't competitive for, and it might make it worse if you run the time next year if you contacted them with a slower time below their walkons.

Don't listen to the naysayers... it's far more accurate than similar tools you'll find online. For example, if you look up the recruiting standards for the University of Furman Men's XC team, you'll find that the recruiting standards are on par with the majority of their recruits, particularly the tryout standards.

If I were you, I'd reach out to their staff with the standards cited on Runcruit. This will give you a better shot at being on the team.

Hope this helps!

Pretty cool tool to use. Looks like the coach information is old, though.

No.

I looked at some schools where I know the walk on times told to recruits, this seems to be pretty accurate. However, many coaches will tell you "walk on times" not expecting you to hit them, and you won't get a chance even if you hit them.

Current college coach - it appears they've taken the worst marks for every athlete, including some sprinters that ran high school xc or 800 types for some categories. A neat idea, but don't quote it as proof when inquiring about running at or walking on a program. Most coaches will share their standards and if they won't you'd likely not want to run for them anyway.

going about your college recruiting as i want to be the equivalent of last guy on the soccer team bench is not the ideal way to pursue recruiting, unless you're just obsessed with saying you were D1 or being the 12th best miler at a D3 like johns hopkins, after having to recruit yourself into the last walkon slot.

to me you want to go someplace where you fit more in the front or middle of the team where they will help with admissions, offer scholarships, recruit you aggressively, emphasize coaching you, and you will be able to compete at conference and the regular meets well.

and to be clear, at any level of college sports, your teammates are striving to be better too, and they are recruiting your replacement the next year and the next. and that's from a starter's perspective where what i risked was losing playing time. the last guy on the team barely has a foothold.

i also think approaching recruiting this way turns what should be hands-on specifics into vague abstractions. you don't want to vaguely chase some D1 you can barely make but don't actually like the campus or the town or the majors they offer. personally, to me, i'd rather love the place, have gone to the best academic school i can manage with exactly my desired major, and it so happens i run track on a well-funded team with a reasonable coach who makes the team better.

what it probably is, is x is this year's worst kid on the team at, say, 800, but they want to upgrade 800 and are talking to 5 kids. every kid recruited is seconds faster than x. if they can help it, x is getting cut next year. but if they lose out on all 5 kids, well, they might settle for someone simply being better than x. or x may luck out and get invited back. it's a moving target. they are trying to make the best team and what qualifies for that depends on not just what they already have but how recruiting is going.

this is why i say TFRRS is more useful. you want to know if they are losing seniors in your event. you want to get a sense of the full landscape and not just last place. and you may want to keep your ear to the ground on twitter or the like for who they have already signed. ok, that recruit runs 1:52. etc.

last, i think it's my D3 background where i'm like, who wants to be the worst recruit? the worst recruit isn't getting any admissions or other push to get in the school. to me i want to go where i am wanted.