Times needed to be recruited by an Ivy School

If you want to run in college, you're going to need to be able to hit these times at minimum in high school or you'll end up wasting years of your life chasing people who already can.

400: 49

800: 1:53

1600: 4:12

3200: 9:00

5k: 15:00

I know someone who went on an official visit to an IVY League School with a 4:18

9:16

IvyCoach wrote:

If you want to run in college, you're going to need to be able to hit these times at minimum in high school or you'll end up wasting years of your life chasing people who already can.

um, we're all chasing people unless we have an OG gold medal

Ivy wrote:

What would be a low to high scale of track times needed to be a recruit for an ivy leaige school? 400-5000m.

Ivies are a lot like better D1 programs, except you also have to have good grades. Junior year times would need to be around:

1600m: sub 4:15

3200m: sub 9:15

don't know about 400 or 800.

5K time is sort of irrelevant--if you make FL or NXN nats as a Jr or Sr, you should be in.

Some lesser Ivies (by that I mean running, not academics) would be easier, but the coach may not have pull with admissions in those schools, so don't expect a likely letter.

Penn, for example, seems to land one recruit per year. Yale doesn't put a lot of emphasis on recruiting. But, Princeton, Harvard and Columbia definitely do.

Here is what I have seen. There are three maybe four guys on the Yale track team that can run under 14:45. therefore, there are at least five or six guys who can not.

So why would it be impossible to be considered for an Ivy league team if you had great grades, and ran about 15:20?

Depends. Not all coaches have set standards. When I was recruited by an ivy, my times were decent, but he saw race video of me and saw my training and thought that I was bound for a huge improvement. Senior year I broke through and was all-american.

Junior times:

3:59 1500m

1:57 800

9:20 2 mile

Senior XC

15:12 5k

my sense is this: to be recruited - that's hard. 9:15 for 2 miles, that sort of thing. depends on who else they are recruiting.

to get help in admissions...maybe 9:25? depends on what kind of luck the coach is having that year, how many white kids the lax team wants, etc...lotsa variables from school to school, year to year.

to walk on - huge variance - probably P'ton is the hardest and maybe Brown the easiest. Depends on coach, g'dam title 9 issues and if the coach likes you.

IvyCoach wrote:

400: 49

800: 1:53

1600: 4:12

3200: 9:00

5k: 15:00

I would say that the 400/800 times are in the ballpark for most Ivy programs. But, as another poster observed, a guy with 1600 and 3200 times under 4:20 and 9:20 as a junior will get an official visit at some of the Ivies. And some teams' *top* distance recruits will not be 15:00 or better for legit 5Ks.

One other consideration:

While indeed you may spend "years of your life chasing [Ivy] people who already" have run 9:00 in high school, the fact remains that you can be one of those "chasers" in cross and still be a big help to your team. One example: Cornell made a big step up this fall and placed second in the Heps (Ivy championship) xc meet; though it appears that their recruiting standards have tightened, I'm pretty sure that only one, *maybe* two of their scorers were 9:00 high school guys, even as seniors. (And they had scorers who placed ahead of other teams' runners who *were* sub-9:00 in HS.)

Let me clear up some time standards here. My peers and I all look at athletic times as secondary to academic standing and performance. I will gladly take a boy with 10:05 for 3200m with near perfect SAT/ACT and stellar academic essay/recommendations.

A good rule of thumb is 4:30 for the 1600m, and 9:50 for 3200m will get you recruited if your academic profile is sound. Reach out to me for more questions.

Let me provide some data. Let's look at the early lists for Indoor,

http://tfrrs.com/lists/1397.html#57

-

In the Mile, we have performances ranging from 4:18 to 4:31 between Columbia, Princeton, and Dartmouth.

Over 3000m, we have 8:30 to 8:58, so if we convert to 3200m, then you are looking at 9:10-9:40 with Harvard and Brown athletes included.

Over 5000m, you have 14:37 and 15:26.

The ranges are drastic. I am at several lower key meets where many Ivy men run above 16:00 for 5000m on the track and over 9:00 for 3000m, and these are seasoned collegiate runners, not a high school recruit.

The data is there to support the 4:30/9:50 rule of thumb for recruiting purposes. I prefer to recruit on potential as opposed to actual times run in a high school program.

I'm not the OP, but this is really good to know. I am a freshman in high school and I would like to try to get into an Ivy League school. Currently I'm in all honors level classes offered for my grade (Geometry, Physics and English) and I'm planning on continuing on the same track the next three years. At this point, I'm pretty sure I'd like to run in college, but I really want to use running to get myself into the best school possible. Right now, my 1600 PR is 4:47, run at the end of XC season (on a track). I've never run the 3200, but I ran 10:26 in a two mile XC race at the beginning of the season. If I can get my times down in the next couple of years and do well on the ACT (how well would I have to do?), it sounds like I might have a shot?

IvyCoach wrote:

If you want to run in college, you're going to need to be able to hit these times at minimum in high school or you'll end up wasting years of your life chasing people who already can.

400: 49

800: 1:53

1600: 4:12

3200: 9:00

5k: 15:00

Don't run for this Ivy Coach because he doesn't seem to know much. My friend "only" ran 4:17 for the mile in high school. He went on to eventually run 3:41 for 1500 and 13:25 for 5000.

When I was "recruited" by Rojo at Cornell, I had a 9:38 for 3200 as a junior; ended up running 9:30 as a senior. I was better at XC though (top 10 in NYS Class B as a junior). I didn't get help getting in though, I had to do that on my own.

For us, you were supposed to run under 12:30 for the 4K time trial to make the team. It wasn't extremely strict in the beginning as some would run 12:35 and still make it, but it got more competitive while I was there and I know it's got even harder since then (I graduated in 2011). I know guys have broke 12:30 and not made the team ... pretty sure I remember them cutting a 9:35 guy after I left.

Every Ivy is going to be different and even then, it'll be different from year to year depending on the size of the current recruiting class and the ones that came before you. I would assume Princeton is the hardest team to make.

I would never tell anyone you have to run 9:00 in the 3200 to run at an Ivy as one of Cornell's best runners ever only ran 9:32 in high school. That said, for every 9:30 success story, there are probably 10 more guys who didn't make the team (or at least never made the big meets), quit, or got injured. I wasn't very successful at Cornell, but I was injured for most of my time there so not the best person to compare to.

Good luck.

Worth pointing out here that "Soprano"--who was "injured most of [the] time" at Cornell--was training under Rojo and not under the current distance coach, Zeb Lang. Zeb got the cross team to second at the Ivy championship meet this fall.

I'm curious to get same information for a HS girl. What times required for HS girls to a)get admission preference and/or b)get $$ to run for an Ivy?

Ivy Asst Coach wrote:

Let me provide some data. Let's look at the early lists for Indoor,

http://tfrrs.com/lists/1397.html#57

-

In the Mile, we have performances ranging from 4:18 to 4:31 between Columbia, Princeton, and Dartmouth.

Over 3000m, we have 8:30 to 8:58, so if we convert to 3200m, then you are looking at 9:10-9:40 with Harvard and Brown athletes included.

Over 5000m, you have 14:37 and 15:26.

The ranges are drastic. I am at several lower key meets where many Ivy men run above 16:00 for 5000m on the track and over 9:00 for 3000m, and these are seasoned collegiate runners, not a high school recruit.

The data is there to support the 4:30/9:50 rule of thumb for recruiting purposes. I prefer to recruit on potential as opposed to actual times run in a high school program.

Would this mean as a 1500+ sat kid I can go to an ivy and race with the girls and ejaculate on the bunhuggers near me during a 17min 5k?

Yale is terrible for running but still retains the elitist attitude because it's Yale. For some reason a good portion of the guys race slower than they did in high school. It might be that they've decided racing fast in high school to get into Yale was much more important than actually doing jack shit running-wise at yale. Financially it makes sense as the ROI of a Yale degree regardless of major or GPA is high but improving upon high school PRs gets you nowhere

Whoever is in charge of Coxe cage is a piece of shit too. In the 90s and early 2000's, it used to be a place for some of Connecticut's best road racers and post collegiate runners in town to have an indoor track to train on during the winter for a small fee, but years ago they decided to close it to the community for unknown reasons. Now nowhere in CT is there an indoor track to train on. NYC or Boston are the running communities so gotta pack your shit and move there.

Ivy Asst Coach wrote:

Let me provide some data. Let's look at the early lists for Indoor,

http://tfrrs.com/lists/1397.html#57

-

In the Mile, we have performances ranging from 4:18 to 4:31 between Columbia, Princeton, and Dartmouth.

Over 3000m, we have 8:30 to 8:58, so if we convert to 3200m, then you are looking at 9:10-9:40 with Harvard and Brown athletes included.

Over 5000m, you have 14:37 and 15:26.

The ranges are drastic. I am at several lower key meets where many Ivy men run above 16:00 for 5000m on the track and over 9:00 for 3000m, and these are seasoned collegiate runners, not a high school recruit.

The data is there to support the 4:30/9:50 rule of thumb for recruiting purposes. I prefer to recruit on potential as opposed to actual times run in a high school program.

what does 'recruited' mean in this context? does it help with admissions or anything practical? Or does it just mean the coach will talk to you?

I was recruited by Rojo at Cornell as a 1:54 guy (couple phone calls and an official visit). He stopped calling once I wouldn't commit early They were one of the better Ivy programs at the time.