Just go to tfrrs: https://www.tfrrs.org/

See how your kid’s times stack up.

not looking for money- just looking for recruiting information.

Child has the times already but was unclear how all this works for T&F

Only very top top TF athletes get much money. Scholarships are few for TF/XC and usually split up among athletes. You can leverage skill for admission at big academic schools but even this requires you to be very good otherwise the coach might say, "sure you can walk on, provided you can get in".

Start early though if you have the times. Another issue with TF is that many kids don't become 'elite' until their senior season. Then you need to find somewhere to compete and train with maybe an eye toward a transfer which is much less difficult than it used to be.

It’s true that a lot of D3s offer merit money. But most of the high academic and d3 ones you may have heard of (examples: Carnegie Mellon, Pomona, Williams, ivys etc) are not going to offer merit. They may offer some aid though. Still likely to be way more expensive than in state of even an out of state public.

Also they are usually really small schools, like smaller than my kid’s current high school.

Lastly, there’s this myth of sports scholarships of more than a few thousand dollars, and not needing to be as academically qualified. It’s simply not true.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry meant to say yiu may get merit academic scholar just like any other NON athlete.

My son can run at almost any d3 school, times wise, but he still would have to get in and we would still not qualify for aid and so the cost would be $60-80k a year for some. Not going to happen.

Just an aside; D3 schools are often well funded with academic money. Do not avoid them simply due to anticipated cost without speaking with someone in their admissions/finance department. My daughter played soccer at a D3 whose published cost was $54K. Her academic stats were fine (3.6 and 27 ACT) but far from impressive. Still, by the time we were done with “super scoring” and $1500 scholarship for this, and $2,000 for that, (big one for agreeing to sing in the choir) we were in for $17,000 a year - less than in State tuition at every public college in our State. Make the calls and talk to the finance/admission folks. See where it comes out.

Anonymous wrote:Tfrrs is a good site to see times of current season performances as well as all time performances.

Runcruit is also a good estimate of how your child migh line up with certain school times.

Realize there are few to no running scholarlships. There’s only a potential spot on the team, but you still have to get accepted and pay, but may get merit based scholarships, just like any other athlete.

Also there are fewer male teams than female teams.

What sex (male or female) and what events or times does she or he run?

this in a nutshell. also, the more events your DC can enter to help the team the more likely they will get a scholarship. for example distance runners can compete in all 3 track seasons (cross country, indoor, and outdoor). sprinters/hurdlers than can also run both relays and/or a field event are a plus. track scholarships aren't "full ride" as most are split between multiple athletes.

A few schools put up their standard. FSU is one such school, mind you this is the ACC which is not a powerhouse in track but is better than almost all the conferences except SEC and PAC 12. Also as a former track and field coach and current recruiter for colleges, a lot of people think their DC running Div 1 times, but there are great Div 2 schools around.

https://seminoles.com/documents/2023/6/21/Updated-Scholarship-Standards-81417.pdf

Also this is a good resource.

https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/c/athletic-recruits/37

Definitely talk to your kid’s coach about this.

Also, track is great in that every high school and college runner’s times are very public and objective. Google players from each school and milestat and you’ll get their times by season and event. So “Jane Doe Milestat” and you just need to look up their times at each age /year to see how well your kid is doing relative to that time.

Sorry meant to say yiu may get merit academic scholar just like any other NON athlete.

My son can run at almost any d3 school, times wise, but he still would have to get in and we would still not qualify for aid and so the cost would be $60-80k a year for some. Not going to happen.

Tfrrs is a good site to see times of current season performances as well as all time performances.

Runcruit is also a good estimate of how your child migh line up with certain school times.

Realize there are few to no running scholarlships. There’s only a potential spot on the team, but you still have to get accepted and pay, but may get merit based scholarships, just like any other athlete.

Also there are fewer male teams than female teams.

What sex (male or female) and what events or times does she or he run?

It is certainly easier to know if your kid is in the range of recruiting since it is times based. I would ask the coach.

Can anyone share good resources about track and field college recruiting? I am very familiar with college soccer (just went through it with an older child) but I know nothing about track and field (like my dumb question- is it similar??)