About Runcruit

Runcruit estimates Cross Country and Track & Field recruiting standards for over a thousand U.S. colleges. If you’re a high school athlete interested in taking it to the next level, Runcruit can help you find teams that match your talents and show you what PR's to aim for to make their rosters.

Why Runcruit? My pandemic story...

As my running times improved during my sophomore year in high school, I started to wonder if I had what it takes to run in college. But finding this information online was next to impossible. And while a few schools did post their recruiting standards publicly, these weren’t necessarily good fits for me in other areas.

Then the pandemic struck in the spring, my track season was cancelled, and my summer came with stay-at-home orders instead of the races I had planned. I’d been studying data science for awhile, and now with extra time on my hands, I started exploring how to decode college recruiting standards programmatically. A lot of questions go into the college search process. For aspiring college athletes like me, I wanted to help answer a big one.

How Runcruit Works

When you enter your high school PR's into Runcruit, its prediction engine adjusts them according to average improvements between your grade and senior year, then compares the adjusted results with performance data from current and past college athletes (280,000 and counting). An estimate is then made on an individual basis of your likelihood of being a recruit, walk-on, tryout, or neither, across your selection of colleges.

What Runcruit Is Not

Official. Just as websites that predict college admissions using GPA and test scores are not privy to the decision-making process inside admissions offices, Runcruit’s estimates are based on algorithms rather than specific insight into how coaches construct their recruiting classes. As such, have fun with the data, but do your own homework too!

—Luke
(currently running for a top D3 program)