Penn State Star Shares Her Own Experience And Formula For Finding The Right College Fit

By Natalie Shapiro for DyeStat

As the fall season gains momentum, high school cross country and track and field athletes are beginning to announce college commitments to further their runnings careers. For many elite athletes, the college recruiting process is the most critical step in a long term plan for athletic success. In a post-pandemic world,  picking the right college is even more difficult than usual. 

In response, All-American and Big Ten Freshman of the Year, Victoria Vanriele of Penn State has created an accessible guide to college recruitment. Her website The Track and Field Recruiting Guide has “all the recruiting tips in one place.” 

Vanriele, who made a seamless transition to college by winning the Big Ten Indoor Championships 800 meters, started the site as a simple yet comprehensive guide to college recruiting. 

“People would ask me how I came to choose Penn State, or high schoolers would ask me for recruiting tips, so I decided to put it out for everyone, not just the people who asked me,” she said. 

Vanriele, who starred on the track at New Jersey's Governor Livingston High in Berkeley Heights, is taking what she learned through the recruiting process and passing it along. Younger athletes, and their families, can find valuable information and advice that is not readily available elsewhere. 

Her achievements and personality have attracted a following. 

Vanriele's website is deeply personal as it mimics the information and process that she used to make her own decision. She shares her strategies for paring down options that eventually led to her choosing Penn State.

“I created an algorithm, like I mention on the website, where I ranked different things I felt were really important to me and how each school lined up with those as well,” she said.

Vanriele employs this concept as a way to guide athletes how to prioritize areas of personal interest in order to receive more information and eliminate guesswork. 

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the website is that it is completely free. Not only does it give athletes access to personal advice from a highly regarded source, but it presents it in the most accessible way possible. 

For Vanriele, who might be tempted to cash in on projects like this due to the NCAA's new Name, Image and Likeness rules, she has maintained a desire to keep this site free.

“I am going to keep to the brand of how I started it," she said. "I started it to be free and I am not going to switch that now. I still want it to be a resource that is accessible and there for people who really need it.” 

Vanriele's goal is simply to provide useful infotmation to those who need it. 

The website consolidates much of the information that Vanriele obtained in her own recruiting process and presents it in one place. Her intention was to make it easier for students who may not have the help of parents or coaches to easily navigate recruiting by themselves. 

“I just really want it to get to high school athletes who might need this," she said. "I just want to help as many people as possible. At the end of the day, what I want is for high school athletes to come out with a commitment that they are really happy with, and a school that is the right fit for them.” 

Visit vanrieletrackguide.com