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I am a sophomore in high school. I just got 3rd in the state for class 1. I jumped 13'6 with a 13'4 grip on a 13'9 150. I weigh 130. I was hoping to get 14'6 next yr and then 15'+ senior yr to break the state record. Would 15' or so get me into a division 1 college? I have a 3.7 gpa and think i can score pretty high on my act scores bc i know they count for a lot.

It all depends where you want to go to college. Bigger schools will have better vaulters, so you will have to be able to jump higher. Smaller schools don't require as much height. The best thing to do would be to go to track meets where the colleges you're interested in are competing. If you can't do that, look up heat sheets to see what the vaulters are jumping. If you're vaulting 15' you should be okay.

When I went to Reno for the Pole Vault Summit, the star athletes that were there (Mary Saxer, Becky Holliday, etc.) jumped around 14 feet in high school and were able to go basically anywhere they wanted for college. If you can clear 15, the coaches will be all over you.

"When I went to Reno for the Pole Vault Summit, the star athletes that were there (Mary Saxer, Becky Holliday, etc.) jumped around 14 feet in high school and were able to go basically anywhere they wanted for college. If you can clear 15, the coaches will be all over you."

I think you assume that the original poster is female. Young men with 15' high school PRs are nearly a dime a dozen (a slight exaggeration), but they are fairly common.

Whoops! I was wondering why the numbers were so big...

I think the DI schools now have 12 and a half scholarships for the men's program. From that you must get sprinters, hurdlers, distance runners, thowers, and jumpers. If you only do one event you better be dang good to get much financial help. You will find 15' vaulters at DI schools but I'd be surprised if they got more than free books if that. Focus on your grades, lots more academic help out there.

Something to keep in mind ... at some of these larger schools with big teams and big budgets, you may find yourself as just another name on a roster.
You could go there for 4 years and unless you are winning BIG meets your head track coach might not even know who you are much less be able to recognize you without your uniform on.

When you start looking at schools, talk to their vaulters and meet their vaulting coach and head coach. While it IS fun to be able to say "I'm a member of the University of BIG bucks and a nationally known football team, Track program" ... it would also be a lot of fun to be on a team where you are supported with the coaching and resources you need to excel. I would add that YES, certainly there are big D1 schools that provide both, but there are some that don't. If having a successful college vaulting career is more important to you than just being on a certain team, take the time to really look at the vaulting programs of schools you are interested in.

You can either set your site on a good DIV II school or find a good Community College with a PV Coach and work on your vault to get you to the DI level. In the end it will cost a lot less, you will save money and if you improve your vault may have a pick of a good DI school.

You have to make yourself marketable to get into college. It helps that you're academic. Strive for as many academic scholarships as possible. Assuming you keep your grades up, you will never lose scholarship money due to injury or poor performance if all of it is academic. And coaches love nerds. It's also really hard to get recruited for one event too unless you can come into that colleges conference and score right away. So when you're looking at colleges look at how high everyone in their conference is jumping too. When colleges recruit for track they don't recruit 100m runners, mile runners, shot putters and pole vaulters; they recruit Sprinters, Distance, Throwers and Jumpers. So maybe try and get into some running events or other jumping events just to show your versatility. A multi event (Decat/Pentat) might even be up you're alley. After all, you are a TRACK AND FIELD athlete. Or even try and be recruited as a two sport athlete. That's what I did (football and track). You can also use a sport as leverage on coaches for more money ("well this sport is giving me more money so if you want me to stay and focus on your sport fork over more cash"). But that's more applicable for smaller schools where scholarship money is limited (DII), and only go that way if you think you can handle the work load, and the coaches are willing to work with you. In my case I had to quit football because I was having to do 3-4 workouts a day and my legs were pretty much spaghetti noodles at meets. And most importantly don't give up on recruiting. There's so many colleges out there its just about finding the one for you. Have your sights on that fat D1 scholarship, but if you can go to a JuCo or DII for next to nothing and still get to compete and have fun then go for it!

One word of warning make sure that the college has a vault coach. Coaches will promise the moon if it will help get athletes to their school. Speaking from experience I was promised that the college I was going to had acquired a vault coach that would start next year but there was never a vault coach while I was there. The throws coach attempted to coach us but he didn't know anything. Look for the facts and make sure that college has exactly what you need (not just vaulting).

Hey i saw ur video on youtube. U really improved a lot. I am sort of in ur shoes.im a sophmore that jumps 13 and i am looking into colleges as well. I have found from some good friends that d1 colleges look for where you rank nationally and at the state level because of the fact that you will probably see ur high school rivals in college. Also just to ad to what scpolevaulter said, i have had many friends atcually become worse because of a d1 school that offered the person money but the school didnt have a good pole vault coach. What i plan on doing if i hopefully vault for a d1 school is to sit in on there preactice. I would like to see if this coach would help or hurt my technique. Good luck

Hey i saw ur video on youtube. U really improved a lot. I am sort of in ur shoes.im a sophmore that jumps 13 and i am looking into colleges as well. I have found from some good friends that d1 colleges look for where you rank nationally and at the state level because of the fact that you will probably see ur high school rivals in college. Also just to ad to what scpolevaulter said, i have had many friends atcually become worse because of a d1 school that offered the person money but the school didnt have a good pole vault coach. What i plan on doing if i hopefully vault for a d1 school is to sit in on there preactice. I would like to see if this coach would help or hurt my technique. Good luck