@Chembiodad That’s very interesting that the cutoff is so fast. Athletic.net only has records of 16 females running under 4:49 for the 1600, and 25 sub 4:51 in the mile. Many of those are probably overlaps, so I guess to get a scholarship for running at Villanova you’ve got to be one of the best in the entire country. Those numbers go down to 4 and 10 when you restrict it to seniors. So they’ll only give you a scholarship if you’re one of the very best in the entire country? Of course the best in the country will end up somewhere, but those standards are far from the norm. Villanova and Wake Forest seem like outliers to me. The ivies are probably outliers as well for obvious reasons.
I run track and XC as well but I’m far from being a recruit so I can’t really help you here. But I would say a 5:08 is recruitable, you applied to some very very fast schools but the vast majority would love to have a 5:08 girl. A 5:08 girl from my team got recruited by Northeastern and some other schools, although her 2 mile/XC times were even better than her mile.