Penn’s transfer community is known for being small, insular, and incredibly vocal.
Admissions officers intentionally hold space for students who spend a year or two elsewhere to provide diverse perspectives and experiences to the Penn community at large. The Fall 2024 transfer cohort featured a 3.2% acceptance rate for a class of 100 students, of which senior distance runner Anna Weirich is one.
Weirich just ended her collegiate cross-country career with a 37th-place finish at NCAA Division I Mid-Atlantic Regionals last Friday. She led the Quakers to a fourth place finish at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships in October, finishing in ninth place and earning an All-Ivy Second-Team nod.
Weirich has established her presence as a top performer on the Penn distance squad since her arrival last fall. She is regularly featured on the scoring lineup during the 2024 cross-country season, save for a scratch during the Princeton Classic. Weirich would go on to set her all-time personal best 6-kilometer performance on the grass at Princeton one season later.
But competing at Penn wasn’t originally in the cards for the Portola Valley, CA. native, who began her collegiate career at the University of California, Los Angeles. Although transfer students are well-represented in flagship sports at Penn, Weirich is the first transfer student on the women’s cross-country team since head coach Matt Gosselin joined the program in 2019. Weirich is no stranger to firsts either, as she made history in high school as the first CCS cross-country title holder from the Harker School.
“[The Harker School] wasn’t as big into sports but I met so many great people, and I feel like that was the first time I really got introduced to that team environment. Going to practice was my favorite part of the day,” she said.
Initially a gymnast, Weirich began running cross country in middle school after racing in the Marion Mile fun run series over her summers. Weirich’s parents eventually let her switch from gymnastics to running when she joined a club track team in seventh grade. She gained her footing in the highly-competitive California cross-country scene, which has turned out dominant competitors like American record holder Nikki Hiltz and 2024 Gatorade National Athlete of the Year Sadie Engelhardt.
“One of my high school coaches said every cross-country race you do is just as competitive as the state championship in another state,” Weirich said. “It definitely was a great opportunity to learn how to race and compete against people. But also, there was never a race where I was like ‘I’ll easily win this.’”
Coming from a small private school in the Bay Area, Weirich was simultaneously drawn to the allure of big public schools who dominated academically and athletically, as well as to East Coast universities reminiscent of the Massachusetts environment where she grew to love running. But she would ultimately choose the only California school on her list – then-Pac-12 powerhouse UCLA.
Weirich’s initial recruitment process in 2018 was stifled by a toe fracture that effectively shelved her sophomore track season. Although her junior year cross-country season had strong showings, it became her only benchmark for college recruiting. Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdown of spring sports across the United States, colleges began contacting Weirich based on one track meet.
“You’re 16 years old and on the phone with these coaches, and you don’t really know. I didn’t really know what I was looking for,” Weirich said. “I committed [to UCLA] really not knowing the team at all, not knowing what it would be like. I briefly talked to the coaches, but everything was virtual via Zoom.”
Weirich’s two seasons at UCLA was marked by changes in coaches and her roles. The 2021-2022 coaching staff prioritized her as a multi-event distance runner on the track, while the next season's coaching staff emphasized performances on the grass. Her performance in the 2023 season led her to the Pac-12 Championships and NCAA Division I West Regionals.
By the time Weirich entered her junior year at UCLA, she discovered that the distance coaching staff would once again change. She made the tough decision to enter the transfer process in August 2023, forfeiting a year of academics in the process. After a year of competing unattached, recruiting during the 2023-2024 academic year eventually led Weirich to the Quakers. All the while, Weirich worked at a running store in the Bay Area and remained connected to her local running community.
“[Coach Gosselin] was super honest throughout the whole process, very transparent, but also very motivational,” Weirich. “And he was super passionate about the team aspect and what we can all do together. It wasn’t like one person was spotlighted or anything.”
Gosselin’s support has led to a family-first dynamic within the women’s cross-country team, which is only exemplified by their race-day performances. At Regionals, the five scoring runners had a finish differential of a mere 53 seconds. The whole team generally stays within 2-3 minutes of each other at any given meet.
Each Quaker cross-country season starts out with a long-run retreat at Washcross Trail, where half of the run is in New Jersey and the other half is in Pennsylvania. This practice functions more as a team-bonding experience than as a traditional long run, ending with a family-style home cooked brunch provided by men’s cross country Head Coach Steve Dolan’s wife. Weirich felt right at home after her first Washcross run in 2024, calling her teammates her best friends.
“I don’t know how I got so lucky,” Weirich said, “And I think everyone really tries to make an effort to really get to know each other and really just support each other. So I’m very very lucky … I think I feel like if I hadn’t gone to UCLA first, I always would have been like ‘Oh, I wonder what that would have been like.’ So I’m now grateful that I get [to have] two different college experiences and I think I’ve definitely grown up a lot and kind of realized what I want more.”
As Weirich anticipates her final season for the Quakers, she looks to round out her exciting college career doing what she has always wanted to do, regardless of where: running.
