In the first part of my book, my mc competes in a national championship which leads to her going somewhere on spring break. My question is: is it bad if I make up the colleges that are competing and even the name of the event? I want it to feel realistic, but at the same time it would feel weird to write about actual schools and competitions (even if every person is fictional).
A couple of thoughts. 1/ Jeffrey Archer has one of his heroines finish fourth (I think - certainly very high up) woman in (again, I think!) the Boston marathon. So this makes her one of very few women in the world who aren't Kenyan! What compounds this is that she then escapes from the Twin Towers in 9/11, by walking down the stairs. He has her out of breath after a few flights...for Chrissake, it's all downhill! 2/ I'd suggest modelling both colleges and competition on the real thing, and then making all of them fictional. That way nobody can say "I competed in that, and they don't do it that way..."
I agree with Shadowfax, looking closely at actual colleges and their sporting events, and then structuring something fictional yet functionally very similar would be the best way to go. Even if it's blatantly just a cover for say, College X being Yale, and College Z being Harvard, it'll give you more leeway as to the actual event and how it unfolds.
Thirded. My MC was a child prodigy classical pianist who took part in international competitions. I researched real competitions to find out the cities where they took place but made up the names of the competitions and was vague on the years. To give it more realism, I've used well-known real-life settings elsewhere. I think a mix makes it all mesh into a world that's more believable.