<p>maybe a lot of rowers parents and rowers come here for info and therefore are disproportionate share of the community? Rowing is still pretty small nation wide so it is hard to find a lot of local advice in some areas of the country. This is a great resource.
And yes, my daughter’s a rower. Didn’t commit when asked for ED because she was just not ready to commit to one school. I’m looking to see how many girls DID commit to that school as they are still dangling the possibility of a LL for RD.</p>
<p>I’ll put in my 2 cents on rowing. I went to an Ivy and was recruited to be on the crew team after I arrived on campus. I did not even know that rowing was a competitive sport. Back then there was very little recruiting for crew. Now it is harder to get into an Ivy than to get elected to Congress. There are a few sports that have very low HS participation rates (crew, squash, equestrian, sailing, probably a few more) that are recruiting these days. If you are interested in going to an Ivy, this is a great way to get in, assuming you can get relatively proficient at your sport. There just is not that much competition for these slots.</p>
<p>I am not knocking this as a strategy for college admissions. In fact, for folks who want to do this, I applaud it. The admissions process for competitive schools is “holistic”, which I think means “random”. If you can find a way to increase your odds of getting into a school of your choice, that is a smart way to go.</p>
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<p>I don’t have any statistics at hand. But I see crew as a level or two above equestrian, sailing and squash. Crew IMHO is like other sports that are more popular in some parts of the country than others – akin to lacrosse and ice hockey.</p>
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<p>That’s like saying getting straight A’s and acing the SAT is a great way to get into an Ivy.
If rowing was so easy, everyone would excel at it.</p>
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<p>I’d beg to differ. There is extreme competition for rowing slots. Many foreign rowers (especially men it seems) at the Olympic level take up seats in American college boats.</p>
<p>XWords59, your son or daughter is obviously not a rower.</p>
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<p>As an outsider looking in, I can see how you might think that. Rowing, squash, women’s pole vault…it may seem like there are relatively few participants compared to more ‘conventional’ sports, therefore it’s a good ‘strategy’ to help gain admittance to an Ivy.</p>
<p>But once you start competing you quickly realize that at the top tier of all these sports (the level that would make you a D1 recruit) there is a “holy sh!” level of performance that includes the best in the US as well as international competitions. Being ‘relatively proficient’ isn’t going to get it done.</p>
<p>The other thing about crew, at least for women, is that the majority of the consistent top 15 schools in D1 are Ivies or “public Ivies” and therefore highly selective. 2012 NCAA results (in order): UVa, Michigan, Cal, Princeton, Ohio State, USC, Washington, UCLA, Stanford, Yale, Wisconsin, Harvard, Cornell, Brown, Notre Dame. As varska says, it’s not just a “relatively proficient” level to be competitive for one of these programs.</p>
<p>I had a feeling that my comment would be misinterpreted. Someone earlier in the thread asked why there were so many rowers that had been listed in the commit thread. My point is this:</p>
<p>(1) As I understand it, one of the main reasons CC got started was to help Ivy applicants and their families understand the admissions process and how to improve your chances of admissions.</p>
<p>(2) Today, there are way more applicants than slots. Even if you are academically perfect or near perfect, you still don’t have a good chance of getting admitted.</p>
<p>(3) A much better route to get admitted is if you are good enough to get recruited for a team. It is clearly, statistically easier to get recruited for crew than a more popular sport such as football or basketball, or even lacrosse. You still have to very good at what you do, but let’s face it, the amount of competition is not as high (that does not mean there is no competition, or even a lot of competition – just not as much) for crew.</p>
<p>(4) So people who read CC are trying to figure out how their kids can possibly increase their chances of admittance, and they tell their kid to try rowing and see if they like it, and can get good at it. The kid tries rowing and does become good and gets admitted through the recruiting process. What is wrong with that?</p>
<p>I was on the crew team in college. I know how much time and effort goes into all the training. It is a lot and it is not easy. I certainly have a lot of respect for anyone on a college crew team. Please don’t misinterpret the point I was trying to make.</p>
<p>xwords,</p>
<p>I get your point. Every Ivy/D3 LAC applicant needs a “hook” or “differentiator” to get past the low admittance rates of these schools. There is no question about that fact, as most Ivy/D3 LACs state that up front. </p>
<p>For athletics you are suggesting crew as a possibly lesser known sport for that “hook”. I see nothing wrong with it if the recruit can perform, and intends to follow through once they are admitted. My son has some crew friends at his Ivy. They work hard year round, and they take it very seriously. In terms of a strategy, I guess it is as good as any if the recruit can deliver results and enjoys it. Any admittance leverage a recruit can get is worthwhile in my way of thinking.</p>
<p>Fenwaysouth - my sentiments exactly</p>
<p>Xwords, nothing wrong with trying a sport with better odds. </p>
<p>I would just add a few caveats. First, your kid must love their sport for the sport itself and not just see it as a means to an end. Becoming good enough to be noticed by the ivies (or any elite school) requires hours and hours and years and years of hard, punishing training. </p>
<p>Second, the odds may be better than football and basketball at the ivies, but you have to balance it against the many many more recruiting spots available for the bigger sports (this is especially true if you expand your search beyond the ivies). I don’t know how many recruiting slots a crew team gets, but the Ivy fencing teams get roughly 3-4 per gender spread over three different weapons. Some years, many of those schools won’t be recruiting anyone in your kid’s weapon/gender and that is something you have no control over.</p>
<p>Third, your kid also has to have great grades and test scores – especially for the niche sports. Maintaining those grades while at the same time balancing the training, travel and commitment these sports require is extremely difficult. Every year, in fencing, there are fencers at the top of the US rankings (and on world teams) who cannot get into the Ivies, Northwestern, Stanford and Notre Dame because of their grades or test scores. These are smart kids too. It doesn’t mean those athletes will suffer because they “have” to go to Penn State (lol), it just means that athletic excellence at a niche sport is not any kind of guarantee of admission to an “elite” school. Those schools are serious about their Academic Indexes. I don’t think there is as much give in them as many people think there is.</p>
<p>Athletics are definitely a path, but not an easy one. Unless your kid is passionate and talented, another path will be more satisfying and more likely to yield a happier kid and better admissions choices.</p>
<p>xwords: let’s not forget that for these “lower participation” sports there are also many fewer recruiting slots. A squash coach gets to offer 2-3 LL each year, not 10 as in some swimming teams and who knows how many for helmet sports. Also, the kids on these teams need to bring up the academic average for all athletics so the squash player is scoring in 700s on tests and maintains minimum A- gpa (of course allowing for athletically off the charts exceptions). The competition for the 2 or 3 spots is international and the kids need to get started with their training/commitment to the sport in middle school or even earlier. Weekends at tournaments, daily training, travel, expense, etc. Hard to feel this is an easier road or a back door when you’re kid is 12 and fighting through international competition. Very few of these kids get the “top” prize but they all win for their effort, commitment, and sacrifice. This is what schools at every academic level find appealing.</p>
<p>There will always and forever be this debate on CC and elsewhere. Bottom line - it’s an alternate route with it’s own obstacles, pitfalls, uncertainty, and sometimes amazing rewards. Not for the faint of heart, drive, or talent - in and out of the classroom. These kids bring incredible passion and tenacity to the table, qualities seen as desirable by both adcoms and executive HR!!</p>
<p>The whole recent direction of this thread, to me, is rather bizarre.</p>
<p>The notion that the path to get into an Ivy League (or any) school is as simple as just excelling at a sport is pretty ridiculous.</p>
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<p>I’m going to disagree with fenwaysouth for probably the very first time. :(</p>
<p>I don’t pretend to knowing anything about admission hooks for the Ivies or for any other schools.</p>
<p>But the impression being conveyed is that excelling at a sport (such as crew) is just a matter of a life choice decision that is as simple as checking off a box on a form, “Yup, done that.”</p>
<p>Rowing is a good strategy. So is becoming a first chair bassoonist.</p>
<p>Golffather,</p>
<p>These Ivy/elite D3 LAC admittance decisions are always based on (first and foremost) academic performance. There is no getting around that. The first question any Ivy/elite D3 LAC coach will ask is…“what is your grades and SAT score”. We know that drill, and it is the single biggest recruiting filter there is.</p>
<p>I think XWords59 was trying to augment the strong academics with a shot at a coaches support in admissions with a less popular sport…at least that is the way I read it. I don’t think anyone here is suggesting sports on their own is the key to Ivy or D3 LAC admittance. On the contrary. I see tremendous students who also happen to be tremendous athletes.</p>
<p>Are we in agreement once again? ;-).</p>
<p>Yes, we’re absolutely in agreement as you state it.
No argument that great grades plus something else is better than great grades by themselves.
I don’t think anyone could disagree with that.</p>
<p>But the impression, I think, being made is that rowing is a viable (and easily obtainable) option that any student could choose as a tool specifically directed toward helping in Ivy admissions.</p>
<p>What I’m saying is that anyone who chooses competitive rowing as a “hook” with that specific purpose in mind is, at the least, misguided, and at the worst should probably seek some psychological counseling. Hope that makes sense. Crew is a form of legalized torture.</p>
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<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>Let me open this can of worms a little wider. I think I understand where Xwords is coming from. Some sports are just not as technical as others and do not require honing these special skills for 10 years to be really good. Rowing obviously is not a highly technical sport so if you have the right build and desire you can progress quickly. This is why you see these threads - I am a junior who never rowed - can I start rowing and get into Ivy? How come we do not see these threads about soccer or tennis? By the way training for any sport at the HP level is a torture and not good for your health.</p>
<p>I think those short horizon questions stem from the nature of the sport’s development. It isn’t like soccer, tennis or even lacrosse in starting kids at young ages where they spend years playing. I’ve not seen rowing programs for younger than 7/8th grade, and even many kids starting in HS are moving over from other sports. Plus, colleges do recruit good athletes with zero experience (both from US and international). </p>
<p>My previous point about rankings I didn’t make clear–it might make sense to use starting rowing as a way to get into an ivy if they weren’t also the most competitive of the rowing programs. Since they are, you need to be both top of your game on academics AND rowing–and hope they have enough slots. From what we heard from coaches, Princeton, Cornell and Yale have 8 or 9; UVA has 16. I don’t know if those vary year to year.</p>
<p>It is possible for a very strong athlete with less competitive academics to use this sport as a hook to get in to a school that would otherwise be an academic reach and that isn’t a top-ranked program. But a kid that athletic might be able to make that happen in any number of sports.</p>
<p>CCDD - I may jump THROUGH my computer at people who say “Rowing obviously is not a highly technical sport” – but I realize that it is innocent people who are ignorant about the sport and definitely those who have never rowed who make such proclamations. Clearly those darn olympic athletes don’t need to be technical at all – let me forgive you for your ignorance and clarify a few things. </p>
<p>The math is simple. Rowing is not.</p>
<p>In 2011, there were approximately 2000 high school female rowers. There were 6880 collegiate women rowers. It’s a matter of supply and demand. I don’t even need to do the math for you if you are talking about soccer or tennis, or any other sport where athletes start at the age of five. One of the reasons rowers are recruited in such great numbers is that there is such great demand for high school rowers who demonstrate success in high school. There is NOT demand for rowers who have not demonstrated success, be it in competition, erg score, body type, or athletic ability. If you do not have IT, the coaches know they will find IT on their campus in the Fall.</p>
<p>Forgive them their ignorance about rowing! While I know that rowing is a highly technical sport , one area of confusion may come from college coaches themselves. My son received 2 emails from college rowing coaches recruiting him for rowing in response to recruitment questionnaires he filled in for soccer. I think that since most high schools do not have rowing teams (at least where we live) coaches have a hard time recruiting.</p>
<p>In the several affluent towns adjacent to mine, kids most definitely see rowing and fencing as tickets to the Ivies and pursue these sports for that reason. I haven’t noticed any psychological abnormalities in them. They train with local teams, where they no doubt learn the technical things about the sport we non-rowers aren’t aware of. Imafan gives a good explanation of why I recently met two parents whose kids started rowing in junior year and then went on to be recruited to the top rowing schools listed above on this thread. That said, for no other college sport would you be discovered and recruited once you arrive to campus just because you have the right build and general athletic ability. While no one is saying the sport itself is easy, it does sound like the entree to collegiate rowing can be an easier, shorter road than for other sports.</p>