<p>How much of a differnece does being recruited matter at Yale, for CREW?</p>
<p>Depends on how fast you are.</p>
<p>being recruited for a sport (especially crew nowadays) is huge but i have heard that yale is a stickler (more than many of the other ivies) for having yale standard high grades in addition to the sports element.</p>
<p>crew is a big deal here.</p>
<p>Being recruited is HUGE but only IF you make it on to the list that the coach sends to the admissions office. Being a good player or all-state or a captain is worth very little as far as admissions if you are not put on the list. And the coaches start off the process by "recruiting" MANY kids before a mutual selection process narrows the field down dramatically to who actually makes it on to the list. Each sport is limited as to the number of candidates who can be put on the list. Football has 30 with other sports given considerably fewer spots.
To get on the list, you need to be talented at your sport as evaluated by the Yale coaches, you need to be better than the other talented players competing for the same spot, and you need academics at - or not too far below - general Yale academic standards. Each team's slots must match up with an "academic index" based on the SATs and high school grades or class rank of Yale's student body as a whole - not just athletes and not the Ivy League as a whole. Typically, coaches will save the lower "bands" of the index for weaker students for the skill positions in his or her sports - if it's a sport like football, for example, the quarterbacks or speed positions would mostly go to the lower banded athletes. (I don't know if there is a similar differentiation among rowers.) I highly recommend an excellent book about the role sports play in Ivy League (and NESCAC) admissions called "Playing the Game" available on Amazon; it's interesting reading as well as being very informative.</p>
<p>If you are on the coaches list and apply EA, what are your chances?</p>
<p>My impression is that - EA or regular - if you are on the coach's list sent to admissons and qualify under the schools academic index, you are in period UNLESS the admissions office finds something that is a substantive reason not to take you - disciplinary record, terrible comments from teachers, etc. In practice, as I understand it, the coaches - if you really are on their final list - will seek a commitment from you to attend if accepted, EA or regular - and will get you a "likely letter" from the admissions office; i.e., pre-clearance from admissions. If they are not getting you a likely letter, odds are that they haven't decided yet whom they really want or you aren't in fact on their list of players they want most. Some people fall in that category - encouraged to walk on with no help from the coaches with admissions. The coaches only get a set number of slots they can ask admissions for help with.</p>