There are plenty of kids getting recruited to Haverford, Tufts, Swarthmore, Bowdoin etc. for both big and little sports that are from wealthier areas and yes they are generally outstanding credentialed students with GPAs/standardized test scores to match the college that has a need for athletes.
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In our upper middle class town, rowing and sailing do help send a regular number of kids to Ivies and the ilk. It’s sometimes hard not to be resentful of a conversation that’s often overheard during admissions season around here … “I have a spot on Stanford’s team but I really liked the team at Princeton. I might switch,” when your kid is in the same classes, getting As and super involved in activities that colleges don’t recruit for (like theater, music, newspapers, community activities, etc). My daughter often lamented that she didn’t pick up rowing when she was younger. 
Honestly, it’s all fine, she’s super happy, but I don’t care for the elite college fascination with sports that don’t sell tickets.
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If those kids are on a Stanford level, they are in the top 1% of athletes. (And, many have grades/scores as good as ypur daughter’s). While there isn’t a formal process for acting recruiting, you don’t think someone in the top 1% of actors would be sought after by rejective schools? I think they would be! A top 1% actor, I would guess, has professional experience, an agent etc. (And may well be accorded some leeway with grades, too). Same with a kid in the top 1% of newspaper/school journalism. I do realize it’s hard to determine the top 1%. But odds are they’ve been published outside the school paper. They will have done impressive things!
Not everyone can be a great actor, not everyone can row in the Ivy League, even if they start lessons and training at a young age.
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Sure, but no coach or faculty member is going to bat with admissions for the kid who’s super successful in theater or the newspaper or serving their community. They’re certainly attractive to schools, but it’s the recruiting part that favors the sports that don’t actually earn money for the university that doesn’t make much sense to me.
Regarding Stanford rowing specifically, I wouldn’t assume as a high level as most other sports. I walked on to the men’s rowing team at Stanford, without any past rowing experience. It’s one of the only Stanford varsity sports where one does not need past experience in the sport to join the team. Women’s rowing may have a better ratio of (recruited spots / number of HS athletes) than any other NCAA Div I sport. One does not need to be top 1% to be recruited.
At Div I colleges, recruited athletes typically see a stronger admissions boost than any other EC – far more than top 1% theater, journalism, or whatever. For example, the Harvard lawsuit analysis found that below a certain stat level, almost all admits were athletes. Some specific numbers are below comparing athletes to other types of hooks – Legacy, Dean/Director Special Interest List, and Children of Faculty.
Percent of Admits Receiving Listed Academic Rating (1 = best, 5 = worst)
1 – 5% of non-ALDC, 3% LDC, ~0% Athlete
2 – 77% of non-ALDC, 75% LDC, 25% Athlete
3 – 18% of non-ALDC, 22% LDC, 61% Athlete
4 – ~0% of non-ALDC, <1% LDC, 14% Athlete
5 – 0% on non-ALDC, 0% LDC, <1% Athlete
Many sports have room for walk-ons, because coaches don’t have enough slots to fill the team. Those who are recruited/offered a slot do tend to be top performers.
Yes, but this is after the athletic vetting process. The winnowing happens before applications are submitted, when the coaches offer slots to the recruits they want. Many coaches evaluated 1,000s of athletes to get to that point. Most HS athletes who are vying for slots at highly rejective schools are not successful.
Acting and musical theater is similar at least at some schools that run an audition process. Those who make it thru that have very high acceptance rates as well. If you have data on acting, or journalism acceptance rates for top performers please share.
At some schools, debate coaches have influence with admissions, as do music faculty. I’m sure there are more examples.
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Not at Stanford. Most varsity sports do not have a significant number of walk-ons, particularly walk-ons without previous experience in the sport. Coaches also rarely have problems finding enough students to fill all the slots on the team. Rowing is an outlier. Those who are recruited do tend to be excellent performers , but often not at the same level as other varsity sports. The number of HS rowers is difficult to estimate accurately because there are many private clubs separate from school, but I’d expect far more than 1% are recruited.
My earlier post lists some example academic stat ratings for Harvard. Below a certain stat threshold, nearly all admitted students are athletes. This isn’t a matter of winnowing before applications making admit rate appear higher. Instead, it’s a matter of a significant portion of recruited athletes having lower academic standards than nearly all other students. This difference in academic standards for athletes is defined in the Ivy League conference rules. In general, Ivy League athletes are limited to having average stats 1 SD less than the rest of the school, and Ivy League colleges do push to the bottom of this limit.
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just curious when you were a walk on at stanford - walk ons for the Ivy teams and similar is pretty much non existent now - due to athletes starting this sport in high school vs when strong all around high school athletes could walk on to a freshman squad and were picked out of the registration line by crew coaches to come try the sport. Alumni from those days seem to lobby coaches to bring it back - but funding, roster size etc has almost all but eliminated walk ons - except at your huge programs like a UW, Berkeley etc - from our recent experience with the sport.
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Even the “winnowing” favors the privileged. Coaches from top academic colleges often focus their recruiting on athletes from prep schools and other wealthy, high performing schools because the athletes from these schools generally have better track record of meeting the (lowered) academic standards for athletes.
It seems we agree that it is fiercely competitive to be recruited as an athlete to a highly rejective, and generally only top performers receive slots (full coach support thru admissions.) Schools limit the number of slots that each coach has each year (and NCAA puts limits on scholarships for the highly rejective schools that offer those $).
I wasn’t talking at all about the fact that some recruited athletes at the Ivies have lower academic credentials, or Harvard’s admission process…which is different than the time frame of the lawsuit data, including the fact that AI index is not in use across the board due to test optional admissions.
I agree, and never said otherwise.
Athletic recruits are top athletic performers, some are also top students, some aren’t, some are in between. For a myriad of reasons a number of highly rejective schools reserve spots in their classes for top athletic performers.
ETA: the same is true of audition based programs in acting, MT, or music…these tend to be privileged students or students coming thru college access orgs that focus on helping limited income students access these opportunities (there are college access orgs doing the same in athletics).
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A quote from the current Stanford rowing website at Row for Stanford - Stanford University Athletics is below. I’ve seen similar comments at multiple other Ivy+ colleges.
Stanford Women’s Rowing invites you to walk-on to our Division I, nationally ranked team. Our rowing program has a tradition of excellence and continues to be recognized as one of the top programs in the country. Part of the tradition of success comes from walk-ons, with no prior rowing experience, joining the team and contributing to Pac-12 and NCAA Championships. Rowing gives you an opportunity to get out and train on the water everyday, develop skills and characteristics that employers value, and work with an exceptional team of women. To learn more about walking-on to Stanford Women’s Rowing, fill out our Walk-On Questionnaire. If you have specific questions, feel free to contact Coach Derek Byrnes: dbyrnes@stanford.edu or at (510) 219-4180.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need experience?
No! In your first year of collegiate rowing you are considered to be a ‘Novice,’ a majority of your novice class will have had no previous rowing experience. This allows students with athletic ability to see first-hand what the sport of rowing is about. In your first year in this team-oriented sport, you will spend your time learning and adapting to the sport. Although you are a walk-on, you are still a part of the varsity team by spring semester.
The original post you replied was talked about degree of admission boost. One way to measure degree of admission boost is to compare chance of student being admitted with or without that factor. Seeing that a notable portion of athletes have admission ratings lower than nearly all other admitted students is one way to show this difference.
The lawsuit analysis also reviews admission boost for non-athlete ECs. ECs are rated by readers on the following scale. At time of lawsuit, only ~50 applicants per year received the maximum 1 rating, suggesting a 1 is far rarer than being in the top 1% of your EC. It might include national champion in EC type achievement. The regression analysis found that this national championship EC type achievement was associated with a similar degree of boost to a strong non-athlete hook, such as being Black. The degree of admission boost associated with athletic recruiting was on a completely different scale, including admitting many athletes with lower admissions reader ratings than would be possible for a 1 EC kid.
Extracurricular, Community Employment, Family Commitments
- Unusual strength in one or more areas. Possible national-level achievement or
professional experience. A potential major contributor at Harvard. Truly unusual
achievement.- Strong secondary school contribution in one or more areas such as class president,
newspaper editor, concertmaster etc. and/or significant involvement in organizations
outside of school. Possible local or regional recognition; major accomplishment(s)
that have had an impact outside of the classroom. Can include significant term-time
work or family responsibilities coupled with extracurricular engagement.- Solid participation but without special distinction. (Upgrade 3+ to 2- in some cases if
the e/c is particularly extensive and substantive.)- Little or no participation.
- Substantial commitment outside of conventional EC participation such as family
obligations, term-time work or a significant commute (Important: should be included
with other e/c to boost the rating or left as a “5” if that is more representative of the
student’s commitment).- Special circumstances limit or prevent participation (e.g. a physical condition, gap
year(s), compulsory service of some kind).
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The pre-season rankings are out for college lax, and I think six of the Ivy schools are ranked in the top 20 (mens) and four of those in the top 10. For women, it was like four in the top 20.
They aren’t getting those rankings by only recruiting privileged kids who just picked up the sport to get into an Ivy. They are attracting the best athletes in the country who also happen to be top students (and in some cases, who can afford an Ivy and thus give up an athletic scholarship to Duke, Hopkins, ND, etc).
If the Ivies didn’t recruit and weren’t able to give Likely Letters, they could field teams from walk ons, but it wouldn’t be the quality of the teams they have. The recruits would go to Hopkins, Virginia, Duke, UNC…all quality schools and all quality programs. IMO, they’d take the ‘sure thing’ rather than try to be a walk on.
Same as if the top schools just pulled their band, orchestra, theater productions from ‘walk ons’ and didn’t give any preference to those who send in videos and supplements with their applications. It would be an okay orchestra but not as good as it would be with a top violinist.
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Pull up the team rosters for some of these schools for sports like water polo, field hockey, lacrosse and even baseball and you might be surprised how many attended prep schools. Water polo is never a consideration for most kids.
For example, take a look at Princeton’s Men’s Water Polo roster. 11 of the 30 kids are from just 3 prep schools, and most of the others are either international, or from a prep school or a wealthy public.
No Pickleball yet? Gosh!
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I’ll play with you - we can represent our former colleges
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You are right - even though I have a female college crew athlete - I was thinking male - shame on me! Our parent/alumni quarterly coach calls focus a lot of the men’s teams and that was top of mind - my mistake.
The rosters can go significantly larger for female sports and can allow for walk-ons. Even with walk-ons, gone are the days that most walk-ons can get seated. It is nice when teams offer a novice or freshman rowing option - but that has shrunk a lot over the years.
Thanks for the correction.
I am male and walked on to the men’s team. The men’st team still supports walk-ons today. The website at Rowing At Stanford — THE ROWING ASSOCIATION writes,
“The Stanford Men’s, Women’s and Lightweight Teams all have active walk-on programs, giving students regardless of their background or prior experience in the sport the opportunity to pursue collegiate athletics. Rowing is one of the top sports for walk-ons at Stanford and many who join as a walk-on do not begin rowing until college. Former student-athletes who have walked on to the teams have gone from learning how to row at Stanford, to earning a spot in their respective programs’ top boats, becoming All-Americans, winning National Championships, and even competing at the Olympics.”
Recent news stories in the Daily also conform walk-ons on Men’s team. saying:
Men’s rowing at Stanford has always been the sport of opportunity. Any student, even one with no prior rowing experience, has the opportunity to walk onto the team, provided they are willing to wake up before 5:30 a.m. most mornings for practice and embrace the grueling year-round training.
I learned about the walk-ons from a recruiting display in the main plaza by the bookstore. They had a booth with 2 rowing ergs and a few current team members, encouraging students to join the team, answering questions about the sport/team/practices, etc. They also challenged random students passing by to a simulated rowing race with the 2 ergs. I did quite well in this challenge, which turned me on to the sport.
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I believe you and only mentioning my current experience with my child at this level of teams and her recruitment and that of her friends (male/female). Love to see it open to walk-ons - just not easy. Stanford did pull their team and lost many top male rowers a few years ago and are rebuilding. Walk-on promotion makes for excellent public relations.