<p>Right, the ones whose times I listed, except the GU rowers, all rowed unaffiliated.</p>
<p>I would let the coaches know. You never know what might interest them. My son was a swimmer in high school but his times were not college caliber. Yet a couple of coaches called and were interested in developing him if he was interested. They felt that he was under trained whereas a lot of kids were “maxed out” and that he had a lot of room for improvement. </p>
<p>Now don’t expect to be recruited for crew. It’s an option to throw out there just in case.</p>
<p>You can also check out the limited pool of info at this website:</p>
<p><a href=“http://log.concept2.com/get_wrankings.asp[/url]”>http://log.concept2.com/get_wrankings.asp</a></p>
<p>Although I doubt this list is as extensive as looking at Crash Bs, individual college team websites, other major Indoor competition results, it does give you some interesting data by age and weight. </p>
<p>In there I already see 16 or so sub 7:40 lightweight high school girls, including some impressive sub 7:30s.</p>
<p>Another site are the national team testing standards and results, [National</a> Team Testing](<a href=“http://www.usrowing.org/NationalTeams/NationalTeamTesting.aspx]National”>http://www.usrowing.org/NationalTeams/NationalTeamTesting.aspx)</p>
<p>The U23 LW women’s national team standards are 7:20</p>
<p>Wow. Incredible advice from all, especially beenthere2 (because that pertains directly to me). I will try my best at rowing, and if I don’t like it then I will find a sport that I truly love. By the way, why doesn’t anyone like the ERG? I’ve used one before, and it wasn’t too bad.</p>
<p>Crash B’s, college team websites, indoor erg competitions (even those in California and Florida) absolutely do not support the idea that there are masses of lw high school girls pulling sub 7:40-7:30 2k times. Nor does the Concept2 site. If you take a close look, most of these rowers (espec. the Americans and Canadians, from whom the D1 lw teams historically draw their rosters) are tall, they weigh between 130-135 lbs. and they either headed to ow programs (those who are now rowing in college) or are obviously going to be headed to ow programs (a 14-yr. old who measures 5’10" now is not going to be rowing lightweight in college). Yes, there are a couple of true lightweights, one or two in the latest Concept2 lw rankings, who may have the academic credentials to be recruited. There aren’t 16. So can we put this fiction to rest? The OP wanted to know what it takes to be recruited as a lw. Academics in place, it takes a 2k of 7:42-7:45 and under. No one needs to stress about sub 7:30 times/competitors.</p>
<p>It’s possible for OW too, if you have the whole package…which means different things at different schools, depending on the year, what they (and you) are looking for, and timing.</p>
<p>a 7:50 gets them VERY interested(LW) I know for sure!!</p>
<p>stalker - which schools would you recommend for potential LW females? My D is a Jr OW and has a LW teammate with 7:47 2k</p>
<p>Stalkermama, thanks for correcting. That’s good to hear. I don’t know your experience, but I know last year that 7:50 was a recruitable number at a couple of schools for a couple of gals with great race results and/or great academics. In one case that I know of (apart from babaladu’s example), great coach/club connections helped too. Well, that’s an old story, happens every year, in every sport…
I should have expanded my upper limit in my earlier post. But I was trying to be cautious. Most recruits who actually secure a place on one of the handful of D1 dedicated lightweight teams will normally have to meet a 7:45 and under time.
And now, if I can hijack your post to reiterate: What lw recruits DON’T have to meet is a sub-7:30 time, perpetuated on this thread, much less a 2K in the 7:10’s to 7:20’s, also discussed on this thread. That is patently untrue and has to be countered, if only for the sake of the high school lw women who read these posts and hope to be informed by them. It’s sheer misinformation. While I’m on this theme, what also has to be countered is the myth that lightweight women’s top times are 10 seconds less than ow women’s top times. Let’s just think about that. A competitive lw woman normally measures btw. 5’4" and 5’7". She can weigh no more than 130lbs in the spring racing season, 135 lbs. in the off season. A competitive ow woman normally measures btw. 5’9 - 6’2 and weighs in at 145-150 to 185 or more. She has no artificial limit on her weight at any time. So that 10 second differential btw. junior lw women and junior ow women? Doesn’t happen. For junior women it’s 20 seconds at the minimum. If you really want to compare apples to oranges, then just stack the junior lw men’s 2k’s against the junior lw women’s 2k’s. Subtract a minute. You’ll get pretty close to a junior woman’s ideal lw time. And it’s still apples to oranges.</p>
<p>Stalker, thank you for letting me sound off on misconceptions regarding lw women’s recruiting!</p>
<p>And to reiterate: Some OW coaches, including from top programs — I’d like to say those who know about how weight directly affects boat speed — will be very interested in a tallish LW. A LW who is 20 seconds faster on a 2K erg will be a lot more effective in a boat over a rower who is 50lbs heavier.</p>
<p>thanks for all the great Lwt info! </p>
<p>Of course, talking 2K numbers is somewhat relative in that, the TOP programs in D1 (Wisc, Stanford) and the Ivies (Princeton who is #1 Lwt Ivy, Harvard) will, of course, get to choose from the TOP Lwt times, hence the direct written quote from the Harvard Lwt coach that his very limited # of admissions supports (3) is for recruits who have “. …XYZ … and are at 7:40 or faster by the end of junior year.” </p>
<p>I agree MANY other schools with good lightweight rowing programs would be more open to considering above 7:40, below 8:00 2K erg times. </p>
<p>Good luck to all!</p>
<p>I know nothing about IVY. I only know from experience from my own child in the process right now. She is not looking at any IVY schools so we have not focused on any numbers. I don’t think you can put Stanford and Wisc in the same category because you must be a great student to get into Stanford and for Wisc you can be a “good” student.
I am not an authority on any of this I am just learning…as we go.</p>
<p>Stanford and Wisc ARE pretty much in the same ROWING category (top D1 non Ivies) just as I wrote above – i did not say they were at all in the same academics category. My comments were about target 2K times and recruiting, not academics. So yes, i would of coruse agree it is much harder to get into Stanford than Wisc even with the exact same 2K rowing time as Stanford’s admissions’ criteria academically are higher.</p>
<p>also, if anyone is looking for a rowing $cholarship (and there are a lot of good one$ out there!), there are ZERO rowing scholarships at the Ivies. Ivies do have great financial aid based soley on need calculations, but they do not give aid on an athletic or academic merit basis.</p>
<p>I love reading all this and some people have been super helpful. Its not easy trying to learn all this so fast.I didn’t even know what an erg was until last year. So to introduce myself…I am the mother of a HS junior that wants to row in college.She is a LW 5’5 125 with an erg score of 7:56.0 She is going to PR (just learned that too) very soon. I would like to know who everyone is? Are you parents of rowers? Coaches? Students? What experience you have with all the info you are giving. Is it what you read? What happens at your own school? Thanks :)</p>
<p>My understanding is that most (all?) LW programs do not offer scholarships (i.e. Stanford and Wisconsin.)
With respect to “top programs,” tallgirl has it right, and that’s something to consider: You have to take into account both academic and athletic competitiveness when identifying a possible match. Let’s say a top academic school is less competitive in a sport than another, academically “lesser” school that is highly competitive in that sport. In that case, the academically more selective program may become a “match,” of course, provided minimum academic criteria are fulfilled. That’s, of course, really obvious in sports like basketball or fooftball but applies to rowing, too. For example, it may be a lot easier to get into Penn or Columbia than into UVA or Berkeley.</p>
<p>My teammate from last year happened to be one of those OW girls who dropped weight to make lightweight and race at crash b’s. For her, it was the only way she could qualify and although she did pull under 7:20 there was no way she was willing to stay at 130 lbs on a consistent basis in college but she didn’t need to because her 2k was good enough for a top OW program. I think that is the case with many girls in similar situations and based on Princeton’s crash p results this year, those girls who are pulling sub 7:20 at crash b’s aren’t rowing lwt. </p>
<p>Back to the OP’s question… I think it is definitely worth contacting coaches to show your interest and let them know where you’re at. With the right training, you can be pulling a recruitable lwt 2k and with already great academics, you will be in a great position. If you really want to improve on your 2k then you need to do lots of speed work at 2k or sub 2k pace combined with longer distance pieces to maintain your cardio. Make sure you’re doing weights a few times a week and not just the leg press. Erging is a full body workout and arm/back strength is also important. Lastly… do not forget about nutrition! Make sure you eat an hour or so before workouts to be most efficient. Every rower is capable of improvement with hard work. Don’t give up!</p>
<p>Clarification: In my previous post I meant to write “10 seconds slower”, not “10 seconds less” which seems to imply that women lightweight top 2K times are faster than top ow times!</p>
<p>My examples of recruited times all come from lw women in the last year who were successfully recruited to lw teams at Stanford, Harvard and Princeton. They encompassed the range from a 7:30 2K on up to a couple of 7:50 times. For the most part it was low 7:30’s to low 7:40’s. Stalkermama, other lightweight programs exist at Wisconsin (very competitive team), MIT and Georgetown (though I don’t know if they’ll continue to have a dedicated lw program from now on, with the change in coaching?). Other colleges that launch lightweight boats, but don’t have dedicated lw teams, are Tufts and Bucknell (though I’ve heard that Bucknell doesn’t recruit lw’s per se, but simply races the lighter ow’s who slim down to make weight in the Spring. Could be wrong, just the scuttlebut). I’m sure CC’ers can weigh in (no pun intended) with some other college names, but the fact is, there aren’t too many. Oh! BU is starting a women’s lw team. That’s another. Maybe the trend of dropping women’s lw teams (they were added in the 80’s (? a little later?) with the advent of Title IX requirements, and have been disappearing since), will begin to reverse. That would be something!</p>
<p>The good news is that lightweights, especially those tall ones, as Beenthere2 remarks, can be very attractive to openweight teams… and then that gives the potential recruit a LOT more options. D went on her college tour last summer and got a lot of meets with coaches at openweight DI and DIII teams. In the end, because she’s a shorter lw, only a couple of NESCAC (D3, openwweight) teams remained interested, but that was ok. She would have been happy to row for them. She’s happier though to be headed to a lw team where she can compete on a more level playing field (or whatever the equivalent crew metaphor would be).</p>
<p>here’s a link from row2k that has an updated list of the college’s that offer lwt programs</p>
<p>[Rowing</a> and Sculling for Rowers and Scullers - row2k.com: Rowing Teams HQ](<a href=“Ooops! Page not found! Rowing and Sculling for Rowers and Scullers - row2k.com”>College Rowing Teams HQ | row2k.com)</p>