<p>Ok, so my friend is interested in rowing for Harvard's Lightweight crew. He is a junior who currently has a 3.76 unweighted GPA (4.25 weighted) with a rigorous course load (7 APs so far, a mix of 4s and 5s on all of them, plus lots of other weighted courses) and approx. an 1900 on the SAT 1 and low 700s to high 600s on his two SAT II subject tests.</p>
<p>Would his stats give him a pretty good shots at admissions? (Erg score is around 6:40) Any help will be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>“Would his stats give him a pretty good shots at admissions?”</p>
<p>No. His overal GPA – which translates into an unweighted 92.5 – and a 1900 SAT score are pretty low for Harvard. On the other hand, his ERG of 6:40 might tip the balance in his favor. It’s difficult to say without knowing how strongly the coach feels, and if the coach is pushing for the student and using one of their admission “slots” for him.</p>
<p>From what I know of Harvard rowing recruits (I’m friends with several Ivy League rowers that were recruited from prep schools) that erg time needs to be about 6:35-6:30, heck I just tried erging once and got a 6:52 2k time without practice. The problem with the fact that I can get such a time, is evident is that people like with my physical traits (tall, not overweight and physically strong, not bragging just trying to be accurate) have tremendous walk-on potential i.e. a lot of strong people with good cardio can just pick up crew and get very good at it with very little practice, you can’t do that with most other sports as they often require years of practice to acquire DI skills.
A better example is a guy I knew (tremendous trivarsity athlete) tried erging for a workout, not even kidding and he got a 6:16 the first time this was his junior spring in high school, he now rows for Princeton. To grab the eye of Ivy recruiters you need to show that you will be better than most walk-ons could be (there are usually a few every year) and to do that you need to get down to around 6:30 and even then there’s no guarantee you’ll get recruited. 6:40 is a very respectable time, but probably on the higher end of what Harvard would consider recruitable.</p>
<p>I seriously doubt anything the above poster is saying. He claims his friend got a 6:16 the first time he ever tried a 2 km as a junior in high school while the world record lightweight 2 km by a high school aged student is 6:07. In fact based on this years Crash-B World indoor championships his ‘friend’ would have came first by 10 seconds - first in the entire world as a new rower? yeah right…</p>
<p>Everything that poster is saying is a lie. If you look at the indoor rowing championship results (like the Crash-B) that happened this year you can see the 2 km times of some people on Harvard’s crew. Their top crew members are down at 6:15 while they have another rower at 6:37. I’ve heard that you need to be in the low 6:40’s or below to be considered for recruitment. However, being able to be recruited doesn’t mean you are in as you probably need 2000+ or better 2100+ SAT and over a 3.8 GPA for top schools like Harvard. Good Luck!</p>
<p>Doubt it all you want, that does not make it less true. Why would I lie about another kids achievements? Do you think it impresses anyone that I know an immensely skilled rower? Get a grip on yourself. What possible incentive could I have to dissuade this kid from trying to get recruited?? I’m not a rower, nor will I ever be one thus I’m not competing for his spot. Your insinuation that I’m misleading falls as you have no logical explanation for my supposed lies, why would I lie to a potential recruit of a sport that I do not practice and if I had no knowledge of the sport, why would I try to mislead him? Though I should note that my friend is a Heavyweight rower, sorry didn’t read the question closely enough.</p>
<p>You say that I lie but then you restated my basic point:
“Their top crew members are down at 6:15 while they have another rower at 6:37. I’ve heard that you need to be in the low 6:40’s or below to be considered for recruitment.”
And I said that for recruitment you need a 2k time of about 6:30-6:35, TWO SECONDS faster than the slowest Harvard rower (who might not have been recruited in the first place.) or a “little lower” than 6:40 if you will. The walk-on thing on campus is less predictable so I probably shouldn’t have made such a big deal about it, however there are usually a couple of walk-ons every year on most teams as athletic kids can get very good at crew very quickly which is what my friend exemplifies (he’s not hypothetical but I’m not giving up a guy’s identity on CC for Christ’s sake.)</p>
<p>Hi folks -</p>
<pre><code>Don’t want to break up the love fest, but we wanted to weigh in here. We have two former Harvard coaches on staff in Wayne Berger and Christina Meyer.
The Harvard staff has a reputation of being very encouraging of those interested in the recruiting process though the kids who row for them are some of the best in the world. They are seasoned recruiters and break the rules I’m about to list below sometimes - however, we’re currently on a mission on CC to debunk the “if I row (at all), I can get into an Ivy League school” idea.
Here are some guidelines for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton:
On the academic side, the numbers still have to be very, very good. 2000+ SATs, and top 20% in your high school class unless you basically won a medal at the world champs.
There are exceptions to every rule, but there is no easy backdoor into these schools. If you’re going to look at rowing on this level, the uniform prerequisite is a love of the sport.
We hope this helps.