Lightweight Rowing at the Collegiate Varsity level/ Help?

<p>I'm a male lightweight from Boston (Community Rowing, Inc.) with slightly above average/decent grades (I'm omitting my freshman year, W: 4.52 UW: 3.6), fairly good standardized tests (212 PSAT, 1880 8th grade John's Hopkins CTY SAT), and, in my opinion, (correct me if I'm wrong) a slightly above average 2k/6k time. I am very interested in getting recruited to a top school with a high performing varsity lightweight team (namely Cal Berkeley, Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn, and Cornell), but am not sure what steps to take. I am a Sophomore in high school and want to get the ball rolling as early as possible (abiding the NCAA rules, of course). Any suggestions?
Physique: ~6'1", 155 lbs.
2k Time: 6:53.8
6k Split: 1:49.5</p>

<p>Regatta Achievements: This isn't much, but was the lightweight spare for our light 8 at Youth Nationals last summer; 2 golds at the Saratoga Invitational in the lightweight 8.</p>

<p>Thank you very much--</p>

<p>LightweightDream</p>

<p>Well, you can’t choose to omit your freshman year when you apply and weighting gets removed at all of those schools so what is your GPA with your freshman year included. Your PSAT score is respectable, when are you taking the SAT? You need to get that into the 2100+ range. I would also suggest taking the ACT as a back up score if you want to get into those schools.</p>

<p>From this post <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/901138-lightweight-erg-scores-ivies.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/901138-lightweight-erg-scores-ivies.html&lt;/a&gt; you want a sub 6:30 2K for the better teams. This fall Cornell had a new lightweight from Brookline, MA with a 6:24 for example.</p>

<p>You should think about attending the crash-bs. You will see where you fit.</p>

<p>I’m taking the SAT II’s (Math level 2 and Chem) in the spring, and probably the SAT’s as well. My freshman GPA was a 4.3 W/ 3.44 UW (but I’m off to a much better start, I’m really shooting for a progression curve to show up). We have a Florida training trip during February, so I won’t be able to participate in the Crash B’s. I rowed with the boy from Brookline (he’s a monster) last fall for a bit and a little during the winter. By the end of this year / summer (I’m a junior B this summer, hoping to make some Junior A events though), what should I be looking at for times? And how do I go about contacting coaches next fall-- I get September first is the earliest, but any ideas for emails / do I fill out questionnaires? </p>

<p>All help is appreciated
-LightweightDream</p>

<p>Fill out questionnaires on the school pages and email coaches. That shows your interest. You may or may not get responses, but it costs you little in terms of effort. Likewise, you can try the free recruitment website [beRecruited.com:</a> Free College Recruiting Service and NCAA Athletic Scholarships Network](<a href=“http://www.berecruited.com%5DbeRecruited.com:”>http://www.berecruited.com). You can also pay for a premium page that lets you know which coaches view your profile. But honestly, without the premium site, interested coaches can still email you and that is the imporant part.</p>

<p>The website may or may not help. Two of the schools DD has been actively recruited for rowing contacted her through her berecruited site. While they were both on my radar for her, they weren’t really on her interest list until after that. And both of those teams are top NCAA schools, so apparently competitive teams can/do use it.</p>

<p>Both of these things you can do now as a sophomore. While it is easy to update your Be Recruited site as you improve grades and erg time, to update stats for a school questionnaire you have to email the coaches.</p>

<p>My daughter used be recruited. I would definitely suggest paying whatever the premium page cost which we did because they you see what coaches look at you and when. You can also see if they view your videos that you can upload. Even now she is still getting coaches looking at her (for crew). Note not every school using berecruited but it seems like many do. </p>

<p>When you are ready for your first college visits email the coaches beforehand and tell them you are planning on visiting their school and ask if you can meet with them.</p>

<p>^^^
good point. There are no time restrictions on meeting the coaches on their college campus.</p>

<p>As a sophmore you have plenty of time and are heading in the right direction.</p>

<p>Berkeley’s LW is a club sport, so that leaves basically the ivies (and Navy), which means that you are dealing with a very small group pf potential coaches. Which means that you don’t need to pay for any recruiting site or whatever because you can keep track of emailing fewer than 10 coaches/colleges. If your erg scores improve dramatically, there may be some HW teams that express interest, but that’s something to consider once you get there.</p>

<p>Requesting for this thread to be deleted. Thanks.</p>

<p>From what I have read via google–there are both varsity mens and womens lights…
and mens club lights.
The NCAA recognizes womens heavy weights and who know what they will do with the womens lights over time</p>

<p>OP You probably should ask your physician if they think by college that you will stay sub 160…naturally. (Done growing this early seems unlikely)</p>

<p>I’m pretty sure most women rowers would prefer to be referred to as open weight, as opposed to heavyweight, lol!</p>

<p>@lightweightdream</p>

<p>I am a rising freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. I was recruited as a lightweight rower this past year, and I’d like to give you guys some insight on what it’s like. I was being pursued by almost all the D1 lightweight rowing schools, HYP included. I can give you a bit of my stats (these are when I was a Junior/first semester senior): </p>

<p>2k: 6:32.1
6k: 20:58.2
GPA (unweighted): 3.67
ACT: 33 (I didn’t take any SAT II’s)</p>

<p>I can tell you right now you are on the right track to being recruited by an Ivy League school. Harvard is definitely one of the most competitive in terms of recruiting, and they require a lot from their prospective recruits. I would definitely recommend you try to lower your 2k as much as possible, and get great race results as well (I won the ML2x at Youth National Championships in 2012). As far as academics go, your ACT/SAT will probably have to be at least a 30/31 or 2000+, but the higher it is, the easier it will be for coaches to recruit you, especially for HYP.</p>

<p>I recommend that you get in contact with the coaches of lightweight rowing schools as soon as the Winter of your junior year in high school. They will have limited contact with you before July 1st (due to some kind of NCAA rule), but you definitely want to get your name out there. Don’t be scared to email the coaches. </p>

<p>PM me if you need help or advice.</p>