(revised edition)
Hello all!
I am a first semester sophomore at an all girls Catholic Private high school. I was wondering if I have potential to be recruited to a lightweight or even a less competitive open weight collegiate rowing program.
My current GPA is 3.3 (and hopefully rising)
In September of this season my 5k was 20:52.2.
Later in November my 2k was 7:59.3
My current 2k early January is 7:55.7
I know these are not the best, but I am working on dropping my splits everyday.
Next 2k is mid February and my new goal is 7:52.
I am 5’7 and 122lbs naturally (no diet). I am trying my best to get a little bit bigger but still staying safely under 130lbs. I have been flopping from bow seat of the Varsity 8 or stroke seat of the Lightweight 8.
Thank you!
There is some good info from @stalkermama and others in some old forums that really helped us when we first started researching LW rowing in college. Your GPA and times (even if you never get faster) are not going be an issue for the non-Ivies. After having gone through this process, I would say the best thing you can do is to get to know the LW college coaches through their summer camps (BU and Wisco both have summer camps for high school kids – not necessarily competitive camps, just a fun way to get to spend time at the campus summer of your sophomore or junior year and meet some of the asst. coaches who generally handle recruiting). Or you could always apply to SEJ type summer camps, but they don’t really focus as much on LW in the summers.
In the end, of course the coaches want to know that you are fast and love for you to have lots of national medals, but equally important is that they want to know you are coachable, have a great attitude, and have a good skill set. LW recruiting is very different from OW recruiting, and if you are looking for scholarships we found that a few smaller schools and newer programs were surprisingly generous, and the larger or more established programs only offered consideration to the very fastest LW’s (but most of them seem to go Ivy and that’s a completely different recruitment path). The most important advantage as a LW is that they will push your application through admissions (which is nice when GPA is low and it is unlikely that you would get admitted academically). Your coach can be a great resource, as well as alumna from your team who have gone on to row in college.
I realized I also forgot to mention that (because of your GPA) it is a good idea to start preparing for the ACT’s this summer and take it early and often (it would be ideal to have a good ACT score by Dec or April of your junior year so that the coaches know you’re an ideal candidate). While LW coaches at non-Ivies seem to be willing to push through an average GPA for a talented (but not super fast) rower, they cannot overlook a low ACT score unless you are a superstar. Luckily we were working with a high ACT score, but were given the impression that an average ACT and GPA were not ideal for a rower who also had a 2K that isn’t lower than 7:45. So basically, your best bet is to keep up the good work with school, keep testing until you get high score on your ACT’s, and do your best with your 2K. Then when it’s appropriate, start filling out the recruiting forms at schools you might be interested in and get a Berecuited account.
It is a long process and coaches will seem interested, then not interested, and then suddenly they are interested again. Don’t take any of it personally and just do your best to keep in contact with coaches sending updates about regattas and erg scores.