<p>Ok so I am a pretty good applicant for HYPS and Stanford, but even people like me who have been dreaming of getting in these schools often don't.</p>
<p>I have been thinking of trying crew to be recruited by Stanford or another Ivy League school.</p>
<p>I will have played 4 years of varsity tennis undefeated and play national tournaments, but no where near the level they ask.</p>
<p>At my gym that my family recently signed up to, there are several rowing machines, and I have tried them out and I am a naturally athletic guy. My time for 2000 was 8:00 first time. From looking at the Harvard time it should be around 6:00.</p>
<p>I can easily get this time down with some hard work and training. My question is do you think I am able to get recruited by Stanford? Do I have to be on a team if my times on the machine are good?</p>
<p>I am aware that Stanford is a very athletic school (considering 25% of the people who get in are recruited), so if I am able to pull this off I could easily get into the schools I desire.</p>
<p>For anyone on the crew team or people who know enough information, what times are practices (probably really early in teh morning)? Won't that tire you out for classes? I have seen the schedule and the recruiting questionaire, is it hard to get in?</p>
<p>I would love someone to reply with lots of answers and tell me whether I have a chance because I think this is one sport that doesn't require much training, two months should be good.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about college athletics but it seems kinda crazy to think you could get to stanford level in any sport with just two months of training.</p>
<p>you’re sorely mistaken if you truly believe you can get to division one college level in any sport in two months.</p>
<p>Well, a lot of people I know are on their college’s varsity rowing team and they had not even tried rowing before stepping foot on campus (I know a lot out West at some D3 schools and UW-Seattle and a girl that goes to U of M Twin Cities, which is a D1 school). I guess you could try it out, but obviously, like ngolsh said, it’s kind of up in the air; you really need to be dedicated to it.</p>
<p>I know someone who is/was recruited at HYPMS for crew. This guy has been doing it for 4+ years. He is the best on his team, and his team is like a top 4 national team. He puts hours into it everyday. He is 6 foot 3 and all muscle. So, to answer your question, I’d say that you have almost no chance. Sorry. If you’re a senior, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway since decisions are out in like a week or two. </p>
<p>If you’re a junior, and you are looking for a “backdoor” way into the school, do something more worthwhile in the summer that will make Stanford think that they have to accept you (like win a national academic contest or something, start a few companies, build a huge rocket if you want to go into engineering, publish a novel if you want into their liberal arts program). If you do something like that, you may not get into Stanford (someone got waitlisted at MIT who made 100,000 from starting 3 tech-companies), but you’ll get into at least one east coast equivalent, even if you’re grades are bad.</p>
<p>Have you ever thought that even if you do become good enough for division 1 level rowing, Stanford might still see through your shallow strategy to get in to their school?</p>
<p>You really need to join a team or learn to scull if you’re serious about this. The machines will get you a time, but they don’t give you feedback on your form, and bad form in the boat can slow the whole thing down. There is also a different feel to being on a real boat than being on a machine. Also, how tall are you? It could also help if you weigh less than 165, then you could row as a lightweight (in which case your times don’t need to be quite as low).</p>
<p>Stanford102: Even if you’re not good enough for Division I, Stanford still likes people with passion. Don’t give up rowing despite what some pessimistic people on this thread say.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice guys.</p>
<p>I like the harsh criticism because I don’t want to waste my time if it’s not realistic.</p>
<p>I am 145 pounds and 6 foot tall</p>
<p>If I didn’t say in my heading I will say it now: my first time ever was 8:00 and I know I would have to get it down to 6:30.</p>
<p>I do summer programs during the summer and hopefully will be getting in an internship this summer.</p>
<p>It just seems like most of these top schools are near impossible to get in when a white kid without a real hook. Recruited automatically increases your chances a ton and you could easily get into Stanford or one of the Ivy Leagues.</p>
<p>I went to Harvard summer school for calc and music and have friends who go to harvard, Stanford, etc. (not too many, but still) and I have never met someone who wants to get into one of these colleges as bad as me… ever. There might not be, and there also very well could be.</p>
<p>How would you start a business, that kind of sounds interesting except for the fact that we are in a recession- but out of curiosity I have not read on how most people do it?</p>
<p>My best bet is to get accepted to SUMaC which I already sent in and put a lot of effort into. From looking at past threads the acceptance rate of people who go to SUMaC when applying to Stanford is high, so that definitely could be a mini hook.</p>
<p>By the way, in case any one has read this far I have a predicament that hopefully I will be able to decide from: Would it be best to go to SUMaC (which would increase my chances of getting into Stanford) or go to an internship where you write a research paper and you can send that into all of the colleges you apply as a supplement?</p>
<p>Why not write a research paper and go to SuMac? JK, kind of (if it’s possible time-wise, go for it). I think if you wrote a research paper on a subject you really were passionate about, that would be better, but that’s just my two cents.</p>
<p>As far as the business goes, that’s up to you. If you’re good at computers, start a Geek-squad type thing. Pretend you know a bunch about stocks and help older people (trust me, old people love investing) pick out some stocks. Design a profitting website. Or you can do what I did and sell on eBay. I did it just for fun, but if you want to make a real business with eBay then I recommend buying a whole lot of goods cheap (iPhones, for example) and selling them for higher prices online. Or, you could grab a bunch of your smart friends and start a local summer tutoring business, advertising that you’ll help other high-achieving kids get ahead before the school year starts. Stanford will likely only be impressed with businesses like the first few I mentioned. All I know about the guy I mentioned is what I said earlier in this forum; he formed three companies and collected a ton of revenue. I wish I actually knew how he did it.</p>
<p>As a fellow rower, I don’t think you have any conceivable chance of being recruited after 2 months of practice. Technique is the most important thing for crew and cannot be learned on the erg. There are many guys I know who were in the varsity boat for 2-3 years and still did not get recruited so I don’t see how someone with no boat experience could pull this off.</p>
<p>This is not to say that you could not start rowing now and become very successful. There are many people who start in college and a few even work themselves up to an international lever. I definitely suggest you stick with crew, if you are passionate about it, but I believe it would be impossible to get recruited by a top school.</p>
<p>Adcoms have been around the block many times and will in most cases easily spot a person who has not demonstrated passion and is simply trying to hoodwink them. Switching from tennis to rowing without a good explanation does not show passion. In other words switching to a different sport for two months is not going to be an athletic hook, if that is what you are looking for unless you have a believable explanation as to why you did it and why you would be good at it. Just being athletic does not a good rower make. There is an art to rowing and that has to be learned and shown though actual performance. Else, everyone who is athletic can claim to interested in rowing and ask for a rowing scholarship. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you have great grades, great scores, great recommendations etc., the fact you have played tennis at high level will give you the necessary tip that you are looking for. You have not mentioned any of those factors, so then your question is how do you beef up our EC’s to give you an edge? However at the end of the day, whatever you do should show passion. </p>
<p>It is just incredibly competitive out there for everyone.</p>
<p>If you really need a hook that badly to get into one of these schools, I’m just gonna assume that your academics, ecs, and essays aren’t that impressive or anything though usually that’s how most people get in and whatnot. Taking that into account, I have a proposition that will most certainly get you into any college of your choice. </p>
<p>First, befriend a professor/teacher who happens to run an underground blackjack card-counting ring. He’ll probably let you in though after you’ve clearly demonstrated that you’re naturally good at math. Like really good. For a good two months you should spend your time honing your skills and game plan with your fellow teammates. Then take it to a low level casino just to make sure you guys can pull it off. Do this a couple of times at these type of casinos. You should pull in a couple thousand each time. Finally, once your mentor approves, bring you and your buddies to some bigger casinos and reel in the big money. After accruing about 300,000 dollars (which you were probably saving for college) you’ll probably have some sort of falling out with your teacher as you probably might wanna stop breaking the law at this point. He’ll most likely take all of your money as compensation and you wont be able to do anything about it. To pay off your debt and get more money, you’ll have to pull off your biggest heists. While you try and steal this large amount of money from some casino that you visited before, they’ll recognize you and try and take you down. You can use this to your advantage and somehow get your mentor arrested as he and the detective chasing you have a history together. There you go, three birds killed with one very large stone. You get 300,000 dollars for college. Your crazy teacher/mentor gets arrested and is out of your hair. You have an awesome kick-ass story to write an essay about which will definitely get you into the college of your choice.</p>
<p>I can’t believe I just read this. You obviously have no idea how much work goes into a sport like crew, or how hard it is to drop 1:30 for your 2k. Lots of naturally athletic people transfer to crew and can’t hack it… you being able to erg means almost nothing. You on the water means almost everything.</p>
<p>If you’re willing to put in the work, do it! Seriously! Look for a team, join it ASAP. This is no joke this is a pretty good idea lol IF you can pull it off. I’m always so freaking jealous of athletes because the top ones can go to basically any school they want lol. I’m jealous because I wish I was them! But seriously you do not have much time, so start now. It doesn’t matter that you are starting now. I know a guy who played basketball his entire life, pretty great at it, but was gonna have a hard time getting into college basketball d1. But he was seriously a really athletic guy. He’s a track runner and he runs some really fast time that is as fast as some guys in the NFL. So he joins the football team his junior, basically to stay in shape, and turns out he’s pretty good. Ok, he wasn’t that good, he was kind of had butterfingers lol, but he WAS A CRAZY AMAZING ATHLETE. Got into Michigan State on a football scholarship… After playing for, I repeat, 2 years. He didn’t get recruited because he was good, but because he was a great athlete. Technique can be taught, learned, and polished. It’s not easy to find a guy that can run a 100 meter in like 4.2s (I think that was his time not sure).</p>
<p>Then again I have no clue how hard crew is and I don’t know much about it. Don’t assume you’ll be able to pull it off, because it’s pretty risky. But according to the other people on this thread you better get in a boat asap.</p>
<p>Good luck 
This thread brightened my day. Pretty funny people on here lol.</p>
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<p>21 REFERENCE XD… don’t really have anything else to contribute to this conversation i was just reading because i’m curious</p>
<p>You’re 6 feet. Train to become a point guard for the basketball team.</p>
<p>kudos to rainbowrose for getting the reference though. All kidding aside, the whole blackjack scenario worked for some REAL kid at MIT. He also did it within like two months which is definitely within your time frame. You should really consider this proposition.</p>