I may be wrong but I believe, even with men’s rowing, a school has the discretion to pay for a parent to come out. I think there is some strange condition where they can pay for the flight but not the food :-/
Again I’ve never heard of a parent going on an OV with their kid but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I’d check NCAA regulations here.
jelomom2003 is your child going on an OV to one of those schools? My son is one of the people who has them overnight on the visit and that’s the way it usually is at Yale at any rate - there would be no time for you in any event to meet up with your child. It’s all about them and going to class watching and getting to know the team and if they like it or not and vice versa. The recruit stays in the dorm or place where the other rower lives. We were invited to come to UV on our own dime but as tonymom says check NCAA regs for OVs. And sometimes if child has more than one OV at an ivy the schools split the travel cost - so kid spends Thursday to Saturday at say Cornell then goes on bus to Columbia and spends allotted time there. Cornell covers flight in, Columbia home.
So the first month of official visits are over, and the first wave of “likely letters” will go out soon. We’ve heard a few interesting observations and anecdotes, though in the interest of protecting the innocent there’s not much we can share right now.
A couple of things do merit sharing. While people focus on “October 1” as the first day for likely letters to be sent out, it seems that in practice, for a variety of reasons, the process of issuing letters stretches out through the month, as athletes make sure their applications are complete, and coaches wait for admissions to turn around the application and issue the letter. This of course creates more anxiety and stress for the kids who are strong candidates but are waiting, for one reason for another, as the days tick by.
We also learned a new phrase - “call for grades”. If, for whatever reason, Admissions wants to have a little extra comfort regarding how an applicant’s fall term is going, they may just call up the school and ask the school for an informal report on how the student is doing in her or his classes - even before mid-term grades.
So if you needed one more thing to worry about, esp. after your kid just missed a few days of school with their OVs, there you go!
On the brighter side, we’ve been very pleased to see that - at least as far as we can tell - coaches are pressing kids to commit on the spot, at the end of their OV. One coach actually said to a kid, who had just told him that he loved his OV and was tempted to commit, “That’s great, and we want you to come here, but don’t feel pressured. Go on the other visits you have scheduled, see all the other guys, and then when you’re ready to decide, let’s talk.”
That’s a coach who is comfortable with what his team and his school have to offer. Certainly makes you think well of them. Curious to hear if anyone has had the opposite experience.
@Wykehamist What is your understanding of how coaches see personal integrity – character, leadership, and good sportsmanship in recruits? Are honesty, kindness, respect for others and being respected by them, something coaches take into consideration when selecting recruits? If a prospect excels athletically, and academically but isn’t a team player will he or she be given a pass in this area?
@Sculla
Coaches and teams are most certainly looking for those qualities. Son was on an OV where fellow visiting recruit was braggart and obnoxious and believe me it was noted by all. Despite being stellar rower, that guy was not recruited.
Integrity and coachability are very important.
@Sculla Intangibles definitely matter, in several different ways, and yes I’ve heard tell of a college dropping someone from their process who, on paper, was a very top recruit. I want to post a response that gives a full answer to your important question, but someone else PM’d me some questions that (with permission) I wanted to share with the group, as they are time-sensitive and raise very specific issues that I was never totally clear on myself.
The PM is this, slightly edited, with my responses in brackets afterwards:
College Coach 1 says Admissions will give me a likely letter, but they will probably want to see my fall term grades.
College Coach 2 says they will give me a likely letter, without any conditions.
I slightly prefer College 1, but would be very happy at either 1 or 2.
- Can I apply to both now, without committing, and see what kind of letters I get?
[My response: “I guess you can try, but you have to be honest with each one about what you are doing. They will probably each tell you they need you to decide which one is your first choice.”] But I am curious to know if anyone has actually ever gotten two likely letters (as opposed to being offered two letters).
- If College 1 gives me a letter that has a condition, can I then apply to College 2, and accept their letter?
[My response: “I guess so, but again you need to be honest with each coach about your situation. I think that if College 1’s letter has a condition you’re not comfortable with, you’re free to try to get a clean letter from College 2. If you get it, then you need to decide right away which one you are going to accept, and decline the other one.”]
While the first scenario seems unlikely, I’d think that the second might happen to a couple of kids each year, and so wanted to share it with the group, to see how it is handled.
One last point - I had assumed that kids who apply for LLs indicate they are applying SCEA, or ED - is that right? I suppose that if you are going to send in two applications, you simply submit the second one as RD . . . Just wanted to mention that as well, in case someone else has seen it done differently.
@Sculla from what we’ve seen and learned about the importance of character and sportsmanship in the recruiting process, character matters, sometimes very much so:
- Coaches are looking for rowers who have the focus and determination to stick with the program despite the other distractions of college life. Doesn't matter how good the rower is, or even how nice a person they are, if they quit the team because they get caught up in frat life or late-night parties.
(If the kid is simply determined to do well academically, don’t worry; that’s very different. Every coach we spoke with had examples of how they did as much as they could to accommodate students’ academic commitments. You could say that is self-interest: University administration compiles the GPA of each team, and teams with higher team GPAs have more leeway in recruiting. But really, we could see that coaches take genuine pride in their rowers who win academic prizes, Rhodes Scholarships, and the like.)
- Coaches also cherish the kids who have the kind of genuine 'team spirit' that make other guys and gals want to wake up early on a cold winter day and join them on a run or on the erg. One coach told us a couple of great anecdotes about a guy on his team who never made the varsity boat but was nevertheless a vital part of the team, because he always had a positive attitude, always gave his all in practice, and always supported his teammates.
It’s easy to forget that these programs all try to field (at least) THREE eights. Not every recruit is going to make the first eight. Is your kid the kind of person who sticks with the team and helps motivate their teammates, even if they are in the second or third - or fourth or fifth - boat?
- Our impression is that coaches will stop recruiting even a very top prospect who comes across as rude or arrogant during the recruiting process or the OV. @tonymom had one example of that, and we saw another that was actually quite striking. I can't give details, but it spoke volumes about the coach's integrity and commitment to practicing what he preaches about his team's values.
Another coach told us several times that they were very careful in who they invited, because they had what you could summarize as a “no jerks” rule. Sure enough, son came back from the OV and said “everyone I met was really nice; I’d to row with them.”
- Finally, of course, coaches make distinctions between good rowers who are leaders, and others who are simply good rowers. We have seen a couple of examples of this, including one that leads me to note the following:
If for whatever reason your kid has shown leadership in other areas, but is simply “one of the team” in the boathouse, try to make sure the coach has the full picture, to gauge their potential to step up and be a leader in the college boathouse.
Hope that helps, please let me know if there are other questions.
As an answer, more or less, to the question above, someone pointed me to an exchange from several years ago on the specific topic of “what to tell coaches?”
I don’t think I can improve on the “script” in the response, so I’ve copied it - with apologies and many thanks to the OP, @TheGFG and the person who responded, @riverrunner (who has lots of excellent posts in other threads). There is just one point in his/her response that I have to take issue with - for some rowers at least, the pressure has been on for the past week to commit, or pass, on the colleges they visited, and this week seems to be “decision time”.
So, with that preface . . .
Original Message:
D completed 4 of 5 official visits, all to Ivies. She has decided which school she likes best of the 4. She would still like to visit school 5 (non-Ivy), but is realizing she may have to skip her final visit since is seems that they might not be able to schedule it before D has to respond to the other 4 colleges. What does she do now? All of her application materials will be submitted to the first choice school by Nov. 1, but she won’t have a likely for aother 2 weeks after that. As we understand it, given the highly competitive nature of the school, admission is not a done deal but “looks very, very good”. So what do we tell the other schools in the meantime, since they’re all asking for a decision? We don’t want to tell them “no”, because if D doesn’t get in her top school we’ll need a Plan B. On the other hand, we don’t want to be unfair and keep them hanging. Should she say no to 2 of them, and tell the 3rd that they’re her second choice and ask if they would take her if her top choice doesn’t work out?
Response:
Colleges 2-4 will all be able to figure out that’s where they are on her list, when you don’t rush to get the application in to their admissions by Nov 1, or aren’t persisting in the likely letter discussion.
You can wait for them to call, and have a prepared statement, or you can take the initiative and have your child call. I’d lean toward something like this:
“I’ve finished my visits and X has turned out to be my first choice. I’ve submitted my application to them, and will know if I’ve been admitted by about mid-November. If I’m admitted, I plan to go to X. This was a difficult decision for me, because my top choices are all such great places to go to school and compete. If school X doesn’t admit me for some reason, I hope I can still contact you and be considered for a spot on the team. I’ll let you know as soon as school X makes their decision so you’ll know where we stand.”
I wouldn’t necessarily tell 2-4 in which order they rank with you just yet. They all understand how competitive admission is to these schools, and the decent thing for the coach to do is NOT to pressure you in to taking a “bird in the hand” if they are able to guarantee admission, but to allow you a couple of weeks to see if Plan A will work. Some of the Ivies offered to slide the Nov 1st deadline back a few weeks to accomodate last minute visits, and to give us a little more time to think. Especially for kids with a fall competition schedule, asking for a quick decision is tough.
For a kid who is a very strong candidate athletically and academically, I’ve come to believe a coach who thinks he is the second choice will be able to hang in a few more weeks.
HOWEVER:
There’s a delicate balance here. You want to be fair to the coaches. You want your child to match with her top choice. The risk to you is that if your child’s 2-4 choices get tired of waiting, they may offer their likely letters to other athletes before your child hears back from her first choice college. I don’t really see a way around this other than to ask the other coaches for a little more time. The rest of the process is out of your hands: you don’t know if other strong athletes are demanding likely letters or else they walk, or if those athletes are also still taking their time looking around.
This is the part of the process everyone hates. Hang in there.
I am unsure how all this works.
Coach wants to sign rower, but at what point is scholarship money discussed? The coach hasn’t mentioned anything to her about money, but wants to sign her in November after she applies EA.
Is it too late to expect scholarship offers?
From what I have heard second hand, scholarship money (at those D1 universities that offer scholarships to women rowers) is negotiated as part of the deal with the commitment letter. If they are offering a letter but have not mentioned money, there may not be any. Best to at least ask now.
I believe that the scholarship money is offered at the time the “slot” is offered.
Usually, the scholarship would be a percentage of tuition…so 50% or 70% etc…
You should ask as to what the PERCENTAGE of the offer would be.
The NLI is signed at the same time as a Grant in Aid offer. It is not rude to ask the coach, now, what the offer is. You need time to consider the offers before committing and applying ED.
Thank you for the information. One D1 school was forthcoming and said there will not be scholarship money offered with the slot, but could earn a scholarship in subsequent years with she does well. Does this happen?
Also, could someone suggest some Liberal Arts School in the east/northeast that have rowing that may still have scholarship money left? A friend of mine suggest Bucknell.
It (no scholarship) definitely happens. If nothing else, you should ask if there are any defined parameters for “doing well”. E.g, staying on the team, getting 2k time down to a certain number, being in the first or second boat, etc.
I can’t speak to how much scholarship funds are available from other places at this point. But if you have not been in touch with the coaches already, that sounds like a long shot.
@joe2015, it is quite common for kids who are not on scholarship as freshman to earn scholarships as sophomores, juniors, and seniors based on their performance and place on the team. At most non-Ivy top D1 teams, the athletes on the top of the team are on full or partial scholarships.
Athletic scholarships come with conditions that are tied to rowing; need based aid does not. There’s also something called priority financial aid available to girls – not sure how it works but if you’re female and a top recruit you may be offered money, whether you need it or not. All this stuff can be negotiated when spots on teams are offered. If your child is being recruited and you need money, you should have been sent an early estimated financial aid application from the school. After that’s submitted, they may ask for additional information, tax returns, and monthly/annual expenses.
As a result of Title IX there is a lot of money available for female rowers, if you cast a wide net you’ll likely find a school that has money to fund your daughter’s education, while she rows in college.
Good luck.
Are you saying this for a particular school or in general?
If the student is taking athletic aid, any need based aid granted by the school counts against the team total. The school may do it for some accounting reasons, but normally the team has a budget and that’s what is given to the athletes. Who wants to do all the accounting of figuring out need based aid and applying it to the athletic maximum?
I know that my daughter’s team is not fully funded, so if the school wanted to give need based aid to a player, there is still ‘room’ in the team budget, but I don’t think that is going to happen. Too much accounting. More likely, if a girl were to get an outside athletic scholarships from her high school or country club or national sport association, there is room in the budget for her to accept that scholarship.
@twoinanddone This was an a situation where three schools (Ivies) made offers and there was money involved. ] I don’t know the exact details. Exceptional athlete.
As far as athletic aid is concerned – is there any advantage in choosing a school where your financial aid is tied to your rowing? If you have offers from schools that offer need based aid – what is gained and what are the potential losses of choosing a school that gives you an athletic scholarship in addition to money from the financial aid office? Can you take full advantage of everything the school offers or are there hidden “conditions”? What if you want to take a semester abroad? Some schools demand more of their athletes than others, some coaches have more respect for their athletes academic pursuits and extra-curricular activities. Has anyone heard of a kid losing their funding because of unforeseen circumstances?
Does anyone know of a rowing recruit who transferred to a different program?
Not myself. There’s some discussion of this over on rowing/Reddit. Very rare, apparently.