Any new acceptances?
Bumping this up as the second round of signings are coming soon.
My daughter is weighing offers from Big 10 and Big 12 schools. Is there an advantage or disadvantage to either conference?
Both are strong conferences which, I think, require scholarships to be offered for 4 years.
I’d look at schedules to see if one requires more, or farther, travel. That is really a much bigger deal than you’d think it would be as missed class time comes into play. Rowing for UCLA might be more convenient than rowing for Nebraska (don’t even know if NE has a team). Is every weekend trip a 4 day one rather than a 3 day?
Anyone know any good sights to check on who has already signed in this class? My daughter is weighing offers and we want her in the best situation. It would be nice to know how many a school already has committed. Also interested in any advice on any experiences with being on a top college team compared to a team ranked in the twenties. Trying to weigh pros and cons?
Other sports have sites that report on who has signed where, but I don’t know of such a thing for rowing. You could check discussion boards on Rowing Illustrated for comments about different coaches and programs, but that will be mostly anecdotal.
Your best source of information is probably your daughter’s friends and her coach, or parents of other rowers at your daughter’s club who have gone on to one or another place. She should also ask the coaches directly, or at least ask if there is someone on the team that she can talk to about what it’s like. You could also scout out the school’s websites for reports or articles that describe where and when the practice, etc. Good luck!
Do the schools post their early recruits on the their own websites? My daughter’s did, but of course only those who signed an NLI.
It would be a labor intensive way to check, but if it is between 3-4 schools you might be able to find most of the recruits. Of course, you wouldn’t find anyone who has committed between Nov. and today.
@wykehamist what is an OV?
Overnight visit.
Hi not to be a muckraker but I always thought OV meant Official Visits and entailed the institution paying the students way flight food etc.
It may be that I speak as a sports recruit parent but OV meant “Official visits” which were not only for athletes but also highly valued academic recruits, and UV were on your own dime “unofficial visits”
Who pays for the visit has something to do with it, but it can still be an official visit if the school doesn’t pay for everything. If the coach pays for the lunch or other things not allowed by an UV, it becomes an OV, and D1 recruits can only take 5.
@oldladyandmom is correct. OV is “official visit” and the NCAA regulates what can be paid for. UV is on your dime.
Both are useful when considering a program.
Sorry guys. I forgot this is a recruiting thread. In that context, it is official and @tonymom and @oldladyandmom are 100% correct.
Elsewhere on these boards, it is also overnight visit not paid by the school but a way to sleep on dorm room floor of a host who may or may not be into hosting while you try to assess culture of school from this often strange dorm experience datapoint.
I am curious about anyone who was recruited by a non-ivy school. My rower (son) is a good rower (he has been to youth nationals), he is a rising Junior, and a good student. He started filling out the on-line forms for a wide range of schools, D1, club teams, some reach schools too just to see what happens, but he is not expecting to be courted by an ivy. There are some less competitive schools with great teams, St. Joseph’s, Temple, Drexel, Delaware, Syracuse, even Santa Clara, etc. Is the recruiting process at these schools different? Just less competitive? He did get a reply from a club team coach which was encouraging. But do coaches usually reply to those on line forms? We realize that D1 can’t reply until September. I am sure there are rising seniors out there who must be gearing up for fall recruiting - I would be interested to hear how it is going. Son is aware that a scholarship for men’s rowing is pretty rare and has no expectations there.
There are a few good questions in your post; let me try to address each of them.
Recruiting practices definitely vary between D1, D2, and clubs - and esp. between clubs. Bear in mind that most clubs have zero recruiting pull with admissions - they will tell you up front about this - and zero opportunity for scholarships.
Questionnaires - he should not just rely on filling out questionnaires, even for D1 schools that recruit aggressively. Your son - not you - should write a letter of self-introduction to the coaches at schools he is interested in, giving his stats, results, academic scores, GPA, etc., and ideally some explanation of why he feels the school would be a good fit for him, apart from the rowing team. It’s OK to send a follow-up message, or a call, after that. If he’s identified some schools that he thinks are a good fit for him, he should not wait for the coaches to initiate contact.
Regarding academic competitiveness, there are good men’s rowing programs at a wide range of schools, so that is not the problem - the problem is finding a school that has the right overall fight of academics, social life, and rowing. As for your list, the goal of every good men’s varsity program is to have one or more of its boats invited to compete at the “IRA” national championship regatta (it’s run by the Intercollegiate Rowing Association, not the NCAA, hence the name). This year, including the places you mentioned, the IRA’s included one or more boats from the following non-Ivy men’s programs:
Boston University
Cal-Berkeley
Cal-San Diego
Cal-Santa Clara
Colgate
Drexel
Fairfield
FIT
Georgetown
George Washington
Gonzaga
Hobart
Holy Cross
Marietta
Marist
Navy
Northeastern
Oregon State
St. Joseph’s
Syracuse
Tulane
Washington
Wisconsin
That’s not a full list of solid rowing programs - you mentioned Delaware and Temple, and there’s several others that have sent boats to the IRAs in other years. (Also, as your son may know, some of the schools on this list are among the top crews in the country, with extremely high athletic recruiting standards.)
One of the quirks of college rowing is that club programs are not permitted to complete at the IRAs, even though a couple of the best club teams - particularly Michigan and Virginia - are competitive with IRA crews. Club programs, and boats that did not get invited to the IRAs, compete at the American Collegiate Rowing Association championships (known as ACRA), or the “Dad Vail” regatta, which brings together rowers from over 100 different colleges for a two-day regatta in May of each year.
As for scholarships, they do exist at some of the IRA schools. I can’t speak to how many there are, or how hard they are to get, but you should feel free to ask.
Good luck!
Thank you!! I did know some of that (finding the right academic/rowing match, clubs won’t don’t have any sway with admissions) but I was unclear about the club teams not rowing at IRAs - that gives me a little better lay of the land. He is trying to choose schools where he meets the academic requirements for admission. Along those lines, I think Washington and Cal are likely beyond his athletic ability (he is not 6’8" and 195 lbs with a 6:20 erg time…). He will have a few reach schools on his list in both academics and athletic ability, but the match schools are more of a focus for him now.
I guess I am left with a question, if he is academically admissible without support for admission from a coach, and he isn’t too likely to get scholarship money, what does it mean to be recruited? Does a coach just promise him a spot on a team? Club teams have recruiting forms on their web pages, so they must do some level of recruiting. My son wants to be recruited - he wants to be wanted by a team.
Sounds like your son has the right approach. It’s all a matter of finding the best fit - academically, socially and athletically - and there is quite a range of places to investigate.
As for what it means to be recruited, forgive me but I first need to quibble with your use of the phrase “if he is academically admissible” - I know what you mean, but . . .
Rowing isn’t a “money sport” (football, basketball, maybe hockey at some places). Based on what I’ve seen and been told, all of the rowing recruits have to be academically admissible - they have to meet the same academic standards applied to the general applicant pool. Sure, some recruits are below the incoming class median - but not by much; think of the 25th percentile mark that schools report for their incoming classes as a good benchmark. Maybe one or two recruits a year fall below that, but most will be at or above it, and a good number will be above the 50th percentile.
There’s a pragmatic reason for this: if the athletes can’t do the work, they are likely to quit the team to focus on classes, or they write off their classes, which makes everyone unhappy. To give you an extreme example, I know of a world-class rower from Europe who had been offered a scholarship to Washington, but ended up being rejected because he failed to do sufficiently well on his entrance exams.
So what’s the value of being recruited? There’s a few things:
- For most rowers, being recruited to row is the strong hook that Admissions uses to differentiate between otherwise similar applicants. Think of it this way: Admissions has two candidates who look very similar in terms of GPA, test scores, and recommendations, but one kid has a letter in his file from the varsity rowing coach, saying "I think this kid can contribute to the team, and I've met with him and think he'll be a good addition to the college community." Guess who gets in?
- Having met the coach and the team (who often have input into who gets recruited), the recruited athlete arrives with a set of friends and upperclass contacts, who can provide a fairly stable and healthy social group throughout the college years. So even if your son is sure he cannot get a scholarship at one or another place, or even formally recruited, it's very important for him to try to meet the coach and the team at schools he is interested in. This applies to club teams as much as D1 teams.
- Being recruited can also be the way kinds get in early decision/early action, which is of course a huge relief in terms of the whole process. Whether applying ED/EA makes sense for your son depends on a lot of factors, of course. In either case, he should bear in mind that letters of support often come into play in the regular decision round, not nearly decision, so it's not as if he has to choose one school for early decision - unless the coach says that's the tradeoff for an actual recruiting slot.
That’s the general response. One last point, if I may: You mentioned your son is a rising junior, and was at Youth Nationals earlier this month. Not many sophomores compete at Youth Nats, so that’s a real achievement. If he can distinguish himself over the coming year, either on the water (preferably in small boats) or on the erg, he should get some attention from coaches at a few schools, even if he is not 6’ 3" (and FWIW, not all coaches care equally about height, or even erg scores - they want guys who can work together to move a boat).
He might also look into trying for Selection Camp, for the Junior National team next summer. Even if he doesn’t make the team, most kids think the camp is a great experience, and the coaches at the camp all talk to the college coaches about which campers had a positive attitude, whether or not they made the cut.
Being recruited might mean a dorm room with the team, early registration for classes (to get classes that fit with the training schedule), to get some early access to athletic facilities. It might not mean anything, but it can’t hurt.
What @wykehamist said and I’d emphasize #2!!!
The instant sense of community with a team is the real perk and my son considers his teammates his “brothers” and a few little cox “sisters”.
That was incredibly helpful and enlightening to me, Wykehamist (and for your comments too - Tonymom and towinanddone). And thank you for the tip about the Selection camp. Son and I prowled for hours to find summer programs for him this spring and missed that. I think he knew about it vaguely but he didn’t understand the being invited part. We looked last night and realized he might have been able to do something there. We will have to shoot for next summer. There is so much about this recruitment process that I probably don’t even realize I don’t grasp. Grateful for all tips, hints and advice. Son is casting a wide net at this point. I really like the idea that he could have an instant connection at school, the friends and teammates - that is a big part of feeling settled and being successful at school.