She has not looked at Oklahoma, thanks for the tip! How many hours per week on average would you estimate that your daughter spends on rowing in college?
@Midwestrowmom Most of the fall and spring seasons they are in 20-hour practice weeks. There are a couple of weeks during the year where they are limited to 8-hour practice weeks. It is definitely a huge time commitment, but it forces great time management! Best of all, our D loves it! Her closest friends are teammates and she chose to live with 3 of them in an apartment this year. The coaching staff is amazing, too.
Just to contribute another data point re: practice schedules -
At a regatta this fall I spoke to some parents from a Midwest DI team who said their daughters practice 30 hours a week. This fits with what I have read online about teams skirting the 20-hour NCAA limit by having additional ‘captain’s practices’ - not officially required, but I suppose if you want to be in the 1V boats, you’re not going to want to miss them.
For what it’s worth, they also spoke in glowing terms about the experience their daughters were having.
The official hours for practice do not include lifting, travel time, watching film, time with the trainers, captains practices, meetings, etc. In all sports there is much more time required in season but it never drops off to nothing except maybe during finals weeks. My daughter still does a 2-3 hour work out in the off days, takes a run, gets up early, etc.
Last year my daughter’s coach had the opposite problem. They made the NCAA tournament which went to two weeks after her school’s finals were over. The coach had to keep them busy without breaking the 20 hour limit on practices, so a lot of group competition in the pool, on the basketball court, team meals. They were sick of each other!
I agree with the comments about the time commitment going well beyond the “official” 8- and 20- hour limits. I don’t know how any student-athlete could do it unless they truly had a passion for their sport. There are many “perks” that come along with being an athlete, but they are earned at the cost of giving up other college experiences. Again, our D LOVES being part of the rowing team, but she is also not able to participate in some of the very opportunities and experiences that drew her to OU in the first place because of the time the sport requires.
Another couple of questions for parents who’ve been through the recruiting process:
How much coordination is there typically between families and their rowers’ high school coaches? Do they discuss what colleges to aim for and how they both should communicate with them, and share how those communications are going?
So far (11th grader here) there isn’t much in our case, so we’re left wondering how the other side of the process is going. The coaches - all volunteers - work so hard already, I’m hesitant to press them for more of their time.
@hipster54 you have asked a few good questions, to which a response is overdue.
A while back you asked “how exactly is an EC viewed positively, especially in the case of an applicant to a DI program?”, and “When would he/she have the time to ‘contribute to the college community’ in that second area?”
@twoinanddone, whose posts are an excellent source of good information, responded that for the vast majority of recruits: rowing is their EC, and admissions doesn’t expect a second significant EC. That’s true, but I was trying to frame the issue in a broader context.
Admissions offices are looking for recruits who can pass the “broken leg test”, i.e., “if this kid broke his/her leg first week of freshman year, and couldn’t compete in their sport for the next four years, what would they do instead - how would they contribute to the college community?” That could be anything from an extracurricular to a specific area of of academic interest. If it’s an EC, Admissions will understand if a serious commitment to rowing precluded the kid from pursuing that activity as much as he or she otherwise would - but the applicant should be able to show some genuine interest (talking about that other interest in his/her essays is a classic way to do this). Perhaps the applicant will never pursue that other EC in college, because they are spending all their time with their classes and with team practices, but that’s OK; it’s a fallback.
As for how important that EC is in the admission process, that will vary, depending on whether the kid is a very top recruit or someone who is being recruited (or just getting a letter of support) based in part of rowing and in part on academic ability and ECs.
Your last post asks about coordination between families and the rowers’ high school coaches. I’ve only seen a few years of this process, in one part of the country, but I have talked to lots of other parents, and heard some things from my rower about other kids’ experiences. So, with that caveat, here’s my impression:
Coaches generally don’t get involved in the recruiting process, except to respond to contact from the college coaches to them. It’s perfectly reasonable for the family to have one meeting with the coach, during junior year, to share your hopes and aspirations about recruitment, and hear the coach’s reactions and suggestions, but you should not expect much more than generalities. The main reason, as you note, is time, but there are several others.
First, even if they had the time, most coaches don’t have the contacts with college coaches to add much value to the process, and/or they don’t have a track record of sending lots of rowers to D1 programs. This is of course not the case for established boarding schools, and some day schools with longstanding, well-known rowing programs. Much of what I write below may not apply to them, but I think it does apply to most club and HS programs around the country.
Second, even if the coach does have good contacts - let’s say this coach regularly sends boats to Nationals, and has kids who have been recruited before - he/she knows that the recruiting process is supposed to be led by the student, and the choice of schools should be based on the student’s reaction to the campus and the team. There’s only so much the coach can do to advise or support any rower’s application - though a coach’s strong recommendation can make the difference at the margin, to get a likely letter or even to get admitted in RD, or off the waitlist in the spring.
Third, coaches usually have no idea of the other half of the equation - the student’s academics. Coaches know that for the Ivies, at least, academics are essential to the recruiting process, and that’s completely outside their control. Again, that may be different at elite boarding or day schools, but I expect even there, the coach will give input to the placement office, which then interacts with the family.
Finally, coaches want to be seen as just focusing on rowing; they don’t want to even appear to be playing favorites, or appear to be raising expectations that could then be dashed. It’s bad for team unity, and bad for the team’s reputation in the community. Imagine how easy it is for a disappointed parent to say “the coach is promoting this other kid, instead of mine”, or “coach promised my kid he would get into X Ivy, and he didn’t.” There’s enough of a problem with parents complaining that their kid isn’t in the first 8, or isn’t being allowed to show his/her talent in the 1x or the 2-.
So you have a kind of paradox: coaches are naturally thrilled to have their rowers go on to top programs, and will readily tell prospective rowers and parents about their successes in this regard, but in most cases, they are fairly hands-off with families going through the process. Even large, successful club teams that regularly send a few kids to top rowing programs will effectively outsource recruiting advice to a consultant: the coach will schedule an evening at the boathouse, where someone from one of one or another “rowing recruit advising” services gives a talk about the process, and gives families the option of following up for more proactive recruiting advice (at a fee, of course).
Things may be different at boarding and top day schools - a coach may be friends with one or more college coaches, and be in a position to urge the coach there to take a look at one or another rower. But even that is about connecting the rower and the college coaches. Apart from that, some coaches do get involved in advising the family in responding to scholarship offers, advising the family on how to respond to the offers. But that’s only the very top rowers, and only certain coaches.
For most everyone else, the coach won’t do much more than have a conversation with the family at some point during junior year, give some encouragement generally about rowing in college, and promise to say good things about the kid if any college coaches call (and they do). The rest is up to the rower and his/her family.
That said, you do have the right to expect your coach to respond to calls from the college coaches asking about specific rowers. This just takes a few minutes, and of course the coach will usually be able to say good things about the kid - and tell the kid that the coach called. What the coach says may have a big impact, especially talking up the intangibles for a kid who’s on the margin - “this kid is incredibly dedicated”, “she’s really committed to developing her technique”. But you’ll never really know what was said.
Fortunately, even this level of coach support is not essential. I’ve heard of kids getting recruited even though their coach quit the team, and didn’t return the college coach’s calls. Those kids had great individual results, which got them noticed, and then made a strong impression on their campus visits. So don’t be discouraged - the college coach will probably know what kind of coach your kid has, and won’t hold it against the rower (the coach may even look at the rower as a ‘diamond in the rough’, capable of doing much better if only he or she had better coaching).
Final note - it’s now post-December 15, it’s time for your 11th grader to start contacting college coaches. Don’t wait for your coach to talk to you - fill out those questionnaires, send emails with rowing resumes to the recruiting coaches!
@wykehamist, thanks for taking the time to write such thoughtful and thorough replies to my questions!
After I asked here about the importance of a second EC, my husband (who interviews applicants for his alma mater) said pretty much exactly what you did today. He even used the same example (broken leg).
About junior-level coaches and the recruiting process: all the reasons you bring up for a coach not getting very involved in recruiting make sense, especially in our situation, because my daughter’s team is small and has sent very few kids to varsity college programs. Inexperience may be the reason her coach hasn’t suggested we meet to discuss the process, and hasn’t mentioned getting many calls from coaches. (Just to be clear - I wasn’t assuming the athlete or her family would be privy to the contents of those calls!) He did give her a heads-up before a coach visited practice, though, so she wouldn’t be in the dark.
As for the ‘diamond in the rough’ idea, that also makes sense. The mom of an older rower (freshman this fall at a DI program) commented to me over the summer that rowers from smaller programs may look promising precisely because of the possibility that their program is not making full use of their potential.
Thanks for the reminder about communicating. DD filled out recruiting questionnaires over the summer and has had some good conversations with coaches, including almost all the ones at the top of her list. So even though it feels sometimes as if we are feeling our way through a dark room, I think she is off to a decent start. All the same, she and I will both be very relieved when it’s over!