Unless you are good enough in a sport to be recruited then any boost you get from a sport is the same whether you’re the top runner/player or the worst on team. It is an EC. You might get bump for being a team captain since that is leadership but that’s unlikely in a sport you only start this year.
IMO the best ECs are those that you have been participating in all along. Senior year can be stressful. Pick something fun at this point.
@twoinanddone
I should have made that more clear! I have two children. One who is going to be a freshmen and one who is going to be a senior. Thank you.
@thumper1
Once gain I am very sorry and should have made the fact I have two children! My first, is debating if she should do crew or not. My other D is going to be a senior and plays soccer.
I agree with @mathyone Do what is fun for her…X Country is…getting up early 6 days a week for a sport you don’t know you even have a passion for…+ expenses + inconviences.
@ElleLakes we asked that our kids do one sport per YEAR…not one sport per season.
Did your daughter do a middle school sport?
My kids did cross country in middle school because they wanted to be done with the sport early in the school year…which was fine with us! Around here, cross country is a very short season…ends in October…early October.
I would NOT choose a sport thinking it will give a boost for college admissions. Sorry…just wouldn’t. Let your kid pick a sport that the KID thinks they will enjoy doing.
Our XC runs May-November. It’s one of the highest commitment sports. In fact, it’s way too late to join our team for this season. They’ve been training all summer and are already doing meets. I thought the OP was talking about next year.
Around here, cross country is a fall sport. Guess that varies.
Spring is track and field which some cross country folks do.
OP when are you talking about?
@thumper1 She would run cross country in fall and do strength for the other seasons.
I would suggest you let your daughter choose.
Crew is a great activity if your daughter is interested but if she is not destined to be on the small side I’d be careful about assuming she’ll be able to continue as the cox. A coxswain for a women’s boat should be under or as close to 110 as possible, and for a men’s 120. Trying to make weight for a kid who’s not naturally small can result in an eating disorder.
Rowers can of course be heavier, but in order to be a competitive D1 candidate she would have to be on the large side, in most cases 5’10" or taller, and quite strong. D3 programs will recruit smaller rowers with good erg times but will still expect their coxswains to be under the weight limit.
Has your daughter tried rowing? It’s a sport that requires a lot of intensity, even from the cox. At my daughter’s school the crew team was affectionately known as “the cult.” The coxswain directs and motivates the rowers but also steers the boat and controls the stroke count, so she should have good timing and spatial skills as well as motivational and people skills,
Thinking about using crew for college, she should be aware that college programs require a great deal of time-in some cases two-a-days in season. Do you think your daughter is a kid who, if she were to fall in love with the sport, would be willing to get up at 4:30 or 5 each morning to get on a cold river to practice before a full day of classes?
It’s a myth that kids need a sport to get into top schools. While being a recruited athlete can help substantially most kids aren’t good enough to be recruited, and being a run of the mill athlete is no more valuable than being a run of the mill musician, debater or actor. The bottom line for me would be to let her try crew if she wants to but don’t depend on it being a boost at application time. Instead let her do it for all the other benefit the sport offers-exercise, camaraderie, focus, challenge, new skills, etc. If she would prefer to run let her do that, or if running isn’t her thing, let her concentrate on science activities.
@ElleLakes I am not clear what your goals are, but sports are unlikely to help much on most college applications for her at this point.
If it were my kid, I would encourage her to do these things for herself. To get a significant bump for athletics, you have to be really good at it and many of those kids started in elementary school, and sometimes even before.
We could possibly help more if we knew what colleges and subjects interest her, and if we had an idea of the level of her test scores and gpa.
She is a freshman if I understand correctly, and at most schools XC as well as crew (club or otherwise) has started already.
If she wants to run, loves to run, let her run. Do something because you love it and it makes you healthy and happy, not because it will look good on a college app. And frankly is she’s never rowed she could hate it for all you know. Schools would far rather see a middle or back pack of the pack runner that did it all 4 years than someone who attempted a glamour sport to game the system and then bailed because it wasn’t a good fit. Commitment and consistency trumps talent in many cases.
I’m not saying rowing isn’t a good fit, I don’t know your D but it seems cruel to make her give up something she enjoys for a total unknown for a mythical hope that it improves chances.
I think there is a big misconception about what it takes to be good at cross country here. Our varsity cross country runners train six days a week for at least two hours a day and they do this year round. There is summer practice (starts after 8th grade), fall cross country season, winter practice, and then the spring track season for the long distance events. There is also cross country training camp in July. The whole thing is a huge commitment for the serious runners. Of course it is also a no cut high school team where anyone can dabble in it and not have to follow this serious training schedule, but the coach says that it is just a physical reality that you have to put in this kind of training to realize your potential and do well at meets.
The OP says her kid likes to run but isn’t very good at it.
I have to wonder…does she like to row…and is she good at it?
Also agree…these sports have started already for THIS academic year everywhere I can think of.
I don’t know where the OP lives but let’s make sure we don’t gang up on him/her and make assumptions on the family’s situation based on ours. In the Northeast many schools don’t start until September, so if XC is a no-cut sport lots of kids won’t have taken their first run yet. Rowing programs will be on a similar schedule.
I would agree this is true for sports like soccer, lacrosse and baseball, but rowing is an exception. There are very few pre-HS rowing programs so most kids don’t start until HS or later. There’s also a dearth of rowers so it’s a bit of a seller’s market when it comes to good rowers with the right physique. To quote a rowing coach at an area prep school to my friend about her strong, athletic 6’4" 4.0 GPA son, “Give me a year with him and I can get him into the Ivy of his choice.” He may have been overstating things but rowing, even started in HS, can be a big boost, and kids can show their potential very fast.
The problem is that it’s hard to know if the OP’s kid is a real rowing kid, and if not there’s no point in pushing it. Let her run if she loves it. If she’s the one considering the change, and for the experience, not a college boost, can she join XC now but do a quickie learn-to row seminar?
Most learn to row camps happen over the summer but the OP may live in an area with a club that has a fall weekend open house.
http://communityrowing.org/programs/youth-rowing/
http://communityrowing.org/programs/adult-rowing/coxswains/
https://grrowing.org/event-201826
https://www.facebook.com/events/1679113089034810/
http://www.rosecityrowing.org/programs/fall.php
https://rownbc.wufoo.com/forms/m1gf5s3a0iv44kg/
http://soracrew.com/event-2304207
Another option is for the OP to ask if there’s a less competitive novice/youth program at this boathouse. It’s not like she’d be starting out in a top boat her first year anyway and if she shows promise and motivation most coaches would be happy to move her up.
@Much2learn Thank you for your advice. It was very helpful! She is actually going to be a freshmen. I have 2 D’s. One who I discuss in a different forum. Therefore I don’t know her GPA or test scores just yet.
@Sue22 Thank you for your response. It was very helpful! Anyway, as of now my D is very small. She is about 5’1 and 91 pounds. Although I am very tall around 5’8 and my husband around 5’10. Her siblings are both tall one is 5’6 and the other 5’7. Based on this info we all assume she will be tall. Truly we don’t really know just HOW tall. As of now she is a coxswain size. She has tried coxswaining at her local boathouse many times. She did a 6 week learn to row program and a 3 week summer program. The next step is to try out as a novice is she would want to continue. We are un-sure though!
It sounds like she should have sufficient information to decide the issue for herself. It’s time to turn the “we” back to “she”.
It’s easy as parents to let our egos get wrapped up in our kids’ college results, and spending too much time on CC can exacerbate the problem. With all these kids with near perfect GPAs and test scores obsessing about the Ivies it’s easy to forget that the vast majority of successful adults did not attend elite schools. Choosing her activities for her, or even putting subtle pressure on her to choose the activity you see as more worthy of a college application, is not likely to result in the kinds of passion for an activity that will take a kid happily through the challenging times. What you’re more likely to end up with is a kid who’s burned out by senior year or who quits the first time they lose a seat race, finish out of the scoring in XC or get a coach they don’t like. Try to truly take yourself out of it and give your daughter a choice without parental judgement.
"XC is a no-cut sport lots of kids won’t have taken their first run yet. " Our coaches require the kids to train and build up mileage for several months before the start of school. Our XC teams are very large but they do cut. The boys are cut because team size is limited. Girls usually do not hit the limit on team size but are cut if they don’t train over the summer.
Our HS does not start until September and XC is a no cut sport. Even with that the kids have been running all summer for those who wished to and official practices started last week. Practices will start 2 weeks before the first meet at a minimum so kids can have enough practices in to qualify for the first meet. Varsity or not, it’s still 2 hours a day 6 days a week before school starts and then 2 hours a day 5 days a week once it does. Kids can still join now but they will have to sit out the first meet at a minimum.
As another poster mentioned there is winter running as well though that’s certainly optional.
I can’t speak for other schools but at ours XC is specifically designed to be inclusive of all levels of running. The goal is improving over your own personal bests and much less about comparing against others. The demands the average middle school program has doesn’t often lend itself to much improvement whereas in high school it can be rather dramatic, or not. Either way, to me, all that should matter is that the child is doing something that keeps them moving and healthy and that they enjoy it. If they are especially good at it that’s a bonus but not a requirement. Health and happiness should come first.
My former almost dead last back of the pack kid is now a solid middle to back of the upper pack kid. I think it’s important not to get caught up in immediate and apparent natural ability. Work ethic can go a long way towards improvement. He may never make varsity but he loves it and that’s all that matters.