I am a junior in high school and row for a club team. I am talking to some ivy’s about recruitment but am having a hard time gauging actual interest.
As for my stats, I am 5’9" 160lbs. My 2k is 7:28 and my 5k is 19:52. My novice year I placed second at the regional championships in my WN4X+. Last year I qualified for nationals in the WV8 and placed second at Youth Nationals in the WV4+. I am in the V8 again this year but it doesn’t look like we are going to do as well in any event.
I have a 3.74 UW GPA, 4.04 weighted through first semester junior year. I have taken a competitive course load with a lot of honors/ap’s. I am the president of a club, a peer mentor and a member of my schools honor society. My SAT’s total 2140; 750 CR, 700 Writing and 690 Math.
I’m just a little lost in the process and trying to figure out what my options will be.
My daughter is in a similar situation. She’s a bit taller and has a little bit better erg times, but same ballpark. Since you mention that you’ve been talking to some Ivy coaches, I will assume that you’ve filled out recruiting forms for schools that you are interested in, and had follow up emails from coaches. I recommend directly asking what sort of grades, standardized test scores and erg times they are interested in. From my daughter’s experience, your SAT and GPA are well within Ivy acceptable standards for a supported recruit. 7:28 starts to get you in the recruit-able window, with 7:20 or better (and in some cases much better) being the number for top schools. If you can, set up unofficial visits with the coaches . I’ve visited a few schools with my daughter and from our discussions with coaches, they are looking for rowing potential but also for some insight into your athletic personality and character and how you will fit with their team. At this point the coaches are building a population of potential recruits, over the spring/summer they will figure out who they want for official visits, based on erg times, academic pre-reads with admissions, and student interest . Continue to update your contacts on the coaching staffs when you PR a 2K, or have a good race result (although I get the sense that on the water results in 8s or 4s are less important than erg times), and don’t hesitate to ask questions.
My daughter has found it useful to talk to older friends who have been through the recruiting process, so if you know members of your club who are a year or two older, I would reach out to them.
I agree with rennie17, and think that her advice is very good. I had a daughter go through the process last year. She met with most of the Ivy league schools during official/unofficial visits. I believe that you may be on the west coast which might make setting up unofficial visits more difficult. You will probably have informal telephone conversations with the assistant coaches on a somewhat regular basis this spring. Make sure you keep all of the coaches you are speaking with updated on your progress.
In addition, I would set up a ‘berecruited’ account. The website seems to work well for rowers, and although you may get some interest from schools you are not interested in, the Ivys and other similar schools do look at the profiles on the website.
I think that you will be successful given your stats. I would not worry about where you are with the coaches at this point. Just for reference, my daughter was offered some official visits early last summer. But, as it turns out she did not have any communication with the school she has chosen to attend until mid-summer last year, and verbally committed to them in September.
If you have other specific questions I would be happy to answer them the best I can. Good luck!
It depends on the ivies a far as erg time. For obvious reasons, P’ton will require a faster time than Penn. However, many schools will also look at potential (e.g. height, competitiveness of rowing program, even other sports).
My daughter rowed against you at Youth Nationals last yr. That was a great final. Just finished the recruiting process. Between your erg times and grades/scores, you should generate a lot of interest. My daughter was in the low 7:30s with similar SAT scores ( and only 5’7"), and got a lot of interest from IVY’s and D1 schools. Just realize that it is the main season for coaches right now. They are getting their team ready for races, and aren’t focusing on recruiting… That should start up in late May/ June. Create a free berecruited profile as suggested above. It gives coaches a chance to find you. If there are some schools you are interested in, fill out their recruiting profile and email the head coach. There are plenty of sample letters on the web. There is also a site called tier1athletics. We used that site and his book when we were interested in IVY’s. The one thing that we found out is coaches seem to change more in rowing than any other sport. Five schools we were talking to early in the process changed their head coach or lead recruiter over the summer , and we had no idea until it was too late. We thought they had lost interest and moved on. Good luck. You should do fine.