Rowing / crew hook

[Anonymous]

I think a big part of it too is that rowing rosters are larger than a lot of other “country club” sports. Like percentage wise, squash has way more private school kids but the teams are much smaller than the rowing teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't always have to be 6' or even decent athletes....a few petite kids get recruited to be coxswain.

Yes my 5 foot tall niece was the Coxswain on her crew team and was recruited by an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

By the way, how does one get recruited as a coxswain? Do erg times still matter if you're not going to be rowing?

[Anonymous]

Someone said that if you look at the admissions process, rowing crew at say a D3 school probably doesn't matter much. I don't know about that. It can be a way to demonstrate serious interest. My son figured out early in his senior year which school he wanted to attend, went to see the coach and look at the boathouse, sent his rowing video, and the coach asked him to send him his application before he sent it to the admissions office. Admitted ED and got a congratulatory note from the coach on the same day.

[Anonymous]

As an adult, I’d love to learn crew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the way, how does one get recruited as a coxswain? Do erg times still matter if you're not going to be rowing?

You have a GoPro video of you calling a race so they can hear your style/temperament/decisions. They have to steer the boat, motivate the rowers, and ideally execute the boat's race plan for pacing, such as when to sprint. My coxswain taped all their races junior year.

[Anonymous]

We are in the Midwest, in a place many people wouldn't equate to a rowing hotspot, but the club team, that also serves as the high school team, is very strong and the college admissions results from there are very impressive. Many kids don't start until sophomore or junior year and are still getting recruited to top schools. So yes, it's a great sport and hook.

[Anonymous]

DS was a high school rower and got into the Ivies, though not as a recruit. Took many APs and rigorous courses. Agree that rowing is both brutal and beautiful and requires strong time management skills.

[Anonymous]

A couple nomenclature issues that drive people nuts when it comes to rowing (even parents get some of these wrong):

The sport is rowing. The crew is the team. So your kid does not "row crew" and it is not a "crew team."

Instead, you can say that your kid "rows" or your kid "is a rower." You can also say that your kid is a member of the crew or a member of the rowing team.

[Anonymous]

I tried to convince my gymnast to become a cockswain

[Anonymous]

Son is captain of his team this year at his HS. He is thinking about continuing at a club level in college. He isn’t tall enough to race at the DI level, even in lightweight boats, which is where he has been past couple of years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an adult, I’d love to learn crew.

Washington Rowing School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an adult, I’d love to learn crew.

Washington Rowing School

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our private HS always has about 7-8 Ivy rowers. Rugby gets many too.

The rowers are all tall--the recruits (males). A lot of kids got phased out of it be end of HS. Of course, except for the cockswain.

A few notes--

The vast majority of kids who row in hs are not getting recruited for college rowing. As a PP said, many HSs in the DMV have crew, often with several boats for boys and several for girls (as in teams of 25 or more for each gender) and very few of them go on to row in college. For D1 colleges, boys generally are 6'3" or taller (usually more like 6'5") and girls usually top 6 feet. D3 might be ok with dropping down an inch or two in height, but it's just hard to be competitive at the collegiate level without enough reach. And then, of course, the kid has to be really good. By junior year, the student has to be in one of the better seats in the top boat. Finally, this isn't football or basketball. A coach may have a couple or few spots where he or she has some real pull and can get in kids who likely wouldn't get admitted through the regular process. But there aren't very many spots that really are hooks, and thus most kids getting in on their own even if the coach puts in a good word. Two other points: lightweight crew and club crew usually get no special consideration in admissions. And there is a lot of competition now for spots at some colleges from international students who are often on the junior national teams from their home countries. The majority of Harvard and Yale men's crews are from UK, NZ, Switzerland, and Australia.

Bottomline is (at least for a kid with height in the top 1%), going with rowing instead of soccer probably gives your child a greater chance of being recruited in college, but it's still a narrow path there, especially if you want it to be a "hook" into a better school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an adult, I’d love to learn crew.

Washington Rowing School

Thanks!

You're welcome.