Tag: college

College Recruiting: When scholarships aren’t an option

By readyallrow November 10, 2015

Previously: Intro || The recruiting timeline + what to consider || What do coaches look at? || Contacting coaches, pt. 1 || Contacting coaches, pt. 2 || Contacting coaches, pt. 3 || Contacting coaches, pt. 4 || Highlight videos + the worst recruiting emails || Official/unofficial visits + recruiting rules recap

For most people, the hardest part of college isn’t getting in or making it through, it’s figuring out how to pay for it. This may involve the institutions getting involved in the form of need-based financial aid, an athletic scholarship, merit scholarships, academic grants, or some combination of all the above and while it’s easy to think that getting any one of those things will eliminate those worries, it’s not always that simple.

Several of the coaches, particularly the ones from men’s teams, stressed that you need to do your research on financial aid, 3rd party scholarships/grants, student loans, etc. before talking to coaches so that you’re not blindsided by the cost of school if/when getting a scholarship isn’t an option. You can’t always count on getting financial aid either (this is where I got bit in the ass) so make sure you explore any and all options so that when talking to coaches you don’t put them in an awkward position by saying “I can’t/won’t come here unless you give me a scholarship” (because apparently that’s an actual thing that kids say to coaches … seriously??).

So what about the schools that don’t have scholarships to offer in the first place, like MIT, the Ivies and all programs at the D3 level – do they still recruit kids? The answer is yes but the money the teams lack in scholarships is usually made up for with need-based aid from the university. With the Ivies in particular, their large endowment funds allow them to offer pretty generous need-based aid and academic grants which has in turn allowed them to offer spots to prospective athletes that might have otherwise turned them down due to the cost and getting better offers from other teams/schools.

This really started to come into play a year or so after I graduated from high school (naturally…) and actually ended up being one of the reasons why one of my friends who graduated two years after me came to row at MIT. If you’re looking at schools that have scholarships to offer (i.e. a Big 10 school) and ones that don’t (i.e. an Ivy), make sure you weigh the scholarship money against the need-based aid you’re being offered because it’s possible that your financial aid package can end up being superior to the scholarship offer.

Related: If you want to read more about this, check out this article from the New York Times on how increased/smarter financial aid practices by the universities changed the game for Ivy League schools and the kids applying there.

Another thing to keep in mind too is that women are going to have far more scholarship opportunities than men thanks to Title IX. That doesn’t mean you’re going to get a scholarship, just that you have more chances than men to earn one. There are lots of ways that coaches divide up the 20 scholarships they have (some put their whole 1V on full-scholarship, others split them into 40 half-scholarships, others vary the percentage depending on the amount of aid you’re getting, etc.) so that’s another thing you should talk with them about.

Related: To see a list of schools that sponsor varsity-level rowing programs (at all levels of competition), as well as stats on cost of attendance, average athletic scholarship award, roster size, financial aid assistance offered to undergrads, SAT percentiles, etc. CLICK HERE.

The point to everything I’ve said so far is to know your family’s financial status going into the recruiting process because at some point it’s going to come up and you’re going to need to know how you’re paying for school. Keep in mind too that “paying for school” isn’t just a four year thing, it’s literally something that will effect you and your lifestyle for the next 20-30+ years. The thing I and lots of other people my age learned the hard way was that student loans are evil, soul-sucking, bank account-draining pains in the ass so do. your. research. so that they are your absolute last resort for covering your tuition costs.

Next week: Managing your time as a student-athlete and narrowing down your list of schools

Image via // @rowingblazers

College Coxing High School Teammates & Coaches

The bitch in the boat

By readyallrow November 2, 2015

This is kind of an off-topic(ish) post so just bear with me here. This particular issue has come up a lot lately in conversation and emails so I wanted to touch on it here and get your thoughts.

I don’t know if any other (female) coxswains get annoyed with this but it’s really starting to rub me the wrong way when we’re told to “be more bitchy” when we’re coxing. I was told this in high school and college, my friends have been told this, girls I coach have been told this, and I’ve had numerous emails over the last few years from women of all ages who have been told this.

Instead of saying “be more bitchy”, why not just say “be more authoritative, assertive, confident, self-assured, etc.” in relation to whatever specific part of her coxing you’re referring to? There’s a big difference between asserting yourself to get shit done and straight up being a bitch and I don’t think it’s right to conflate the two and make it seem like in order to accomplish something you have to be (or are) a bitch.

There’s obviously plenty of instances where being called a bitch isn’t a big deal and like most people I think it’s a total non-issue when used in that context but telling a 14, 15, 16 year old girl (who doesn’t know or understand the pop culture appropriation of the word) that she needs to be bitchier in order to do her job just sends her the wrong message about what it takes to be a leader … and that I’m not cool with.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first one to admit that there are times when we are being bitches and we are being bossy in the negative sense and that’s something that we deserve to get called out on. Outside of those occasions though, there are better and more empowering ways to communicate to teenage girls how to be more assertive and confident when they’re in leadership roles (like what comes with being a coxswain).

The question that was in the post I linked to asked if I had any tips for “being bitchy in a helpful way”. I like the way that coxswain explained it too because she said she wants to “make sure I’m constructively assertive and not mean or unnecessarily aggressive”, which I think is the perfect way to describe what people mean when they call someone a bitch because they either want the former or think they’re being the latter. Here’s what I said in response to that and going forward, if somebody tells you to “be bitchier in the boat”, know that this is probably what they want you to do.

“If your rowers are speaking in a general sense, I tend to interpret that as them saying they want you to be more on top of them about the little details – aka hold them accountable for the changes they need to make, the rate/splits they’re supposed to be at, etc. I was just talking about this with our coxswains yesterday when we went over their coxswain evals and what I told them was that they need to know not just the standards and expectations that we (the coaches) have for each crew but they also need to know the standards and expectations that the rowers have for themselves and then aggressively hold them to that. That combined with knowing the appropriate technical calls to make (and when) and understanding the focus and purpose of each drill/workout so you can cox them accordingly is how you present yourself as a “constructively assertive” coxswain.”

I know topics like this can be eye roll-inducing and easy to write off but I hope what I said makes sense and you see where I’m coming from. Also, because I know someone somewhere will think/say this, this has nothing to do with male coxswains and stuff like this never being said to them. I purposely avoided going down that road because I don’t think it’s relevant. Maybe it is but it’s not the point I’m trying to make.

Being a coxswain helps you develop so many great and important life skills, especially when it comes to leadership, so in the interest of encouraging more girls to step into similar roles let’s do our part as coaches and teammates by using the right language to communicate the traits it takes to accomplish that.

Image via // @tristanshipsides

College Q&A Teammates & Coaches Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow October 29, 2015

Hey, quick question: I’m a coxswain on a collegiate club team and lately we’ve been having some issues with sick people missing practices. Our (very old-school) coach’s opinion is unless you’re dying, you’re at practice, but some of my teammates want to stay home if they’re feeling a little sick because they think rowing while sick will make the illness a lot worse and take them out for longer. I’ve also heard that it’s safe to row if the sickness is below the neck but that you should stay home if there’s an issue with the head or throat, but I’m not sure if that’s medically accurate. So I was just wondering, at what point is someone “too sick to row” in your opinion?

I’ve got a post on this exact subject scheduled for next Thursday so keep an eye out for that. The “above the neck/below the neck” adage is pretty standard and what most athletes tend to follow (typically on the advice of their athletic trainers, coaches, or family doctors). Runny noses and sore throats are generally OK to practice with (just back off on your workouts for a day or two and you’ll be fine) but if you develop a fever or your cold makes its way into your chest (like with bronchitis), then you definitely need to take a step back and rest for a couple days.

We’ve got several guys on the team sick right now (one with mono who is out for the fall, one with bronchitis who I haven’t seen in like a week and a half, another who found out last week that his persistent cold is actually asthma (on top of him actually having a cold), etc.) and as tough as it can make putting lineups together, it really is in everyone’s best interest that they take time off to recover and get back to 100%. The guys that have a standard cold will come and erg, row in the tanks, bike, or go for a run in lieu of rowing so they’re still getting a decent workout in but they’re able to go at a more “relaxed” pace (or stop midway through if necessary) based on how they’re feeling. No one abuses the coaches understanding and generosity when it comes to giving them time off or an alternate workout when they’re sick and in return, the coaches trust the rowers when they say they’re sick and as such expect them to follow up with our trainers/doctors accordingly.

As far as what defines being “too sick to row…” … I don’t know if you can say what being too sick to row is because it’s going to be different for everyone. Obviously if you have a fever, a cough that’s making it hard to breathe, or something like that then you should definitely not be at practice but if it’s just a regular cold then I think you have to trust the person who’s sick when they say how they’re feeling. I would give them the benefit of the doubt if they say they need a day off because faking your symptoms just to get out of practice or whatever is just pathetic (especially as a college student/adult) and if they’re an otherwise committed member of the team, you don’t really have any reason to not believe them when they say they’re not feeling 100%.

Since you’re a club team, I assume that the majority of the policies in place are enacted by team-elected student officials…? It might be worth discussing with them some sort of official “sick” rule that lays out when people should and should not be at practice, what the alternative workouts/plans are if you’re not well enough to go on the water but still OK to practice, and then present that to your coach so that there’s no (or at the very least, fewer) issues going forward. Old-school coaches tend to be very set in their ways (I had two in high school and while they were great in so many ways, we did occasionally have issues similar to this) and of the opinion that if they can survive all the ailments and maladies they had to deal with growing up (without the benefits of modern medicine), then the rest of us should be able to do that too. Different times call for different measures though so sitting down with the team leaders and hashing out a “team sick policy” is probably your best long-term solution.

College Recruiting Teammates & Coaches

College Recruiting: Contacting coaches, pt. 4 – Laying out who you are and contacting coaches when you’re not a senior

By readyallrow October 20, 2015

Previously: Intro || The recruiting timeline + what to consider || What do coaches look at? || Contacting coaches, pt. 1 || Contacting coaches, pt. 2 || Contacting coaches, pt. 3

To put the recruiting process into perspective (and to offer up a dose of reality), Coach Lindberg said the following (talking obviously about the men’s side of recruiting): “Out of the entire country there are on average 60-80 males that are or could be considered ‘highly recruitable’. They’re the ones that all the coaches know about and have interactions with on a fairly regular basis. Beyond that, add in another 100-120 athletes from around the world for programs that do international recruiting and you end up with a pool of roughly 200 athletes that can have an impact on their programs at the highest level.”

Because the pool of people who can have a real impact on programs is so small, it’s not only imperative that you put the work to make yourself a competitive recruit but it’s also important to very clearly lay out who + what you are to the coaches (in both questionnaires and emails) so they’re not left to fill in the gaps on their own. Generic emails like “Hi, I’m ____ from ____ and I’m interested in ____, please call me and tell me more about your program.” will sit in an inbox for a “very, very, very, very” long time because it doesn’t help the coach get to know or understand you.

As has already been discussed in last few “contacting coaches” posts (here, here, and here), things you should include in your emails are who you are, where you’re from, your coach’s name(s), how many years you’ve rowed/coxed, one or two notable accomplishments, your weighted/unweighted GPA, SAT/ACT scores (or the dates you plan on taking them if you haven’t already), applicable physiological data (height/weight), your most recent erg score(s), etc. Coaches are turned off by having to guess this info so don’t hold back or assume your stats aren’t good enough.

To quote Coach Lindberg again, “it’s better to know what you are than what you think you might be”. Obviously you need to be realistic about it (aka don’t email D1 men’s heavyweight programs when your 2k is 6:58 as a junior) but if the trend of recent 2ks for recruited athletes falls between 6:04 and 6:12, don’t assume they’re not gonna look at you if you’re at a 6:16.

Another one of the many common questions that comes up is contacting coaches if you’re not a senior. The rule is that you can email/call them anytime you want, they just can’t contact you directly before July 1st of your senior year (which is why such a big deal is made out of that day). They can reply to emails and talk to you on the phone if they answer it when you call but if they miss the call for example, they’re not allowed to call you back. Similarly with emails, they can reply to emails you send them but they can’t be the first one to make contact. It’s a little confusing but it’s not like it’s some big secret that the NCAA rule book is convoluted and annoying.

It’s unlikely that you’re going to have any real need or reason to contact them as a sophomore and maybe even as a junior depending on your level of experience but if you feel the need, you can reach out and say that you understand they might not have time or be able to reply to you but you wanted to introduce yourself, you’re a [whatever year you are], and then include height, weight, GPA, year in school, a goal (trying to make 1V, working on 2k time, etc.), etc. and that you will follow up with updates in the future. If you’re going to be at races they might also be at (particularly head races), let them know what event you’re entered in, your bow #, what seat you’re in, and the time of your race. This will allow them to scope you out if/when they’ve got time and make a mental note of who you are and what you looked like.

Similarly, go to camps. The coaches do remember you, it’s a good way to make initial connections (particularly if you haven’t begun the recruiting process yet or aren’t a junior/senior), and it gives you something to reference in your emails when it does come time to reach out to them.

Next week: The worst emails coaches have received and what they think of “highlight videos”…

College Recruiting Teammates & Coaches

College Recruiting: Contacting coaches, pt. 3 – How much info is too much?

By readyallrow October 13, 2015

Previously: Intro || The recruiting timeline + what to consider || What do coaches look at? || Contacting coaches, pt. 1 || Contacting coaches, pt. 2

In last week’s post we talked about what to say when emailing coaches and what they specifically want to see in those emails. This week we’re gonna talk about the extent of what you should share and how much is too much when it comes to talking about extracurriculars, academic scores, etc. What you should take away from this is that the relationship you’re creating with the coaches is a professional one, thus you should only be sharing what’s important and relevant at any given time.

“How much info is too much” was a question posed to the panel of coaches at NRC. Kate Maloney (Williams College) started off by saying that the more succinct your email is, the more likely you are to get a response. If your email is very long, contains multiple paragraphs, etc. coaches will lose interest, not because what you have to say isn’t interesting but because they’ve got a lot of things going on and a limited amount of time to get it all done in.

This really reiterates a lot of what was said last week which should be a pretty solid indicator of how much value coaches place on emails that are concise and to the point. Similarly to a paper you’d write for school, don’t be afraid to have a couple drafts of your email if you need to where you progressively edit it down to just what needs to be said. I’ve posted plenty of examples on here (in the last several weeks alone) that should make this relatively easy to do.

You might think that you need to lay everything out up front in order to pique their interest but 95% of that “extra stuff” that you’d include isn’t relevant right then. It’s like laying out your entire life story on a first date – it just comes off as trying way too hard to sell yourself and the person on the other side of the table is gonna get bored. Plus, if you put it all out there in the beginning, it’s unlikely they’ll remember everything you say so you’ll just have to repeat it again anyways and/or it limits what you’ll have to talk about in future conversations. The further into the recruiting process you get, the more info you can share because that’s when coaches will start asking you about your extracurriculars, why you think rowing will be a positive asset to your college experience, etc. By this point (presumably a few months into the game) they’ll have enough info to take to the admissions department and say “this is what Emily can bring to the community”.

An alternative to word-vomitting in your into email is to include your relevant stats, academic info, etc. in a resume and send it along as an attachment. This allows you to include a few more details in a much more easily digestible format and gives the coaches a chance to get to it when they have time. Ed Slater from Trinity College suggested this and several coaches agreed that they’d much prefer a resume (provided it’s professional looking and not just sloppily thrown together) than a dense detail-filled email. Something he said to avoid doing though (regardless of whether it’s in a resume or email) is to leave out “projected” scores – projected 2ks, GPAs, SAT/ACTs, etc. He used an example where he received an email from a prospective recruit that didn’t say what his current score was and the score that was given wasn’t representative of where he was at at that time. Instead of omitting stuff like that and thinking coaches aren’t going to notice or care, just be up front and say that your GPA, 2k, whatever isn’t where you want it to be yet but it’s something you’re actively working on to improve.

Another question that was spun off the “how much info is too much” one was about multi-sport athletes and whether or not that was something coaches would be interested in hearing about, to which everyone responded with a unanimous “YES”. This is definitely something you can briefly mention in your intro email and then get more into later as you start talking more. Multi-sport athletes are great because being an athlete and learning over the course of many seasons how to win, what it takes to get better at something, etc. are important traits that can give you a an edge because it shows coaches that you understand what it means to be passionate and committed to something.

It also helps because an athlete who pulls a 6:30 2k and only rows in the spring season but is a captain on the swim team and has set a school record in the butterfly is going to stand out a bit more than an athlete with a 6:30 2k who rows year round. (That in no way however means that you should go pick up another sport right now just to say you’re a multi-sport athlete and it’s not saying that you’re at some monumental disadvantage if you only participate in one sport.)

Next week: Laying out who you are and contacting coaches if you’re not a senior

Image via // Sofia Donnecke

College High School Recruiting Teammates & Coaches

College Recruiting: Contacting coaches, pt. 2 – What do coaches want to see in an email?

By readyallrow October 6, 2015

Previously: Intro || The recruiting timeline + what to consider || What do coaches look at? || Contacting coaches, pt. 1

Whenever I have to write a legit email to someone that isn’t blog or team-related, figuring out what I want/need to say is always the hardest part. There’s an annoyingly fine balance between being straightforward with why you’re contacting them and giving them all the relevant information so that they don’t automatically discard your email for lack of details (or too many details).

The same goes for contacting coaches, which I think is why I get asked so often what coaches want to see in these emails or what info should you include and what should you save for later. The latter we’ll talk about next week but today we’re gonna go over what coaches want you to include in your introductory emails, as well as the other conundrum people face when contacting coaches … what should the subject line be?

First things first: before you send any emails or reach out directly in any way to a coach, fill out the recruiting forms on the athletic department’s website. If you’re unfamiliar with how this works, each team has their own individual page on the AD’s site that lists the roster, schedule, highlights, etc. Sometimes the questionnaires are easy to find, other times they’re a little hidden but it shouldn’t ever take you more than 30 seconds to find.

To use ours as an example, all you have to do is click on the “recruit me” button at the top of the page, which opens a new page where all the MIT athletic programs are listed. From there you just select “Crew – Heavyweight” which will open up our questionnaire.

Ours, like most, is pretty comprehensive and as most coaches will tell you, the more information you include in the questionnaire itself the better. The less information you include, the more the coaches will fill in on their own and that’s the last thing you want. If you leave your 2k PR blank they’ll either assume it’s not good, you’re not proud of where you’re at, or you’re not on top of things and haven’t done one in awhile (which is just lazy because you can literally do a 2k at any time.) So, step one, before you email the coaches spend some time filling these out in their entirety. They’ll get an email saying you completed the forms and will likely be waiting for you to reach out from there.

Pro tip: To make the process go faster, gather all the info you need first (that includes academic test scores, erg scores, contact info for your coaches and guidance counselors, GPA, class rank, academic/athletic honors, etc.) and then fill everything out. This might take a couple days but it’s worth the time spent doing it. I remember my dad and I making a matrix for all this stuff (similar to the one I posted a few weeks ago, linked below, for college visits) and it made the process of filling all the questionnaires out a lot simpler.

Related: College evaluation grid

One week later (give or take – I’d say no less than five days later and no more than ten), send an email introducing yourself. Don’t regurgitate everything you included in the questionnaires and don’t try to sell yourself – just keep it short and to the point. You should include…

Your name, rower/coxswain, height/weight, and your 2k PR (obviously not applicable if you’re a coxswain)

“Really interested in the rowing program at _____” + one or two specific questions

“Would really like to speak with you” + “what’s the best time/number to reach you”

…and that’s IT.

Two points that the coaches at camp made that I thought were worth noting are that they read a lot of emails on their phone and don’t want to see an endless wall of text on a tiny 5″ screen, which is why succinctness is key . I fully admit to procrastinating on replying to emails if I open one up on my phone and have to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling to get to the bottom of it. It’s not that we’re uninterested in what you have to say, it’s just a little “ugh” inducing. If you’ve ever been assigned to read like, 100 pages of something before class the next day, it’s pretty much the same feeling.

The other point is that including a question mark in your email gives them a reason to contact you, hence the “what’s the best time/number to reach you” question. If you just rattle off a bunch of info but don’t give them any reason to reply, they’ll just say “mmk, cool” and file your stuff away … aka forget about it for awhile because you didn’t give them a reason to hit reply as soon as they finished reading.

Going back to the timing of when to contact the coaches after filling out the questionnaires, there’s also a “time limit” for when to reply after they’ve reached out to you. Once their email hits your inbox you’ve basically got a max of one week to respond. Anything beyond that and their level of interest starts to drop because you appear uninterested.

Outside of the “technical” info, what else do coaches want to see in your emails? Not all of this is mandatory stuff that you must include and a lot boiled down to each individual coach’s preferences but it’s good food for thought.

A short 30-second video clip of you on the water or erg

Again, obviously not applicable to coxswains.

No life stories, why you love rowing, etc.

I don’t want to say no one cares but … at this stage in the game no one cares.

Did you use spellcheck, address it to the right school/coach, etc.

This should be common sense but seriously, it takes two seconds to double check so just do it. To piggy back off of this too, write in complete sentences and for the love of god, use proper grammar and punctuation. I get emails from people all the time that make me seriously question if your elementary teachers just completely skipped over that part of school because the writing is THAT awful. Don’t think for a second that this doesn’t have an immediate impact on my (and other coaches) first impression of you, especially if you’re a coxswain. You’re in high school, there is literally no excuse for you to still be writing like a third grader. None whatsoever. If your writing skills aren’t up to par, fine, but at least get someone to proofread what you write before you send it.

Show you’re interested and paying attention by mentioning results

This refers to the college’s results, not your own. HOCR is next weekend so it wouldn’t be the worst thing to include a “PS, congratulations on winning the Champ 8+ at Head of the Charles!” or whatever if the team you’re contacting did particularly well. If you email them during the off-season you can mention their winter training trip – “I saw the video that the team linked on Twitter of the winter training trip in Clemson and it looked like you guys had a really productive week! Is Clemson where you go every year or do you cycle through different locations?”.

Don’t include links to your BeRecruited page

This was split 50-50 but one coach did make a point that they get emails whenever someone has noted that they’re interested in a particular school so it’s not like they won’t see it if you don’t include a link. A few coaches said that they just don’t have time to look at them, particularly if you’re contacting them when the teams are in-season, and one said that rowers/coxswains who use sites like that aren’t the type of athlete they want anyways. I’m still confused by that statement but the point is that sites like that, while useful, tend to be hit or miss with coaches. Knowing that I’d probably leave it out of my emails.

Indicate what year you are in school. Don’t assume that they will assume you’re a junior

Self-explanatory.

When applying to Ivies or similarly academic-heavy schools (MIT, Stanford, etc.) in particular briefly highlight your GPA in your intro email

“Hi, I’m Sam, I’m a 3rd-year starboard rower from Boston, MA with a 3.8 unweighted GPA and a 6:19 2k PR.” …or something to that effect.

Last but not least, the subject line. The first sentence of the body is the most important part of the email so keep the subject simple and do NOT leave it blank. Coach-endorsed examples include “Interested in rowing at [name of the school]” and “Prospective rower/coxswain – [your name]”.

Next week: How much info is too much?

Image via // @harvardheavies

College Recruiting Teammates & Coaches

College Recruiting: What do coaches look at?

By readyallrow September 22, 2015

Previously: Intro || The recruiting timeline + what to consider

The short list includes 2k time, academic suitability, physiology, experience, coaches recommendations, and finances.

The best way to get noticed obviously is to pull a really good 2k because as Coach Lindberg said, it’s the most objective analysis in our sport and how performances are normalized. In line with your 2k in terms of importance are your academics since those two things together quantify a lot of what the coaches need to know about you. The better prepared you are for college, meaning you’re taking challenging classes, scoring well on your AP tests, ACTs, and SATs, have a competitive GPA, etc., the more options you’ll have when it comes to determining which schools you might be a good fit for. Physiology is simple – height and weight. Regardless of whether you’re a lightweight, heavyweight, or coxswain, you really need to put this out there when you’re communicating with coaches … and you need to be honest about it.

Experience is something that can go either way. Obviously the more (competitive) experience you have the better (four weeks of learn-to-row over the summer in 7th and 8th grade doesn’t count) but coaches might still give you a look if you haven’t been rowing or coxing for long. I know of two high school seniors going on official visits right now at Ivies and other top 10 programs who just started rowing last year and I met a coxswain this summer who is at an Ivy now after having only coxed for a year beforehand. You shouldn’t assume that this will happen to everyone though because the precursor to this is having good enough grades and 2k scores that would warrant a coach giving someone who is relatively inexperienced a look. The majority of recruits are going to be people that have been rowing/coxing for awhile but if you’ve got the grades/times and have only been doing it for a short period of time, by all means reach out to the coaches and start a conversation.

Coaches recommendations are another big thing that college coaches look at, especially if you’re a coxswain. If your team consistently sends kids off to college programs then it’s reasonable to assume that your coaches have established relationships with the coaches of those teams and it’s safe to assume that they’ll be asked about you at some point. Sometimes this happens without your knowledge too which is (partly) why some recruiting questionnaires have you list your coach’s contact info. Other times coaches might ask you directly to have your coach get in touch with them, either by phone or email. The goal here, if it’s not obvious, is to learn about you as an athlete from someone who’s spent time working with you, to see how coachable you are (this is HUGE), and learn about what you bring to the team, both in terms of culture and overall contributions.

Related: Letters of recommendation

The last thing is finances. Don’t jump the gun on this and start freaking out thinking that a coach isn’t going to look at you if your family doesn’t make X number of dollars a year. That’s not it. It goes back to the suitability thing – if a school is completely out of reach for you financially unless you get a sizable scholarship your suitability just went down a lot. (It’s also probably going to make the coach question your intentions.) Talk it over with your family so you know what’s within your budget and how much you’d need in student loans, grants, etc. to cover any additional costs like housing, food, books, etc., that way when the subject comes up you’re not putting the coaches in an awkward “all or nothing” situation.

Another topic that came up at both Sparks and NRC was 3rd party recruiting sites (i.e. BeRecruited) and whether or not coaches actually looked at them. Graham Willoughby, an assistant coach with the men’s team at Brown, said that he’ll get emails 3-4 times a day indicating that someone’s been identified as being interested in the school/team but it’s not his primary source of information. A lot of coaches agreed on that point too that they’re not going to ignore it but they’d prefer to learn about a kid by them taking the initiative to go to the team’s website and filling out the questionnaire (which you can do anytime as a sophomore, junior, or senior). This is the best and most direct way of starting a conversation with the programs you’re interested in (in addition to actually emailing the coaches, obviously).

Wendy Wilbur (Texas) made another point that all the coaches agreed on in that you are much more likely to get a response when you reach out to individual coaches vs. just creating an account online and waiting for the offers to roll in. You want to avoid having someone else (i.e. parents, a recruiting site, etc.) be what represents you to college coaches and instead reach out directly to let them know that you’ve researched the school, like these particular aspects of it, and are interested in learning more.

Next week: The basics of contacting coaches

College High School Recruiting Rowing

College Recruiting: The Recruiting Timeline + What to Consider

By readyallrow September 15, 2015

Previously: Intro

One of the questions that comes up a lot has to do with the general timeline of the whole recruiting process and when you should be doing what. If you’re trying to slide into a coaches inbox as a freshman or sophomore … chill. I’ll touch on contacting coaches when you’re not an upperclassman in a later post but for the purposes of today’s I’m just going to focus on what you should be doing your junior and senior year.

Junior Fall

The first thing you should do is figure out your list of schools. This is really the only thing you can actively do before your junior year rolls around but once school starts as a junior, that’s when you really want to start solidifying it. This is in no way your final list though since it’s just going to be the schools that you’re interested in learning more about. The number of schools will vary but 7-10 is usually a good number to start out with. (I think I initially had seven or eight on my list that I eventually whittled down to three by the time I applied to schools.)

I don’t remember which coach said this but as you’re making your list, don’t just throw shit at a wall and hope it sticks. You should have three general categories for the schools you’re interested in – “locked in” (aka your safety school – if you can spell your own name right, you’ll get in), “baseline” (you’re a good candidate for this school and have a realistic shot of being admitted), and “reach” (the Harvard to your Elle Woods – you’d love to go here but it’s gonna take a lot of work on your end to get you up to par with the rest of the applicants). Once you’ve got this laid out, you can fill out the recruiting forms on the athletic department’s website and send a quick email to the coaches introducing yourself (which we’ll get into more later).

Junior Winter/Spring

Now that you’ve had a couple of months to learn about the universities, their academic programs, and their crew teams you can start getting serious in your talks with the coaches. Throughout the winter you should be continuing to send them updates on your progress while at the same time beginning to narrow down your list of schools to your top 3-5. This is the time to be seriously thinking about which school/program is going to give you the experience you want. By mid to late spring you should know who falls under that umbrella and be letting the coaches who aren’t know that you’re no longer interested in that school.

Senior Summer

As Marcus said, “don’t push for an official, just ask for a visit”. Officials are offered by the coaches, not requested by the students, which is why the “pushing” can be a real turn off. Since the summer tends to be a little more relaxed you don’t necessarily need to do this right away either, especially if you’re busy doing other things like dev camp, JNT, prepping for Club Nats, etc. Don’t wait until the week before school starts though to sort this out because the two week period before classes begin can be and usually are pretty hectic.

Senior Fall

If you weren’t in contact much with coaches over the summer this is when you should be, to quote Marcus again, “re-solidifying your relationship with the coaches” and setting up your visits if you were offered any. Based on what I’ve seen/heard/experienced this tends to happen in early to mid September and then later in the month and throughout October, that’s when you actually go on them. If you weren’t offered an official, you should still utilize this time to go on unofficial visits so you can learn about the schools and meet with the coaches.

Related: Official vs. Unofficial Visits – If you’re unfamiliar with the differences between the two, check out this post.

Senior Spring

Pretty simple – decide where you’re gonna go. (If you applied early decision you’ll have already done this in December and if you applied early action you’ll have done this in either January or February.)

Now that you have a general idea of what the recruiting timeline looks like, I want to quickly touch on the things you should consider when looking at schools. There were three main points that were mentioned this summer that I think covers pretty much all the bases but if there’s something you think is important that isn’t listed here, feel free to leave it in the comments.

What do you want and where do you want to be?

Urban vs. rural, small vs. medium vs. large school, size of the rowing program (i.e. on the men’s side, do you want to be at smaller program like Stanford that typically puts out 2-3 eights or a bigger school like Wisco that fields 12…), culture of the team (i.e. partying vs. studying – if the team leans more heavily one way or the other, will that work for you?), etc.

Where do you see your ideal four years?

You have to pick a school that fits your needs. This entails the academics (not just what you choose to study but the rigorousness of the program too), the overall college environment, and the rowing program itself (ideally you’ll be on a team where you feel competitive and challenged).

Would I be happy here if I stopped rowing/coxing?

This is the bottom line and probably the most important question you’ll ask and be asked during this entire process.

At Northeast there was a handout that the kids got that included a “college evaluation grid” to help keep all this info organized so I threw that into a Google Sheet for you guys to use if you think it’d be helpful. You can find it linked below. My dad and I put together something similar when I was looking at schools and it was so helpful because all the information I had (or wanted to find out) about each school/team was in one place.

Related: College evaluation grid

In that Google Sheet there are two tabs – a blue one that has the grid in it and a green one that includes some more info on what early decision I and II, early action, and regular decision entails if you’re not sure of the nuances of each one. If you’re considering early decision I would definitely recommend doing your research since it is binding and can have some pretty unfortunate consequences if you violate the rules that are attached to it.

Next week: What do coaches look at?

Image via // @yalecrew

College High School Recruiting Teammates & Coaches

College recruiting: Intro

By readyallrow September 8, 2015

Outside of questions directly related to coxing I get more questions and emails about recruiting than just about any other topic. I’ve wanted to do a regular series of posts on recruiting for awhile but got really motivated to finally put something together after I had the chance to listen to three really great talks from some of the top coaches in the country at the two camps I was at this summer.

So, on Tuesdays for the next seventeen weeks there will be a recruiting related post going up that covers nearly everything you need to know. Some of the things that’ll be discussed include the general timeline you should follow, what to do when contacting coaches (with tips on what coaches want to see from the coaches themselves), and what the recruiting process is like for coxswains (from the perspective of a current Ivy League coxswain).

Here are the coaches that participated in the talks at each camp:

Sparks (Middletown, CT):

Marcus McElhenney (9-time National Team coxswain)

Wendy Wilbur (University of Texas women, D1)

Kate Maloney (Williams College women, D3)

Nancy LaRocque (Wisco women, D1)

Kevin MacDermott (Trinity men, D3)

Chris Kerber (Cornell lightweight men, D1)

Michiel Bartman (Harvard lightweight men, D1)

Northeast Rowing Center (Raymond, ME):

John Lindberg (Boston University men, D1)

Ed Slater (Trinity College men, D3)

Graham Willoughby (Brown University men, D1)

Wendy Wilbur (University of Texas women, D1)

Kate Maloney (Williams College women, D3)

Andriel Doolittle (Bates College women, D3)

Holly Metcalf (MIT openweight women, D1)

Three current student-athletes (two rowers and a coxswain) from Brown, Princeton, and Yale

All the recruiting posts that I’ve posted on the blog will be linked at the top of each post but to follow this series specifically you can check out the “college recruiting 101” tag to stay up to date with the latest posts.

I wanted to start this off by sharing some of the initial comments made by a few of the coaches. Coach Lindberg kicked off the panel discussion at NRC by saying that the two most important attributes you can bring to the recruiting process are initiative and sincerity. You’ve gotta take the initiative to contact coaches (because as Marcus said, this isn’t football – the coaches aren’t gonna chase you, you have to chase them), develop those relationships, work hard in school, train hard during the season, etc. and be sincere not only with what you want in an academic program but also what you want out of your collegiate rowing experience.

This was reiterated many times by all the coaches that it is very easy to differentiate between the kids who are genuinely interested in rowing in college and the ones who are only going through the process in the hopes that this is the golden ticket that gets them admitted somewhere. Holly followed up by saying that you have to define within yourself very clearly if you need to row (as in your college experience will be incomplete without crew) or if you want to row (you enjoyed it in high school and want to keep doing it in some capacity in college).

Recruiting in rowing is a lot more “civilized” than it is with other sports because compared to ones like football, basketball, soccer, and baseball it is very heavily based on academics whereas the other sports are more athletically based. (Not to knock my college team or anything but a good example of this is Cardale Jones’ infamous “we ain’t come here to play school” tweet.)

The academic interests of the recruits will always be first and foremost to the coaches you’re talking to so it’s important that you’re challenging yourself with the classes you’re currently taking and have spent time considering what you might be interested in pursuing in college since those two things will be discussed regularly. The admissions departments of most schools, especially those with outstanding rowing programs, expect the rowers to be good students which is why getting in on skill alone doesn’t fly here.

Image via // @beantownkmd

Coxing High School Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow August 27, 2015

So I just finished my novice year as a rower. I was the shortest on the team but had one of the best 2k’s and was bow seat of the medaling regionals boat. However, now that I am JV and am starting to think about the future I’ve been thinking that my future would be brighter as a coxswain. I’ve never coxed a race but I’ve coxed at practices when needed and I’m pretty decent at it. I am a 15 yr boy and about 5’5 and I really am not sure what I should do. I know that I could row lightweight but I feel like I have a much better chance in the future like varsity and college as a coxswain. I love rowing and coxing though. My question is how would you recommend making a decision about switching to coxing or to keep rowing?

I think it all comes down to what you want to get out of your rowing experience (“rowing” as in the general sense of the sport). If you decided to stick with being a rower but were limited, for whatever reason, to being in lower boats would you still be happy? Would you still enjoy coming to practice every day and helping to make your boat fast? Or, would you feel like you were missing out on something? Some people are perfectly happy rowing in the 2V or the 3rd 4+ and that’s awesome but there are others who aren’t and want more … and that’s cool too.

If you switched to coxing, you’d essentially be starting at the bottom of the totem pole – or at the very least, as close to the bottom as you can get without being a brand new, straight off the shelf novice coxswain. This usually isn’t too appealing to people but it sounds like you have the benefit of being a solid rower on your side so that could/would make the transition a little easier and maybe open up some opportunities early on to cox some of the upper boats, which is always great when you’re just starting out as a coxswain. If continuing the sport in college is a goal though it’d be ideal for you to make the switch now rather than in a year or two, at least in my opinion, because it gives you plenty of time to figure out how to do everything and do it well. If you try to make the switch at the same time as you’re starting to really get into the nitty gritty of looking at schools, taking the SAT/ACTs, going on visits, etc. you’ll just be miserable.

So … I guess what I’m saying is that my recommendation for making this decision ultimately comes down to what’s going to keep you excited about showing up to the boathouse everyday. Keep in mind too that if you’re only 15 then you likely still have a few years of growing ahead of you. It’s worth asking your doctor about the next time you stop in for a checkup or physical. If you’re 5’5″ now but are projected to top out around 5’11” then that might impact what you decide to do. I think it’d be worth having a conversation with your coach too before the fall season starts (assuming you aren’t back at school yet) since they’ve likely seen other rowers in your position before and can offer up some good advice based on what they’ve seen them do.