The conventional wisdom for athletes is not to apply to any school where you wouldn’t be happy to attend/meet your academic needs if due to injury (or just the demands on your time) you stop your sport.
As you consider transferring/additional applications you might want to keep that in mind.
Good luck!
I may be off the mark here, but - if the D1 schools did not specifically recruit you as a coxswain, and you get in off the waitlist - isn’t there a very real possibility that there will already be recruited coxswains on the team and you would be “benched”? At a school with a club team, given your experience and skill, you would likely get to row as much as you wanted all four years.
So, I thought so too, but…I’ve learned that the majority of collegiate men’s teams (besides the schools like Cal and some others) take a lot of fully novice walk-ons or just walk-ons in general. They do PWOs (which are “recruited” coxswains given no admissions support, but given a spot on the team if/when accepted) which is what I could do as a person on the waitlist. Even Princeton takes a lot of novice coxes on each year since they don’t usually give out full support to bring coxes in (only 1 every other yr, typically). So I would not be behind in the group except for on some specific teams. Even a lot of women’s programs are more than happy to take walk-ons because everyone wants more coxswains that are already accepted.
*I am also not pulling this out of nowhere…I’ve had my fair share of phone calls with coaches discussing this. Many of them have told me “sorry but we do not fully support coxes thru admissions but we would happily have you on the team as a PWO if accepted on your own.”
Thank you. I would call, but I’ve tried cold-calling coaches several times and have only been sent to voicemail. They usually are busy throughout the day except for specific time slots that are set up via email.
ah, ok that makes sense. Well, then the advice seems to be - fall further in love with one of your acceptances. Reach out to people (coaches and students) on the club teams at the schools where you are in and see which best fits your desires. Transferring is always an option down the road, but you should see which school on your list has the program closest to what you want. If you get in off a waitlist you can pivot at the last minute, but certainly don’t plan on that happening.
Here is the waitlist info from Barnard’s most recent common data set:
At my Ds college the club rowing team competed against some D1 teams and did fine. Personally, I’d embrace the options you have (sounds like you really like VT) and enjoy club crew.
Then use email as your method of contact.
It is clear that you want this.
Many club teams are full of strong, talented athletes and club is not the same as intramural. My son had always been a multi-sport starting athlete, but he wanted to focus on academics in college and did not want the time commitment of a varsity sport. He joined the club rugby team his freshman year despite never having seen the sport played and next weekend will be on one of the only 16 small college teams in the nation that earned a spot to compete for the national title. Many if not most of the teams they will play against such as Duke have varsity status with recruitment, school support, and large budgets. Club status does not mean untalented or noncompetitive. If you are that talented in crew, you will get to compete and have the opportunity to be noticed.
Is there a chance to transfer from a very strong club team to a D1? If so, it might give you the best of both worlds. Maybe you decide to stay on a club team you love while still having a transfer option.
While OP should definitely embrace the current options and explore the PG/Gap year option, I think there will be a WL shake out. There is a lot up in the air do to the Fafsa issues.
I am definitely preparing for no WL movement since I always know to assume the worst. But I am seriously hoping for at least one WL acceptance just to weigh some more options…however I don’t know if FAFSA delays will mean earlier WL movement (possibly late April) or even later WL movement (June). Hopefully the former.
Transferring can be difficult when financial aid is needed.
I’m not @coffeeat3 but still know a couple things, and have talked with OP before, so a couple things I can add/suggest/clear up. I’m generally in line with the CC mantra of love the school that loves you back, but I also know coxswains are built different, so it’s worth playing through.
First, stop cold-calling coaches. They’re in the most critical part of the season, and with respect, a call from a waitlisted student to see if they might be able to help for next year is literally their very bottom priority, and they would expect a coxswain to understand that. Fine to email but otherwise let it be.
Yes, you will see occasional coxswain transfers - which is to say I’ve seen at least one, from a lower-level D1 team to a better D1 team. I don’t know how much of a factor rowing played - e.g. I don’t know if they went through the NCAA portal. I’ve not seen a move from a club team, though, and that wouldn’t go through the portal. Also coxswain spots for transfers are really only a possibility if the team is down for some reason and doesn’t have a strong freshman class coming in. I would consider this a highly unlikely scenario at best.
PG for coxswains is not really a thing, AFAIK - the skills PG programs are building aren’t really coxswain-oriented.
I do know some coxswains who were disappointed with their college choices and took a gap year - got on a plane and coxed for Oxford Brookes or whatever - and had a story to tell when they re-applied (and your test scores can help then, which they can’t as a transfer). If you’re passionate enough about giving the coxswain recruiting process a chance again to pass on your college options - not a recommendation, just an analysis - this is by far your best shot. There will be some schools recruiting coxswains for their 2025 women’s rowing teams in Fall, though some of those spots are already full. I would not expect different results from men’s teams, frankly.
Finally, as I think I said in a different version to you some months ago, the only possible way a coach is going to even try to help you off the waitlist is if they’re 100% sure you’re going to attend. I know you want to hold out for Barnard and you’re trying to be upstanding through this whole process - and at this point it’s likely too late for any new message anyway, but I think you’ve ended up optimizing for the dream of one school over the dream of competing at a D1 level - which is fine if you knew you were doing that.
Finally finally, is club rowing right for you? One friend once described it as similar to rowing at a good-but-not-truly-elite HS program: you’ll have a couple athletes who could be competitive most anywhere, a handful who care a lot but who aren’t at the same level, and a handful who are just doing it for fun. If you don’t hate that about HS rowing, you might not hate it in college.
The idea isn’t necessarily to become a better coxswain but to strengthen academic profile and buy time. Maybe cast a wider net.
I am sorry that recruiting did not work out for you - YET. I say yet - as transferring could be an option and I am not versed enough in that to offer advice on both transferring and the need for some financial aid. Maybe someone else on this board can speak to this - if you decide to pursue that in a year or two.
I can give you a lot of thoughts about the overall process and we have “spoken” over private message too as related to your goals. I know that your ED school did not work out and you were unsure if the coach was really providing you support of not. Trying to come in after ED with support is tough and not often successful. Your original college list was not crew specific with a lot of schools not offering crew at the level you are interested in pursuing. I don’t say this to be critical - as you mention you did not have a lot of guidance in the process.
For others that may find this thread:
Coxs are historically very strong academically and can be used as a recruit to help balance out a rowers academics, as needed (especially help the international rowers). Going in test optional is not common for a large number of D1 programs. Many programs only provide a cox “soft support” for candidates that meet the school academic profile in the ED round. The coach should be upfront and you would still go through the pre-read and for most programs a visit with the team too.
For cox recruiting - it is always wise to have strong test scores, grades, rigor, national regatta results across different waterways and cast a wide net. You can decide on whether you want to target male or female teams or target both.
It is a good idea to review current rosters across teams and look for the holes - ie: does the program have 3 jrs and 1 freshman - so they most likely will need to support/soft support the next year or are they stacked with freshman and sophomores already - most likely those teams won’t take the time to review/support coxs and concentrate on rowers.
There are amazing D3 teams (high academic schools too - so looking for similar academic profile) and great club teams too. As a coxswain, you are already a leader and a club team would provide you the opportunities to put that leadership and even some coaching skills to work - I wouldn’t write off club so quickly.
For $ - there is more athletic support $ for women on women’s teams vs men’s and remember no athletic money in the Ivy league or D3. It sounds like you are from Virginia and I don’t know or remember if UVA was a school that your pursued - their women’s team is strong and I think you didn’t pursue, as you were concentrating on men’s programs?
I love the sport of crew and understand your passion - there are ways to continue and be competitive and I wish you well - it will work out, as you have already done a lot at a young age and are determined !
My first reaction is that you cannot count on and should not expect to get into one of your waitlist schools. You will pretty much need to pick a school that accepted you, put down your deposit, and move the waitlisted schools to the back of your mind.
If one the waitlists comes through, then you can revisit. This is likely to mean losing the deposit wherever you put down a deposit, but that is the only downside. If you for example put down a deposit at either Virginia Tech or PSU, and then get in off the waitlist to Barnard, the people at VT or PSU will not be bothered by the fact that you went to Barnard. They will understand and be okay with it. However, you cannot count on this happening, and should not expect it to happen.
The second thing that comes to mind is that rowing is a big commitment. One daughter got onto the freshman crew team (woman’s 8) at university. Practices were at some reasonable time that she could handle (possibly afternoon). Then an opening came up in the varsity 8 and she was asked to take this spot. She took it for perhaps a week or two. The problem was that practices were very early in the morning and very frequent (I am not sure whether they were every day). You cannot stay up studying past midnight and then get up at 6am to row, so her overall schedule was impacted in a big way. Also of course with an 8 woman crew (9 counting the coxswain) the entire team is depending upon your showing up every morning ready to row. This is a huge commitment in time, effort, and “schedule adjustment”.
You are already accepted to a few very good universities. Congratulations! I think that you just have to pick one, plan to go there, and if a waitlist comes through deal with it at the time.
Thank you! That is currently the plan.
When it comes to the commitment, I know I’m ready. My HS team currently practices every weekday from 4:45AM to 7:00AM and on 3 days a week an additional practice from 4:00PM to 6:30PM. It’s a lot but I’ve learned how to manage it. I cannot even stay up past 9PM doing homework or else I am too tired to function. From the collegiate coaches I’ve spoken with, their schedules are actually the same if not less time than my current schedule, surprisingly, so I think it’d work out okay. Plus I’d get more leeway with class schedules. But I’ll cross that road if it comes.
You may well have a harder time getting to sleep at 9PM in a busy dorm. Honestly, a club team sounds like a very good option to me.
And physics is a famously time-consuming and difficult major.
Preface: this is not the advice you are looking for. It seems clear that you will do whatever you can to try to get off the waitlist at one of these schools, and that if you do, you’ll probably go. It also seems like the chances are a bit slim.
I want to offer you a different perspective: be careful what you wish for.
Coming in from outside the rowing world, I wonder if you might be underestimating two things: a) the time commitment of a D1 athletic program + b) the time commitment of college coursework and research and whatever else you might want to do while in school. (and also c) the degree to which most sports do not end up being a career, and might in fact displace valuable career exploration that you could be doing if you weren’t chasing athletic dreams.)
It sounds like you’ve had a phenomenal high school rowing experience and your academic preparation sounds solid but not extraordinary. I worry based on what you’ve shared here that if you were to realize your dream and land at Barnard, you’ll need to level up your game on both fronts. The rowing will take a ton of time (others on this thread will know more but a friend’s daughter who just dropped out of a D1 boat after being recruited said it was basically a full-time job outside of class). But also, class will take time. Problem sets will take time. You’ll want to form study groups and this is not going to be easy when you’re adhering to a strict training schedule and going to bed at 9 PM. And if you manage that tricky balance, you’re still massively constraining yourself socially. I bet you eat most meals with the team. You travel a bunch of weekends. It’s a year-round sport, right? You’ll know a few people very well. And a bunch of other people that might be interesting to get to know will be beyond your reach because we haven’t yet solved the being-in-two-places at once problem. At some point (putting aside Olympic dreams for a moment) you’ll need to transition from being a quasi-professional athlete to a career.
I had a friend (a nationally ranked swimmer and high school valedictorian) who ended up in the hospital after a mental health crisis precipitated by overtraining + stress. (To this day the smell of chlorine is triggering to her. And she loved swimming as much as you love rowing when she graduated from high school!) The swimmers very much kept to themselves so it was hard to integrate socially and academically once she went on medical leave from her team halfway through college. As tough as it was, leaving one of the top swim programs in the country and shedding her identity as an Olympic hopeful swimmer was one of healthiest choices she could have made for herself. And she eventually found all kinds of other interesting things to do w/ the 30-40 hours/week that she wasn’t spending with her teammates.
Obviously for every experience like the one I just mentioned, there are plenty of happy, successful D1 athletes who figure it all out. You could be one of them. But at this point you don’t have an acceptance in hand that would make that dream possible. I guess what i want to say is: you don’t know how well it would have gone. It could have gone badly. And college is such a terrific opportunity to try things that are different from what you already know. Maybe lean into Virginia Tech, which by all accounts is a happy place to be and a great bargain too – and figure out how to take your competitive spirit in a new direction?
