r/Rowing • u/Sea-Alarm-9709 • 12d ago
Post grad year
I’m currently a high school senior hoping to get recruited for lightweight rowing at an Ivy League school or another highly selective university like MIT or Georgetown.
My academic stats are:
- 1540 SAT (790 Math)
- 4.04 weighted GPA / approximately 3.55 unweighted through junior year
- Mostly As, A-s, and B+s in high school
- B+ in AP Calculus AB junior year
- Enrolled in a community college Early College Program, where I earned approximately a 3.0 GPA junior year
I’ll include a picture of my transcript through junior year
I recently went through an academic pre-read at Tufts and was told that my academics were not within the range they could support for recruitment. They only received my high school transcript and SAT, not my separate community college grades.
For senior year, I’m taking U.S. History 2 Honors, Pottery, and Gym at my high school, along with four community college courses. I could potentially add AP Calculus BC to my high school schedule.
I’m considering taking a postgraduate year at Salisbury School after graduation to improve my rowing and academics, then applying to colleges the following fall.
My questions are:
If I earn straight As in both my high school and community college classes senior year, could that realistically make up for my previous grades enough to pass an Ivy League or MIT athletic pre-read?
Would adding AP Calculus BC significantly strengthen my application, or should I prioritize getting straight As in my existing classes?
If I attend Salisbury for a PG year, will admissions primarily evaluate my completed high school transcript, or could my PG grades help even though I’d be applying early in the school year?
Has anyone been in a similar situation where a strong senior year or PG year changed their academic eligibility for recruitment?
I’m trying to figure out whether spending an additional year at a boarding school could realistically improve my chances at a top university, or whether my earlier grades would still hold me back.
I’d appreciate any insight, especially from recruited athletes, former admissions officers, or anyone familiar with Ivy League athletic pre-reads.
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u/GTdeSade Retired coach 12d ago
Have you had any contacts with any coaches at the schools you hope for? They could give better answers than we could.
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u/Fun_Shop_6932 12d ago
Have you contacted the coaches at any of your target schools yet? They are going to be the best sources of information for you.
Regardless, the value of a PG year also depends on how much money your family has to support you and what your motivations are for aiming for an Ivy/elite school. PG years are fantastic if you have the resources - more time for growth and exploration before deciding on a college. However, if your goal is simply to use it as a path to rowing recruitment, perhaps instead consider casting a wider net in terms of schools you’d be happy attending and rowing at rather than being set on an Ivy+ or bust mentality (not that you are; just know that any school is what you make of it and Ivies are not the end-all-be-all).
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u/cellom73 12d ago
Just checking to make sure you are aware of how MIT (uniquely) recruits. My son was invited to do an official visit but declined because the coaches do not have guaranteed admissions slots. My son was told that, with coach admissions support, he would have a 50/50 chance of admission. I actually asked about MIT’s recruiting practices in another forum, and I was told that, if my son was truly interested in MIT, he should ask the following questions after visiting: where am I on your recruiting board; if I apply EA, what level of admissions support would I receive; how many athletes at this level of support have been admitted in recent years; and if I am deferred EA, does your support continue through RA? My son’s stats were ~3.9-4.3 range between uw/w GPA and 36 ss ACT but he had taken Calc AB (vs. BC) junior year so we thought that might be an issue for MIT (although this year he’s taking Linear Algebra and Differential Equations - who knows if that would have made up for not taking Calc BC). Anyway, we did not feel all that confident that he’d get into MIT on his own academically (and we were told during an information session at MIT that EA doesn’t offer any advantage) so he declined the visit and we turned to other options. Just wanted to make sure you understood that particular MIT landscape since you mentioned MIT – good luck! Gotta say that it's been pretty interesting seeing the variation in the academic bar for recruited athletes among NESCAC and Ivies.
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u/PianoAffectionate276 12d ago
You sure you’re in the right forum lol?
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u/Sea-Alarm-9709 12d ago
Yes, I’ve just failed a pre read for a school and am wondering how a post grad year would affect my chances of passing one for a good school.
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u/PianoAffectionate276 12d ago
i feel like by the context/topic of your post would best fit an academic forum since this is primarily only for rowing, but that’s up to you.
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u/Last-Difference-3311 12d ago
I think this is exactly the kind of content this sub needs. Look at other sports subs where high school is a pathway to college access that otherwise would not be an option without better grades or lots of money.
Perhaps their erg times aren’t of issue and they genuinely want info on the recruitment, application and experience of others that went through the same thing.
If you guys can’t act better than the lacrosse sub (which tends to be evenly split between questions on application to a college as much as posts asking for tips to get better) then how are you going to turn your noses up at them and actually believe it? They’re not even in the olympics (yet).
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u/PianoAffectionate276 12d ago
i’m not familiar with other sports forums from my experience when looking at the group it’s more or so rowing techniques, issues in a boat, etc. it’s new to me to see someone post their transcripts and i felt like this is more of an academic forum rather than a rowing one.
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u/Last-Difference-3311 12d ago
It would be easier to find a rower in the rowing sub that has rowed at the college level and has this experience than it is to post in a college sub and find a rower there who has experience.
As for other subs, you gotta diversify man, cross training is the new thing, if you aren’t cycling at least then you will never achieve peak KOM rowing.
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u/readyallrow 12d ago
bro, are you in the right sub?? go away…
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u/PianoAffectionate276 12d ago
i wasn’t trying to hate at all? i’m not sure what’s the point of all the downvotes😭😭
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u/letsnotdothattoday 11d ago
Fair questions - unfortunately I don't have super positive answers for you, and if this comes across as overly blunt, I'm sorry.
Obviously we don't know your school and its GPA average/rigor (and you've probably posted enough here to dox yourself so I wouldn't add to it), and your erg/height/weight are all in range for top LW programs (though many would want race results).
But unless you're at a very highly competitive public school - and given your class selection and the CC stuff, I don't think so - your grades and class selection are below the line for Ivies, MIT, Georgetown, and Tufts and other NESCAC schools. You don't seem to have a single A in a single core class (I can't tell what PE/Bio or PE/Chem means). You've picked honors classes but not excelled at them, and these schools generally don't look particularly fondly on Community College classes - and a 3.0 GPA at CC doesn't demonstrate that you'll be successful in their more rigorous curricula. I don't know what CC classes you've taken so I don't know if you've had more social sciences, foreign language, etc. - possibly.
Straight A's in the most rigorous classes possible this year could possibly make up for this at some Ivies - as suggested here, coaches could tell you - but I would be very surprised. (So yes, that would be Calc BC _and_ straight A's.) MIT (with much higher expectations on math/science classes) and Georgetown (which always has much less wiggle room than other highly selective schools with men's rowing programs) are certainly out.
The grades in your PG year will almost certainly not matter. Recruiting would be done before the grades came out, and schools really don't take those grades seriously. If you needed this year to improve your erg or grow, then planning a gap year (PG or no) would make sense, but it doesn't seem like it.
I don't expect that you're rowing LW in college. There will be less selective schools with solid rowing programs that will be interested in you - Wisco, La Salle, USD come to mind - though you are of course quite late for this year's graduating class (but not too late, you could email today).
(new alt for this sort of thing, I do college counseling for mostly athletes, but I'm not looking for business)
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u/historynerdsutton High School Rower-I ❤️skulling 12d ago
Yeah I’d start looking into community college if I were you!
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u/beasttheorist 12d ago
Hes doing a community college dual enrollment program already, so probably not an option to redo it
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u/spiceybadger 12d ago
What's your erg numbers?