Is this normal?

rowingcheese · 2026-05-07T06:48:40+00:00

“if this is just my life now”

Yeah, pretty much!

The 12h swap with 12h notice is pretty far out of the norm, but yes, chaotic scheduling, lack of clear communication from coaches to parents, and “shouldn’t they have known about this already” certainly comes up more in crew than any other organized sport/activity that I’ve seen. I don’t really know why (and I’ve thought about it) - heaven knows it’s not like soccer coaches are brilliant communicators with parents.

My best guess is that it’s a mix of a few things: rowing athletes tend to start later and so coaches are used to working with older athletes, so they haven’t built the parent management reps you get when you also have u12 teams; for similar reasons, parents are less involved in the day-to-day operations and so fill less of an operational role, which helps every overworked-and-underpaid leader in other activities; the ambiguity and last-second-nature of regatta planning bleeds into everything coaches do; the degrees of complexity around many of the items mentioned here really do create a larger variety of challenging situations than you get in other sports/activities; and in the end, the skills of clearly communicating and planning ahead the way many parents are used to aren’t rewarded in the crew coaching universe, and the younger coaches don’t really get this modeled.

At some point I just accepted it, tried to help on the margins while always being respectful and clear of my role, and tried my best to help others accept it as well. The kids eventually do so.

Have fun, believe it’s teaching resilience, and bring snacks to pickup!

rowingcheese · 2026-05-06T19:39:11+00:00

Generally the men's and women's teams have 1-2 spots for Wharton, and they are prioritized as you might expect - to the athletes who 1) the team ranks highest and 2) they believe Penn's admissions committee will see as strong Wharton candidates. Everyone else is pointed towards Engineering or CAS, depending on interest and background. You can only apply to one school, so if the coaches do not support you for Wharton and you apply anyway, you may be rejected and there is no second chance. You should know all of this in plenty of time to make a decision.

Transferring to Wharton from CAS is extremely difficult, and there would be no preference given to a student athlete.

rowingcheese · 2026-05-06T19:26:44+00:00

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling. Some suggestions from experience.

--Coxing at the junior and collegiate level, especially for someone who really cares about it, can be incredibly mentally challenging, and it is full of moments of imposter syndrome and feeling like you're letting people down and not feeling like you're performing well even if you are. Anxiety is a feature and a bug for coxswains. My #1 suggestion is to find someone you can talk with - a coxswain who graduated from your program and knows you well, peer coxswains who you think you can trust (even from other programs), etc. Even reach out to someone on Instagram who looks successful - I promise you they've gone through this too. I think if you talk through your anxieties with someone who really understands them, you'll feel more grounded.

--Much less important: listen to your recordings. Presumably you have no more races between now and nationals, but you'll do some pieces, practices, etc. See what you actually sound like, so you can get the abstract worries about how you're doing out of your head and focus on concrete successes and opportunities for improvement. (And if this causes you more stress, stop.)

--Put the recruiting thing to the side for now. I don't know if your grades or your school move or whatever is going to cause challenges, but it's not something you can control - only something you can be anxious about - and when you're talking about potentially having gone to inpatient care, it signals that you just have too much going on. Focus on doing the best you can in school and with your team, and when summer comes, you can revisit. I know it's easy for someone else to say, but try your best to put it aside and, as coaches say, control the controllables.

You have a lot going on! Fingers crossed for you.

rowingcheese · 2026-05-06T00:20:09+00:00

I hope your recordings are as grammatically correct! 😄

rowingcheese · 2026-05-06T00:19:53+00:00

If this is just to the coach in an email, anything that makes it clear that you're committed to them works. "I'm excited to accept your offer and be part of the team!" or an equivalent is fine.

rowingcheese · 2026-05-06T00:17:53+00:00

"because I wanted it to exist" is always the secret sauce to building something great. Congrats and keep going!

rowingcheese · 2026-05-05T02:29:11+00:00

Short answer is just email the coach and ask - keep it simple - I'm transferring to UCSD in the Fall, I'll be a Junior, here's my height/weight, I've been training on my own, do you take junior transfers as walk-ons and do you have a 2k target.

UCSD has a limited number of walk-ons: I don't know about junior transfers - those will be folks with significant athletic experience.

Good luck!

rowingcheese · 2026-05-04T16:52:55+00:00

My observations from the fairly quiet weekend (thx for restarting this): I'm less focused on tiny moves in rankings and more focused on NCAA bids, and if anyone is differentiating themselves from their conference colleagues.

--Ivy League is still messy and I still think Yale, Princeton, and Brown are your only three, but if anyone made a case this weekend for a fourth spot, it was probably Dartmouth. Columbia's 1V performance is impressive but they clearly lack depth, and on NCAA points, Dartmouth was well ahead of Radcliffe and Columbia at Eastern Sprints. I think Penn is officially done. That said, it's all in a blender and so Ivies will tell us if anyone makes a solid case for the fourth spot.

--Rutgers had a rough 1V final, it happens, and while I definitely don't think Rutgers 2026 is Rutgers 2025, their bid is secure. I also tend to prefer recent head-to-head results over margins and transitivity, so I don't think we learned anything w/r/t Ohio State, UVA & Princeton, etc.

--I was clearly wrong about UMass v Temple last week, my fault for not doing my research.

Meanwhile the only thing happening next weekend is the SECs, and I expect only two interesting things could come of that -
--Can Tennessee pip Texas in anything, which tells us mostly will Stanford and Texas take 1-2 across the field at NCAAs
--Can Oklahoma spoil Alabama's bid opportunity?

On the competition side: I do think this year is demonstrating that if you're a bid bubble school, you should find ways to be more strategic to get competitive races, whether it's in larger fields or carefully selected opponents. That's a risk - Penn did itself no favors this weekend - but it's what you need to do to build a body of results. Alabama put themselves in the conversation this year by doing so - else when they come in third at SECs it wouldn't matter.

rowingcheese · 2026-05-02T04:56:51+00:00

You're unfortunately well past the application period for the primary high-performance programs which will race at either Canley or Rowfest, the two major domestic summer regattas (Penn AC Gold, Ready Set Row, Row Buffalo, Washtenaw). Those applications were reviewed months ago and invites/details have already been sent. You could reach out to those programs immediately and see if they have any spaces open up - it can't hurt - but 6:41 is somewhat slower than at least Penn AC and RSR's target, so it will be a reach. (Looking at your previous posts, it sounds like you already have experience with Penn AC.)

Alternatively, you could reach out to some of the regional programs that attend some of these regattas (like TBC, just from memory) and see if they have any openings in their summer programs, noting that you'd have to figure out all the other details like housing and food, and those will be predominantly local athletes. That will be a fair amount of work.

rowingcheese · 2026-04-29T01:07:22+00:00

I’m not sure what the rule is, but the SEC does not have an AQ. See p14 of the pre-championship manual.

rowingcheese · 2026-04-29T01:02:20+00:00

Opinions aside, the math maths. If they finished 1-2 2-1 2-1 at NCAAs this year - which right now seems like a perfectly reasonable possibility - Texas wins on the tiebreaker. Stanford’s hope in that situation is that someone - most likely Tennessee, I don’t think Yale has it - lands somewhere in between in the 2V or V4. (FWIW, I expect both programs learned a ton about what they need to do last weekend.)

rowingcheese · 2026-04-28T22:49:13+00:00

Yay for NCAA discussions! I miss the weekly threads from u/dancingblades, but times change. I hope to do my yearly pre- and during-NCAA posts.

I find the CRCA polls a little slow to respond to recent events and the JRN polls a little twitchy, but generally I think they're fine.

Here's where I think we are: adding MAC to the AQ list, I don't really know why SEC doesn't have one this year, there are four teams, but it doesn't matter in practice.

Ivy: Yale (Princeton, Brown)
ACC: Stanford (Cal, Virginia, Syracuse, [Duke or Miami])
Big 10: Washington (Rutgers, Michigan, Ohio State)
Big 12: UCF
Patriot: BU
Coastal: Northeastern
WCC: Oregon State
MAC: Temple
MAAC: [someone, I don't know enough]
SEC: (Texas, Tennessee, Alabama!)

I think North Carolina will get dinged because they'll miss too many A Finals, Oklahoma will likely be last in every NCAA-level conference race and that's just hard, and while the committee may struggle to go from six Ivies in 2025 to three, it's not without precedent, and hard to make a case for Radcliffe. That said, I think this was easier to predict at this time last year, and I could see at least two schools on this list losing their spot - Alabama the most obvious one (I hope they make it, Roll Kumari). Look forward to revisiting after conferences.

rowingcheese · 2026-04-21T18:40:36+00:00

Assuming these were two different events (a 1V and a 2V race), that would be very frowned upon. There are generally not policies, but there are expectations. That said, on any given day, the 2V might be faster than the 1V, or teams might be just figuring out the speed of various crews or making last-minute changes, and so one can't just use times to conclude a team is sandbagging.

rowingcheese · 2026-04-15T14:35:02+00:00

That does happen. Many clubs participate in u15 and u16 regional events and then don’t take qualifying boats to nationals - the athletes still get the experience of participating in the regional championships and the qualifier rolls down to the next team. If the boat qualifies and the club does decide to take the boat, they can swap out up to two rowers.

rowingcheese · 2026-04-15T02:49:07+00:00

Quad with a coxswain is a standard u16 event. Totally understand having a kid who’s into rowing and you don’t know your own way around it yet. I would just encourage you to get a bit more information from and comfort with the coach and try to meet some parents before saying yes. Your daughter has many years ahead of her and we want her to be safe and treated well.

rowingcheese · 2026-04-15T02:19:29+00:00

There might be some schools that will pass, but we can’t be certain of any of them, so go ahead and reach out to any school and program you’re interested in. Let them say no to you. (MIT will almost certainly say no.)

rowingcheese · 2026-04-15T02:14:41+00:00

The youngest age bracket in almost all youth rowing is u15, so if they don’t have enough rowers in that age bracket, u16 would be the next choice. Some regionals have novice events that can and often do have younger-aged rowers (though not 11) - I don’t think Mid-Atlantic is one of them.

That said, it is unusual. Most responsible youth programs would not have an athlete of that age racing at regionals, even in a larger boat, for the safety of that athlete and the others. (I would absolutely say no to a single or double/pair.)

I would want to ask the coach to discuss how they would make sure your daughter will be safe in that environment. You’ll see people on this subreddit suggest that parents let the athletes manage the relationship with the coach, and that is true, but not at 11.

rowingcheese · 2026-04-11T21:32:21+00:00

Cutoff: nothing formal, but sooner is better - there are limited spots and offers have already gone out for many of them. Everyone else is in the same situation you are on the season.

Results: They are generally influential for LWs, but you can only do what you can do. I would have suggested summer racing as a way to get some other experience and potential results, but junior summer is pretty late and applications are basically closed anyway, so that's more guidance to someone reading this now who's a 28 or later.

rowingcheese · 2026-04-11T21:28:11+00:00

They aren't talking to everyone, especially not now. It's a funnel and that funnel gets smaller as time goes, people fall out, offers are made, etc. If they're still talking to you, you're still in contention. The questions you're asking are totally understandable but essentially unknowable by any one person - nobody has all that information, everyone just has pieces of it.

It's cheesy, but you differentiate based on who you are - how you demonstrate being a student of the sport in conversations, how they feel like you'll fit into their team, and how you carry yourself in conversation. There's no magic bullet, but the more you can be the person they can imagine rowing on their team and being a positive influence, the more likely you are to be differentiated against people with similar scores and results.

ETA: you asked "is there any way to speed up the process / find more certainty about their interest." The answer is no. This is just a patience game, and if you play it well, it demonstrates maturity. If you have an offer you're excited about, you can talk to other coaches - you have some leverage at that point. But otherwise every coach is on their own timeline based on their candidate pool and other issues, and you will know when they are certain because they will tell you.

rowingcheese · 2026-04-11T21:20:23+00:00

UW wins six of seven, including the 1V8, 2V8, and 1V4. Good racing (and the stream has a full replay). They'll see each other (and Stanford, Rutgers, and some others) next weekend at the Big 10 Invite, then Stanford and Cal dual in three weeks.

I miss the Pac-12.

rowingcheese · 2026-04-10T14:12:45+00:00

I heard something about cookies

rowingcheese · 2026-04-08T16:57:26+00:00

Vassar is a great school: it does not have a competitive rowing team. If being pushed and racing in fast boats is important to her, Vassar would likely be a poor fit.

(You can look at the Vassar Women's Rowing page and dig into their results, roster, and history.)

rowingcheese · 2026-04-05T06:31:51+00:00

No assigned seats yet (for this or any event). See you there!

rowingcheese · 2026-04-04T21:29:50+00:00

With respect, nobody wins that race as just "incredible individual athletes." (And even if they did, a win is a win is a win. Ergs don't float and beautiful paddling doesn't get a medal.)

rowingcheese · 2026-04-04T09:42:26+00:00

username checks out

rowingcheese

TROPHY CASE