Rowing at the Top Colleges
Rowing is an NCAA sport for women while it is categorized as a varsity sport for men at the highly selective colleges. Rowing for both men and women provide high school rowers with great opportunities for athlete recruitment to the highly selective colleges.
There are currently about 156 NCAA women’s rowing teams and 84 men’s varsity rowing teams at colleges across the country.
Overall, 22 of the 61 highly selective colleges have men’s varsity rowing teams while 33 of the 61 highly selective colleges have NCAA women’s rowing teams, with a total of 2,222 rowers.
Of the 22 highly selective colleges with men’s rowing teams, 14 of them belong in Division 1 with 636 rowers while 8 of them belong in Division 3 with 266 rowers, totaling 902 rowers.
Of the 33 colleges with women’s rowing teams, 24 of them belong in Division 1 with 1,170 rowers and 9 of them belong in Division 3 with 334 rowers, totaling 1,504 rowers together in the 2021/2022 season. Women’s rowers make up 7% of all female athletes.
The average size of an NCAA women’s rowing team is about 46 women rowers, while the men’s varsity teams have an average size of about 41 rowers. These large team sizes afford many athlete recruitment opportunities to high school rowers aspiring to be athlete recruited to one of the highly selective colleges. These team sizes imply that there could be up to 10 athlete recruits annually for each team for a total of potentially up to 550 rowing athlete recruits annually.
The highly selective colleges in Division 1 will always be active in recruiting high performing high school rowers to their NCAA women’s team or men’s varsity teams. These top rowers can expect to be heavily courted within the rules, and to receive a verbal offer of recruitment by early summer immediately after the end of junior year. Rowers destined for the highly selective Division 3 colleges can expect to be ‘soft” recruited through the normal admissions cycle with a strong letter of support from the rowing coach.
However, it is important to remember that college rowing coaches are also keen to bring on athletes to the team who have no prior rowing experience but who display the physical attributes of upper body strength that are critical for a successful rower. These athletes will typically be ‘walk on” athletes to the team.
Based on US Rowing reports, about half of its membership is made up of junior rowers indicating that there are about 40,000 plus junior rowers in the country today ranging in age from 12 to 19 with more rowers skewed towards the older age groups. It looks like while rowing opens up plentiful athlete recruitment opportunities, there are also many more competitors for those positions assuming they meet academic requirements.
Rowing NCAA Rules and Calendar for Athlete Recruitment
How do top colleges in Division 1 select their athlete recruits?
Athlete Recruitment to a Top NCAA Division 3 College
List of Highly Selective Colleges with Rowing Teams
Below is a list of the top colleges with rowing teams for both men and women and the NCAA Division they belong in.
All data is compiled directly from the colleges’ athletic websites
| Rowing at Highly Selective Colleges | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Men's | Women's | ||
| Division | Rowing | Rowing | |
| Barnard College (comb w/ Columbia University) | I | No | Yes |
| Bates College | III | Yes | Yes |
| Boston College | I | No | Yes |
| Boston University | I | Yes | Yes |
| Bowdoin College | III | No | No |
| Brown University | I | Yes | Yes |
| California Institute of Technology | III | No | No |
| Carleton College | III | No | No |
| Carnegie Mellon University | III | No | No |
| Claremont McKenna College (incl Harvey Mudd) | III | No | No |
| Colby College | III | Yes | Yes |
| Colgate University | I | Yes | Yes |
| Columbia University (incl Barnard College) | I | Yes | Yes |
| Cornell University | I | Yes | Yes |
| Dartmouth College | I | Yes | Yes |
| Davidson College | I | No | No |
| Duke University | I | No | Yes |
| Emory University | III | No | No |
| Georgetown University | I | Yes | Yes |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | I | No | No |
| Grinnell College | III | No | No |
| Hamilton College | III | Yes | Yes |
| Harvard University | I | Yes | Yes |
| Harvey Mudd College (comb w/Claremont McKenna) | III | No | No |
| Haverford College | III | No | No |
| John Hopkins University | III | No | No |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | III | Yes | Yes |
| Middleburry College | III | No | No |
| Northeastern University | I | Yes | Yes |
| Northwestern University | I | No | No |
| New York University | III | No | No |
| Pitzer College | III | No | No |
| Pomona College | III | No | No |
| Princeton University | I | Yes | Yes |
| Rice University | I | No | No |
| Stanford University | I | Yes | Yes |
| Swarthmore College | III | No | No |
| Tufts University | III | Yes | Yes |
| Tulane University | I | No | No |
| University of California Berkeley | I | Yes | Yes |
| University of California Los Angeles | I | No | Yes |
| University of Michigan | I | No | Yes |
| University of Chicago | III | No | No |
| University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill | I | No | Yes |
| University of Notre Dame | I | No | Yes |
| University of Pennsylvania | I | Yes | Yes |
| University of Southern California | I | No | Yes |
| University of Virginia | I | No | Yes |
| Vanderbilt University | I | No | No |
| Vassar College | III | Yes | Yes |
| Villanova University | I | No | Yes |
| Washington and Lee University | III | No | No |
| Washington University in St. Louis | III | No | No |
| Wellesley College | III | No | Yes |
| Wesleyan University | III | Yes | Yes |
| Williams College | III | Yes | Yes |
| Yale University | I | Yes | Yes |
| Total Rowers | 902 | 1,504 |
Watch out for the latest on
How to get recruited to the rowing team at a top college?
Rowing team profiles at the top colleges