This guide provides current benchmarks by program tier, explains how coaches actually use erg scores in their evaluations, and addresses the questions families ask most often — including the ones that the number-obsessed corners of the internet tend to get wrong.

Having recruited for an Ivy League lightweight program and worked with hundreds of families through the recruiting process over the past fifteen years, the pattern is consistent: the athletes who navigate recruiting most successfully are not the ones with the fastest erg scores. They are the ones who demonstrate the depth, self-awareness, and communicative maturity that come from engaging seriously with the sport — not just optimizing a single number.

This article explains what the 2K tests, how improvement actually works, and gives you a specific practice tool you can use this week. No hype, no promises, no product to sell you—just honest information about what works.

This article explains how rowing recruiting actually works. Not the abbreviated version. Not the version designed to sell you something. The version based on two decades of direct experience in the process at the highest levels of collegiate rowing.