Colleges with Climbing Teams

 

When Brendan started looking at colleges, we knew one of his criteria was that the college has a high-performing Climbing Team. But how do you know what schools have them? Climbing is not a NCAA-sanctioned sport. So that means there won't be any scholarships (for the most part) for climbing athletes. The school also needed to be a WUE school (Western Undergraduate Exchange). Click HERE if you live in a West Coast State and want to save on out-of-state Tuition if your student wants to leave their state for school.

Well, my first thought was to call the people who would know: USA Climbing. I was glad I did. They sent me a list of Colleges that are USA Collegiate Climbing circuit members. (More on that in a later post). This way we could cross-reference the climbing teams with WUE and German majors.

At Colorado State University, the climbing team is considered a sports club. It is entirely run by the students and each athlete has to pay yearly dues. This year it was around $285. That includes the uniforms and travel to the comps as I understand it. There are fall and spring tryouts open to all.

Most Collegiate Climbing Teams do not practice on campus and must travel to a local gym. Just be ready to have a solution for your climber. Most Freshmen do not have a car on campus so that means either pubic transportation, car pooling, or  ride shares. Brendan sometimes gets rides with team members but because he goes so much earlier to train, he often grabs a Lyft. For anyone who flys Alaska, if you hook up your Lyft account with your Alaska mileage plan, you get miles every time you ride! So make sure you sure your climber has that hooked up!

I am sure this list will change but click HERE for the list I received from USA Climbing on which colleges have Climbing teams. It will be a good starting point but you could also contact USA Climbing for a current list when you are ready to College shop.

If you are able, try to keep tabs on the climbing teams your climber is eyeing. What I mean is, go on to Instagram and see if you can find the team's page. Sometimes they will post a roster of climbers. Then, go to USA Climbing's site, go to Compete, and then Collegiate. Look up the division of the team you are interested in and check out how they are doing at competitions. This will give you an idea of the level of the team. Your climber may have some revelations later on after arriving and starting school, but at least this way you will get an idea of how serious each prosective team is.

Good luck! And CLIMB ON!