Dutch Small Boat Challenge

• You will be placed on the applicant list for this program when you register by submitting the $895 deposit and your initial information/application.
  
  
• If you are not accepted, we will work to find you a slot elsewhere or provide a full refund.
  
  
• If you complete the admissions process (see above) and are accepted for a slot in this program, we will send you an acceptance letter. If you are accepted:
  • Full payment is due by March 1
  • $395 of the $895 deposit is refundable until March 1
  • We strongly recommend purchasing travel insurance with cancel for any reason coverage within 21 days of receiving your acceptance letter to protect your camp purchase and any applicable travel after March 1.
    • Sparks offers travel protection plans from TravelSafe. Learn more about travel protection here
      • You can cover the deposit initially then add the full cost of the program and flight later.
      • The policy will also cover 75% of the $500 non-refundable part of the deposit in the case you withdraw prior to March 1.
        
• If you do not complete the written application and schedule your interview within 30 days of deposit, $395 of $895 remains refundable until March 1.
  

• If you withdraw after March 1, there are no refunds for any reason whatsoever (including, but not limited to: voluntary withdraw, illness or injury, summer school, security concerns or other reasons).
  
  
• If your camper leaves camp after it starts, there are no refunds for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to: voluntary withdrawal, illness or injury, dismissal by Sparks (due to discipline, behavior, lack of fitness or motivation, etc.) security concerns, or any other reason. Any costs incurred by Sparks as a result of an early departure are the sole responsibility of the parents.

In the unlikely case a camp does not proceed, we’ll work to notify you by March 1. You’ll be offered a different program or refund. We recommend buying your flight after March 1.

We offer discounted prices for "early bird" registrations prior to January 31.

Regarding Scholarships:

Please see this link to our NCAA Compliance webpage.

Average age is 16 with 1.5 years in the sport. That said, "experience" of 1.5 years can vary significantly depending on team and region. We evaluate each athlete on a case by case basis in the admissions process.

It is helpful sometimes to consider what can be accomplished at camp in the timespan to decide whether one's level of experience is a fit for the program. Holland is an intermediate camp that fits between our shorter, much larger introductory collegiate camps at places like Penn and our longer leadership level programming in New Zealand.

The two week length enables realization of technical and educational benefits prior to departing camp. That said: our objective is to enable the athletic self-awareness necessary for camp athletes to coach themselves over the long run - long after camp ends. As such: if learning and technical improvements are your goal set (combined with getting some international racing in!), then Holland may be a good fit for you.

Our admissions process is the most thoughtful in the sport and we evaluate each athlete on a case by case basis.

This program is selective based on the need for safety during small boat workouts and to create competitive boatings for racing.

While we look 2K and rowing experience, we are also very interested in your motivation and passion for rowing. At our camps, the drive to improve leads to increased maturity and thoughtfulness - which leads to performance.

We also consider your ability to live, train, and support others in a community committed to utilizing challenge for personal growth. Sparks camps are unlike traditional training camps in that progress in self-awareness per your relationship with performance is as important as acute technical progress. Ideal candidates will complete the program with gains in both self-awareness and corresponding ability to improve long after camp ends.

We welcome your questions either via phone or in the chat box in the right hand corner.

We are the only camp in rowing with a full-time staff that has academic and professional backgrounds in experiential education. We also have a summer operations staff (many are returners that teach during the school year) who buy into the idea of personal growth at camp not just for campers - but for themselves as well.

The result is a culture sincerely committed to the power of rowing as a personally transformative experience built on vulnerability, thoughtfulness, responsibility, and initiative. These qualities along with our values of growth, kaizen, and plus one stroke dictate the culture our camp community forms around. Our focus is on utilizing rowing to create the self-awareness necessary to master one's relationship with performance.

Holland offers the opportunity to race in an incredibly competitive field: European junior small boats. But more importantly, it offers students of the sport the ability to educate themselves (and get ahead) in what is arguably a more advanced athlete development system than the US. Finally, given the group size and cultural activities - we expect students to find more than rowing performance on this trip. We also hope for them to find friendship, support for their journey, and joy.

Sparks multi-week cohorts are typically between 12 and 18 athletes. Coaching and operations staff ratios are set at 1:6, making overall staff to student ratio 1:3 - however, sometimes it is even lower.

Of chief importance to us is the quality of our cohorts - which we believe is a product of admissions, staffing, and group size to facilitate activities (eg. sweep boat rowing v. singles) as well as friendships that last long after camp ends.

We seek the highest international-quality level in coaching staff and our senior operations staff is made up of former rowers turned educators with a number of years of prior experience in our camp system; many hold graduate degrees in education.

The cohort (12 rowers maximum) in the Dutch Racing Challenge combines with our Holland Coxing Leadership Program. Total group size maxes at 18, with three coaches and four operations staffers - maintaining a a lower than 1:3 staff to camper ratio.

Holland and the racing the Dutch Junior Champs in small boats are amazing experiences that can lend perspective, rowing IQ, and racing IQ. The program is a beautiful way to gain unique perspective on the global junior talent "market" - and Holland sends recruits to US D1 programs every year.

Regardless, many recruiters will say "A for effort, but what did you learn?"

Training and racing overseas will speak to some recruiters more than others, but all recruiters care about engagement with the sport more than the particulars of your summer program choice or race results. Given recruiting is a globally competitive "talent marketplace", getting some international perspective will help you - but in the end no one race or camp is going to provide the competitive rowing intellect necessary to succeed at the recruiting process. You are a composite of your experiences - so best to make them unique and highly educational.

The general age of program participants typically puts them more than a year out on college recruiting, but we have had a number of alumni who have gone on to row in college.  

Campers lodge in far south Amsterdam at the IBIS budget hotel and are combined with our top tier coxing program to form a total group size of 12. We ride bikes throughout the city, which is the defacto Dutch mode of transportation (campers go through "bike safety school" at the start of the program)

At Sparks camps, we have two staffs: a coaching staff and an operations staff. Our operations staff is responsible for the experiential education and pastoral care at camp. We seek to maintain industry-leading 1:3 staff to student ratios at this program.

The staff lives amongst the athletes, and has oversight 24 hours a day. Unhealthy substances and/or behaviors are strictly prohibited.

We employ safety and risk management practices from the adventure education industry, where some risk is inherent but must be quantified insofar as educational value. These practices are initially employed in program design and we work hard to train operations staff to seek to maintain an awareness of specific risks at all times. No outdoors programming can guarantee safety, however professional management of risk is key to the art of providing consistently excellent experiential education programming.

Please also see our essential eligibility criteria here.  

We seek to help families connect who would like their students to travel together, but there are a lot of ways to fly direct to Amsterdam's Schipol (AMS). We provide a direct flight from a major US hub for campers interested in traveling together.

The journey itself is part of the experience. Our Program Director (already on the ground in Holland as students depart) tracks student travel into Amsterdam, where they are picked up from the airport.

You will fill out a travel form after registration that enables our staff to make sure your camper arrives and departs camp safely.

If your camper needs to depart the day after camp ends, we will place a staff member at the CitizenM Schipol Airport that night; you can register for this option when you provide travel details. Staff cannot be responsible for campers as the camp will have ended, but they will be able to help your camper get checked into the hotel and answer questions.

If you have questions, we're happy to answer them in the box in the lower right side, or you can schedule a call with us.

Certainly - we completely understand your need to connect about this commitment!

We just ask you schedule a call with us (click here) given we're a very small office.

Camp forms are issued at least six weeks prior to camp on our site via your dashboard.