<p>Haverford might be perfect for him. Their coach is very accessible. Good luck.</p>
<p>I have a couple of questions about recruiting. My D has been fencing for a couple of years. She is a C rated fencer. She has competed at JO’s and Nationals. She is currently a senior. She has been approached by a couple of college coaches. There is one school that she really wants to go to but they don’t only have one opening for her weapon. The coach likes her but is not sure yet. When do coaches normally make their decisions and is it appropriate to ask where they stand at this point.</p>
<p>The coaches are making decisions now. And yes, it’s appropriate for her to ask where she stands.</p>
<p>Good luck to your D.</p>
<p>That score NYU very doable. Haverford needs high SAT, my friends son had perfect 2400 and 3.9 GPA and didn’t get in Haverford. They say it is extremely selective, harder than many Ivy’s, although I don’t know about how much athletics helps.</p>
<p>@sandinmytoes, was your friend’s son a fencer? I know many with much lower stats who got into Haverford on fencing.</p>
<p>No, he was not an athlete at all. I guess you are right though, I just heard of a fencer getting the ok for Princeton next year with a 2050 SAT and one the early ok for Penn with a 1900. Seems kind of unfair to the smarter kids, but I guess that is how it works. I wonder how these kids do academically, when they are with kids academically better suited than they are, while having to keep up an athletes rigourous schedule. I am sure they have a hard time keeping there GPA at 3.9, which is what is needed for the prestigous grad schools. And it is where you graduate from grad school that counts, unless it is medical school. I have been there. And athletics do not help for grad school at all.</p>
<p>Maybe I missed something here, Sand; he’s not an athlete/fencer, but he’s a good student. So if I’m correct in my assumption he has one stone in hand and the athlete fencer has two. This seems to be the new trend in admissions, loading up on AP courses and activities is a pointless exercise if you aren’t good at anything and just having grades and scores means nothing when everyone has that as prerequisite. It’s not a simple and straight forward as we’d like to think. My D was recruited by a wide range of schools from Ivies to State Publics to Privates(single sex liberal arts) and the bottom line was always can she get into school and stay and then can she fence-----the fencing was easy, realistically we thought an Ivy was a stretch, but at the end of the day it was about fit for her not me.</p>
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<p>As an aside, Haverford is just not that hard to get into. Something else was wrong with that kid’s app if he did not get in with those stats. Maybe he tipped his hand in an interview or essay that it was not his top choice school or something. Possible he had not visited or shown any interest, that can also be an issue for a high stats kid at a school like Haverford.</p>
<p>I know what you mean. I’m not saying the person is lying and I’m not on the admissions to any school, but getting rejected with perfect SATs with a 3.9 GPA (unweighted?) seems kinda kooky.</p>
<p>I don’t think they were lying, her son is going to Brown, and that couldn’t have been easy to get into either. I just remember Haverford was his first choice, and he was so upset he did not get in. Unsure about the GPA weighting.</p>
<p>Hello! I read with great interests all your posts and especially Sherpa’s recommendations. Initially, I started a separate thread, but I recieved a usefull advice, to re-post it on Sherpa’s thread and this is what I do now:
I am the mother of a 15 year old girl, practicing saber. As a 6 year old child she started with epee then moved to foil and for two years now she is training in saber. As a foilist, she had promissing results in the national championships, ranking second with the team and third in the individual competition. So far, in saber, no great results yet, but she has been selected to train with Mihai Covaliu and Alexandru Chiculita (Covaliu’s former trainer), so we are really looking forward to some notable performance in the next 1 - 2 years. For 3 years now she trains at least once a day.
Now, concerning the school - she entered this year in highscholl, mathemtatics and informatics stream. She studies at a German school and her general grade for the last 4 school years is 9,51 out of 10, while her adimission grade was 8,86 out of 10. In brief - she is a good student, with consistent high grades.
Hoping that in the next years she will deliver the expected sport performance and that her school results will remain solid, we would like to know / understand if there is a realistic chance for her to study in one of US universities based on a sport scholarship.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but this is what I understood, we (parents + child) have to do to:
- to prioritize the universities we are targeting and find out whom they have as fencing coaches
to prepare a “CV” of the child with both sport and school results as well as an introductory letter and fill in the on line questionnaires each University has - to initiate a correspondence with the coaches with the aim to raise their potential interest in this child
Can you also please advice if this is the right time to start such a process or is it too soon? As well do you know an international student with relevant sport performance (not necessarily in fencing) who succedeed in his application process? Any words on the best / open minded coaches to approach?
Sorry for this long message - it is just the introductory one. Thank you in advance for your answers. And thank you Sherpa for your encouraging words.</p>
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Probably too soon. Once she has strong national results in her new weapon, then the contact would be better received.
I think I can get you a contact, possibly from your country. I’ll let you know soon.</p>
<p>Dear Sherpa, once again thank you for helpful guidance.</p>
<p>Hi Sherpa, thanks for the commentary in this forum. I’ve learned quite a bit about fencing recruitment from you. As my screen name indicates, I’m a Penn alum who fenced on the varsity team many moons ago. My son is a solid epee fencer (B2014), but without the results that draw the attention of coaches. So we’ve been taking the initiative to talk to a number of coaches at schools which interest my son. Of course, Penn is on his list. Yesterday we heard from Penn’s coaching staff that they will not provide “full support” for my son’s application, which is not a surprise to us considering that Penn can draw top rated fencers. However, the coaching staff did say that they would provide a recommendation should my son be wait listed. He is a legacy with great grades, scores, and is in the top 2% of his high school class so we expect that he’d be at least competitive for admission if he applies early decision. There are no guarantees of course (he wouldn’t be the first, nor the last, legacy with his credentials rejected by Penn). </p>
<p>Have you heard of coaches offering a “recommendation” (which is something less than “full support”) for kids wait listed and any information on how Penn in particular may treat that recommendation? With luck, he’ll be admitted early and not face the issue.</p>
<p>I don’t have any particular insight into the situation you describe, but I’ll try to think it through with you. It sounds like the coach would like to help you son but is unwilling to “spend” one of his limited slots on him. He’s probably been through this exact situation before and knows how to play it with the AO.</p>
<p>From my kids’ friends experiences, it seems that well qualified legacies have good results with Penn ED. You’re right; that’s no guarantee he’ll be accepted, but an outright rejection seems the least likely outcome. At that point, hopefully a letter from the coach would tip the scales.</p>
<p>Sherpa, thanks for the thoughts. I think for the schools with varsity fencing which have his interest, my son is in the “nice-to-have” category rather than a “must-have.” Since Ivy coaches have so few slots with Admissions (one coach told us he has 2 slots, which I assume are divided between the men’s and women’s teams), the coaches use up their slots with the “must-haves.” Part of the coach’s calculation may be that some “nice-to-haves,” like my son, could potentially get in on their own. Penn’s coaching staff are aware of my son’s academic qualifications. We were also told that Penn carries a 7-man roster for each weapon so my son may have a good shot as a walk-on – the strength of many squads drop appreciably after the starting 3 + 1 sub. </p>
<p>I guess my concern, more cynically, is whether the offer of a recommendation if my son is wait listed is just an effort to mollify a fencing alum, with little weight with Admissions. </p>
<p>Thanks again, especially for the observation that well qualified legacies do well in ED at Penn. I hope that will be true in my son’s case. </p>
<p>Best. </p>
<p>I agree with your analysis, except that you understate his chances of making the team as a walk-on. If he is accepted, I believe he WILL make the team. I base that belief on what my kids have told me about walk-ons at Princeton and Duke, which should be very similar to Penn in this regard. You’re right, the coaches use up their slots on their “must-haves”, but that isn’t enough to field a full team. They NEED a few “nice-to-have” walk-ons. </p>
<p>If the kid is a “nice-to-have” with excellent academic credentials is there much downside to leaving fencing out of the equation (e.g. treat it as a HS activity but don’t approach it from a recruitment perspective)? Or will admissions officers run these applications by the fencing coaches regardless, so you might as well make contact in advance? I guess what I’m hoping to do is (a) simplify/streamline the college admissions process for us (b) not have fencing structure the decisionmaking process and © avoid a situation where the kid feels obligated to fence in college.</p>
<p>I suspect that the bottom line is that if a kid isn’t a recruit, then fencing is just another extracurricular as far as an admission office is concerned. That’s why I was unsure of the significance for admission of a coach’s offer of a recommendation should my son be waitlisted. In my son’s case, fencing is important enough to him that’s he’s applying to schools with varsity teams which will have a place for him even as a walk-on, or if no varsity team, there’s a good fencing club in the area where he can continue to train and compete in the USFA.</p>
<p>A walk on at UPenn,it’s happened, but Andy has a type and a strong preference for select clubs that pipeline into UPenn</p>