I’m a sophomore and Harvard is my top choice. I have played tennis competitively my whole life, but so have many others. I also fence for fun but have never pursued it competitively. Would it be worth my time to train and compete in fencing? Would this be helpful on my application? How difficult is it to be recruited for the Harvard women’s fencing team? Thanks for any input.
You’re going about this backwards.
I would contact @Sherpa as they are the fencing expert on College Confidential. In the meantime, please look through this thread to find out what contests you would need to qualify to be considered a competitive fencer for Harvard: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/930200-college-fencing-recruiting-p1.html
Based on the below post from the above fencing thread, it does NOT seem you currently could be a recruited fencing athlete at Harvard, although you could certainly try for a walk-on position once admitted.
Thank you for the advice! I have done as much Google research on this as possible, but there is not as much information about fencing recruitment as there is for other, more popular, sports. These links you have provided to other threads is giving me a better sense of all this. Thanks again! @gibby
Harvard has very few recruitment slots for fencers - here is one kid I know who was recruited by Harvard this year:
http://cobbcast.cobbk12.org/?p=9905
His practice is every week day from 5:00 pm until 9:00 pm, year round. On Saturdays (when not traveling to tournaments) from 9:00 am til noon.
Cost to train and compete at this level nationally is about $20k/year and internationally about $30k/year. The kids are starting younger and younger. Starting at 8 yrs old is typical.
Here is the Harvard women’s roster: http://www.gocrimson.com/sports/wfencing/2015-16/roster
You can click each team member and see her precollege accomplishments.
Best of luck.
Relative novice to recruitable in two years? I won’t say impossible; I’ll say extremely unlikely bordering on the absurd.
i know a fair number of fencers that have been recruited by Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford (Yale barely recruits). Aside from being excellent students, a few things they’ve all shared in common has been 1) dedication to fencing for at least 6-8 years, 2) they’ve all received the highest level private coaching, 3) earned multiple medals at national events, 4) held a high national ranking and 5) had USFA “A” ratings.
As a point of reference, the fastest I’ve seen a fencer go from unrated to “A” was four years, which I’ve seen twice, but both were very special situations, with remarkable athletes and coaches coming together wonderfully.
Many aspire to be recruited by these schools; very few achieve the goal.
Would it be worth your time to train and compete in fencing? In my opinion, yes, but not for the purpose of college admissions.
Good luck!