<p>what do colleges (div 1, 2, and 3 - and differences?) consider in choosing a prospective recruit on their fencing team?</p>
<p>They look at state, regional, and national rankings from tournaments. You might want to read the high school athletic profiles on the college rosters to get an idea of accomplishments of freshman fencers.</p>
<p>I canāt believe I missed this thread a month ago. As the ultimate CC fencing parent, Iād love to help. anxiousfail, are you still out there? I have a lot to add. Ask away, and Iāll try my best to help you.</p>
<p>Good luck</p>
<p>Hi I too have fencing recruit questions. Is there a great resource for info on this?</p>
<p>Ask away. Iāll try to help. A few questions firstā¦</p>
<p>M or F?</p>
<p>Which weapon?</p>
<p>How good are you, as in notable results, USFA rating, and do you have a national junior or senior rank?</p>
<p>How are your grades, test scores, and other ECs?</p>
<p>What schools are you interested in?</p>
<p>The more you tell me, the more I can help. Feel free to PM me if you donāt want to put all your info out for all to see.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Hi there! I have not been on this website for months, and Iāve just resumed my college searching.
What is the difference between div 1, 2, and 3 fencing in regards to college fencing? What Iāve heard is div 1 you have to be ridiculously good, nationally-ranked, and div 3 you donāt have to be as long as you fence you would be welcome to join their fencing team? Could you clarify?
I am a female. I fence foil and epee, but unrated in both. Iāve started fencing in sophomore year, hiatus for months (from september 2009 to jan 2010), then started back last february.
My grades are mediocre, sad to say. My weighted gpa is 3.51. My ACT score, with writing, is a 24. I shall post my SAT scores later.
Tufts, Brandeis, Penn State, Wellesley, NYU are some of the schools that Iām interested in, Tufts being my first choice. I do realize that my scores are mediocre compared to what these schools want to see, although I think I could make Penn State. My fallback schools are CU Boulder and UMass - which do not have NCAA sanctioned fencing teams, and I do want to fence in college. My question is, though, how good do you have to be? Does it depend on the schools? Division?</p>
<p>Iām sure the supreme fencing guide, the aptly named Sherpa, will chime in soon but meanwhile what little info I knowā¦</p>
<p>Whether you will be able to be on the team will depend on the particular school as well as the division. Penn State is one of the top fencing programs in the country and I doubt you will be able to be on the team. NYU is also pretty strong. Others, less so to not at all.</p>
<p>I can tell you that at my sonās D3 school, any student with fencing experience could probably be on the team. They wonāt necessarily travel to the out of town tournaments, but they can certainly be a member. I know of couple of other D3 schools that were taking students straight out of the gym (fencing) class for their team.</p>
<p>You could e-mail the coach and ask them whether they think you might be able to walk on the team in the fall. You may not get an answer but nothing lost, right?</p>
<p>Many of the schools that donāt have a varsity team will have club fencing which can be fine for what you are looking for. Poke around the college website and e-mail the contact person listed. They will be able to give you info and usually, they are looking for people to join the club and are very friendly. At one school, we got a personal tour from the club president when we first visited and my son stayed overnight with one of the club members when he went for accepted student weekend.</p>
<p>Fencing is one of those sports where all three divisions compete against one another. In the list of schools you mention, Penn State, as mentioned before is a top program. The others would be super reaches academically for you, and they really wonāt go so far below their academic profile for fencing.</p>
<p>Hi anxiousfail,</p>
<p>I applaud your desire to fence in college. Fencing in college can give you an instant group of friends, and it helps keep you healthy and sane.</p>
<p>There are only about 40 colleges with NCAA fencing, most of which are highly selective, and there are also a fair number of schools with club fencing. Club fencing at any given college will come and go depending on the level of interest of the students there and funding is always an issue. Iād recommend trying to attend a school with an NCAA team.</p>
<p>Iād advise you not to worry about Division 1, 2, and 3 designations. There are Div 1 teams where you would fit in fine and Div 3 teams where the fencing would probably be over your head. In some geographical areas it is common for Div 1 and Div 3 teams to compete against each other.</p>
<p>The goal for any aspiring collegiate fencer should be to identify schools that are both academic and athletic fits. I think I can help you here. Recently I put together a spreadsheet with all of the colleges with NCAA fencing, and ranked the colleges by selectivity using test score data, acceptance rates, and % of students in the top 10% of their HS class. Some of the schools are too selective for an applicant with a 3.5 weighted GPA and a 24 ACT, and some of the fencing teams will be too strong for an unrated, unranked fencer to fit in.</p>
<p>Here is a list of colleges with fencing that you might want to check into. Any of these is probably within your realistic academic acceptance range, but in some cases possibly only with a little help from the coach. </p>
<p>Division 1:
Ohio State, youād need to get in on your own, team is extremely strong, probably too strong for your comfort.
Penn State, same thing as Ohio State
St. Johnās, pretty easy to get in, very strong team
NJ Institute of Technology, I know nothing
University of Detroit Mercy, I know nothing
Temple, womenās team only
Sacred Heart
Farleigh Dickinson</p>
<p>Division 2:
Queens College</p>
<p>Division 3:
NYU, a bit reachy for you, coach might help but Iād be surprised
Stevens Institute of Technology, they have some strong names on roster as well as some unrated fencers.
Hunter College
Drew</p>
<p>I donāt know much about any of these colleges, but Iām sure there are several on this list where you would be happy. </p>
<p>You might want to start by doing a little research on each of these schools and their fencing programs, filling out the athlete questionnaires on their websites, and maybe calling a few of the coaches to see what they have to say. If you canāt find a link to the fencing team on a collegeās website, google the school name and āfencingā to find the athletic website. For example, āTemple fencingā took me to the Temple athletic site, from which I easily found the fencing section. On that note, Iād definitely recommend calling or emailing Brad Baker, the assistant coach at Temple. He is a super nice guy, is well known and well liked in the fencing community, and would probably be happy to help you.</p>
<p>I hope this helps. Feel free to ask more questions here or by PM, but Iād prefer here, so any other potential collegiate fencers can learn from your experience.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>sherpa, could you shed some more light on tufts, brandeis, wellesley, vassar, hunter college, temple, and BUās fencing club? I am aware that these are all DIII schools (except temple and BU), do any of their coaches have any pull or could help me in any way? how fantastic does a fencer have to be to fence for these schools? My current gpa is now 3.57, and when superscored currently 26, and I just took another ACT this recent saturday, which I think I did better on, especially my math section and writing (this is my second with writing). Oh boy.</p>
<p>Also, would it be advisable to fill out the recruit questionnaires even when Iām not rated?</p>
<p>anxiousfail,</p>
<p>I am not very familiar with the fencing programs at the schools you listed, although I have a friend on the BU club. He says that it is lots of fun, and they do alright at tournaments. He is a E, so iām sure you can probably walk onto the team.</p>
<p>At the Div III schools, I think your best bet would be to work on your grades/tests and get in that way. You might be able to make it as a walk on, but it is unlikely that a coach would back a fencer (with the varying influence they haveā¦especially in DIII) who hasnāt yet proven herself. However, I encourage you to contact the coaches of the schools you are interested in. Fill out the questionnaires if you want to. It is an easy way to relay all of your tangibles to the coach. I would definitely email the coaches also. Call them if you are really interested in the school. You never know; they might give you a little boost in admissions, however minuscule, that could put you over the top. Youāll probably be able to get some more info on how you could be a walk-on if you want to go that rout.</p>
<p>Sorry for the delay in responding - I havenāt been on CC much the past few days.</p>
<p>
I donāt know much about any of those programs, but based on their acceptance rates and the scores of their admitted applicants, Iād think that Tufts, Brandeis, Vassar, and Wellesley are going to be pretty reachy for you, and I doubt any of their coaches would offer much help to a āUā. Hunter and Temple seem more in line with your stats.
Iāve found that those questionnaires are often ignored by the coaches. I think it might be better to phone the coaches at your target schools and try to engage them in a conversation about their program and how you might fit in and if they might help you with admissions.</p>
<p>Another thing you could do to get a feel for the skill levels of the different teams is to look at their rosters and then try to get a little insight into their fencersā USFA ratings and past results.</p>
<p>The rosters are on their websites, and it is fairly easy to find ratings and past results at [FRED:</a> Fencing Tournament Info :: Home](<a href=āhttp://askfred.net/]FRED:ā>http://askfred.net/) Just scroll over the pull down menu under āResultsā and click on āResults Searchā. Then you can type in the fencers names from the college rosters and, in most cases, you will find links to their past results and their USFA ratings as of the date of any given tournament. ASKFRED is very widely used and pretty comprehensive, so it should give you a pretty good glimpse into the strength of any college team.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>sherpa- Hi Iām new here and wanted to ask a question about college recruiting, if you donāt mindā¦ I am a junior in high school and am not a strong fencer but I love itā¦ I get discouraged because I lose a lot but I still attend the nacs and nationals, and local tournaments with my parentsā¦ I am contemplating going to more local ones instead of more nacsā¦ but, do I need the points if I am planning to use fencing as a hook along with my grades and scores, etc? or, should I not go if I am going to continue to perform poorly?? poorly, as in bottom 20%ā¦ thank you very much</p>
<p>mongolia, I can give you some advice, if you are willing to get some from somebody who isnt Sherpa (although I could never be as omnipotent). Have you been going to more national tournaments that local ones? I would recommend going to as many local tournaments as you can for a while. Once you start doing well in those, (as in top 4 if they have around 20 people) you can probably start going to the Div II and III NACS. If you still qualify for Cadet I would recommend trying to go to one of the remaining NACs or JOs, since this will most likely be your last year in that event. </p>
<p>Points definitely help for being recruited, although you could probably easily be recruited to a weaker fencing school with a top four finish at a Div II national event.</p>
<p>Most importantly, work on your school grades and test scores. Those can help immensely with opening up your options.</p>
<p>@kungpao - I saw a few days ago that you received your LL. Congratulations.</p>
<p>@Mongolia - welcome to CC, and good luck with your college search process and with your fencing. Kungpaoās observations are accurate. I agree; compete locally all you can, and go to a few NACs and SN for the experience as well as the opportunity to get to meet some of the collegiate fencers and coaches. Try to qualify for Junior Olympics; theyāre a lot of fun and āeverybodyā is there. Also, NAC āEā might be good for you. I think itās in Dallas this year, in March. With both D2 and D3 at the same NAC youād get a lot of skill appropriate fencing in one trip.</p>
<p>As for fencing in college, Iād group the schools in some rough categories. There are the top academic schools with strong fencing: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford; the strong fencing schools with weaker academics: Penn St., Ohio St.; very strong academic schools with weaker fencing: Cornell (womenā fencing only) Brown, Vassar, Haverford. There is a lot of overlap within these rough groupings, and a few schools that are harder for me to categorize under these terms, like Duke, Northwestern, and Notre Dame.</p>
<p>Bottom line, though, you donāt need to be on the national points list to get coachās support at some of these schools. The key is to identify the right schools that match your academic and athletic abilities and take it from there. If you give me an idea of your academic credentials and other things youāre looking for in a school Iāll be happy to try to help you.</p>
<p>with an AI of 190, could a top fencing athlete be of interest to an ivy league school or stanford?</p>
<p>Iāve heard that Ivies have a minimum of 203 or thereabouts for āsecondaryā sports.</p>
<p>Playing around with the AI calculator [Academic</a> Index3 - College Confidential](<a href=āhttp://www.collegeconfidential.com/index.php?option=com_academicindex&Itemid=282&view=academicindex]Academicā>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/index.php?option=com_academicindex&Itemid=282&view=academicindex) shows that 700s across the board and a barely top 10% rank yields a 203, so that sounds about right.</p>
<p>I believe the average AI for the recruits of a sport have to be within one standard deviation of the mean AI for the entering freshman class, or something to that sort.</p>
<p>With this in mind, it is theoretically possible for a coach to recruit an athlete with an abnormally low AI so long as the mean AI for all of his/her recruits remains within one standard deviation of the overall mean. </p>
<p>This is only my speculation, although it seams that others agree: [Calculating</a> the Ivy League Academic Index](<a href=āhttp://home.comcast.net/~charles517/ivyai.html]Calculatingā>http://home.comcast.net/~charles517/ivyai.html)</p>
<p>I just came across this forum and I have some questions.
- I fence epee (B11), no national points, have around a 4.2 weighted gpa, 2370 SAT (770 math, 800 reading, 800 writing). I tried using that AI calculator, and it looks like Iād have somewhere around a 225. Iāve always wanted to fence for Harvard, how good do you think my chances are?
- How should I go about contacting coaches? Iāll be sending in applications in the fall and I just wanted to let a few of the coaches at the schools Iām applying to know, but I have no idea how I should approach them.</p>