@superdomestique wow, thanks again for the incredibly comprehensive post! My lack of results is due to limited participation, but I’m trying to ramp that up this year.
I’ll talk to my coach and try to get more results soon. I’ll definitely look into some of those “viable” candidates. Thanks!
Anaman - all the advice you’re receiving here is useful and valid - up to a point. As you might have gathered, there is enormous variability, and chance, involved in securing a recruited athlete spot as a fencer at Div I, academically-elite programs.
In any given year there are 7-10 positions per weapon for men at the 6 Ivies plus Stanford and Duke.
Maybe 3-5 of these are not among the top 15 points-rated fencers in your HS graduating class, in other words, probably half the spots are available for kids who are superb students and ok-to-superior fencers.
So it’s not impossible, but the odds aren’t high. Best to focus on your academics the next three exodus
I’m intrigued by this observation. Here’s my initial take on it, with the disclaimer that my observations are a couple years out of date:
More accomplished fencer, lesser academics: Duke more likely than Ivies.
Good fencer, good academics: Neraly impossible at Ivies, same for Duke.
Solid fencer, great academics: Crapshoot at Ivies, reasonable chance at Duke.
In the end, I’m inclined to defer to superdomestique, whose experiences are more recent.
Hi Sherpa, et al.
My daughter is currently a Sophomore in a rigorous well known private school which ranks nationally in the top 5%. Because she is training 5 nights a week at her fencing club, she felt that she wasn’t able to take any honors classes. However, she has been getting good grades over all.
She is in her last year as Cadet and continues to do well in terms of her cadet ranking, now rated A and stands within the top 10, both rolling and team points, hoping to make the US National Team this year for the World Championship. She has medaled at the SN cadet as well as European Cadet event. She hasn’t yet focused much on Junior points, she is on the list but not high on the list yet. We’re hoping to improve that as well by trying to do well on junior and senior events during the second half of her Sophomore year. The way things are going, if she continues to progress along at her current status, by the middle of her junior year, we’re hoping that she will be at least in the top 20 of junior (especially after the age phase out) and somewhere on the senior list.
Her ultimate goal is being recruited at a Div 1 elite school, preferably the HYP/C.
The question we have is how important are taking rigorous courses in high school, especially if attending a private school that is known to be very hard grader. Do the coaches take into consideration the type (private vs public) school, when evaluating the academic index? As mentioned, she is a Sophomore now, but in her junior year, she will plan to take one AP course and an honor class. However since she will plan to compete in several international Junior World cups and all Senior and Junior NACs, increasing her school work load may not be a good idea for her.
Also is it true that we can email coaches in the beginning of his junior year?
Perhaps Sherpa will differ, but I think you’re making a bad call here. Academics come first for HYP/C.
That is, the odds of getting into HYP/C are better for
A) an academically outstanding student who’s an OK-to-very good fencer
than for
B) an outstanding fencer who’s a good but not outstanding student.
Re your daughter’s course selection, most elite school admissions officers urge applicants to take the most rigorous course load offered by their school - regardless of the school. I have never heard, let alone seen real evidence indicating, that elite schools’ AI calculations are adjusted for private school applicants.
Re AI, keep in mind that the schools you’re targeting need the non-revenue sports’ recruited athletes to compensate for the (up to 30 for each school) recruited football and basketball players’ subpar AI. That’s a lot of ground to make up. It means that a recruited fencer’s academics will need to be significantly, ie probably almost a standard deviation, above the college average.
The path you’re outlining will get your daughter into an outstanding fencing program - think: UND, PSU, OSU - but it is unlikely to improve her odds for HYP/C.
@fencerdad - It appears your daughter is on a good path to be on the coaches’ radar at the schools you mention; I have no doubt that making the national cadet team will carry a lot of weight. Ultimately, which coaches are willing to support her will depend on their needs that year, the academic qualifications of her fencing peers that year, etc. Assuming they want her, the first thing they’ll want to know is if the admissions department will accept her. According to the coach at one of your daughter’s target schools, the general expectation is that recruits will have 700+ on all SAT sections and Subject tests, and a 3.8 or better with a rigorous course load. He specifically told me that recruits were expected to have taken numerous AP’s if available at their HS.
You are free to email or call coaches any time you like.
As to @thibault’s theory, I slightly disagree. HYP/C coaches have a limited number of recruiting slots and won’t waste any on OK to good fencers. They’re looking for excellent athletes who are also excellent students and manage to find quite a few every year.
In my opinion, @thibault nailed it.
A few things to add:
Our club coach wanted our son to try some WC events, if for nothing else for a different/exciting experience. As we do not live on the east coast, an overseas trip would have been an enormous time commitment (grade killer).
In our initial correspondence with the Ivy coaches, the only question they responded to was whether WC participation would help our candidacy for admission. Every coach who responded was emphatic that if time off from school will negatively affect his grades, he should NOT go. The implication was that his domestic accomplishments were good enough.
While Ivy coaches can identify top fencing prospects, it is Admissions that has the ultimate say.
It is true that the AI calculation is flawed as it does not factor in the quality of the school (public or private), nor the academic rigor of the student’s program. However, if the OP’s school is indeed well-known, the admissions officers at HYP will undoubtedly know how rigorous his daughter’s academic program is (or isn’t) in the context of her school.
Based on our experience, at the academically elite schools (especially HYP), taking the most challenging academic program your HS has to offer is expected. Always.
It is worth noting that after receiving the LL from his first choice Ivy in October of his senior year, my son questioned whether he should have gone to such a competitive private high school and pushed himself so hard academically when it was the fencing hook that made the difference in admissions. However after his first three months in college (and on the fencing team), he now knows it was the academic rigor of his HS experience really prepared him for college and gave him the ability to balance a high-level athletic and academic student life.
Make no mistake, fencing at a D1 level with an Ivy academic load is very challenging and Admissions wants to see evidence you can handle it.
With the OP’s daughter’s fencing results to date, it is likely that all the college coaches already know who she is.
However, without any academic benchmarks, which only really become available during the junior year, it is difficult for any coach to know if she is recruitable at an Ivy.
It is worth noting the universe of top HS fencers with admitable academics is very small. Most Ivys end up competing for the same small pool of recruitable fencers each year. HYP (and S) tend to get the fencers who are best students.
As I have said many times on this thread, until an Ivy coach is confident they can get you thru the academic preread with admissions, all the coach contact in the world is not going to help. With the fencing accomplishments the OP has offered in his original post, his daughter already has an impressive fencing resume. However, without similarly stellar academic accomplishments, I would add Temple to the list of fencing programs @thibault provided.
My comments are not meant to be discouraging (and there are always exceptions), but in my opinion the OP is taking a higher risk/lower probability strategy towards HYP/C than most of the fencers who have been successfully admitted.
Nevertheless, there is still plenty of time to put together a strong academic record with a rigorous program.
@fencerdad, please let us know what happens.
In general terms, for the students who want to get the formal recruiting process started early, they should prepare for and take the SAT/ACT in the fall of junior year. If they get a good score, making contact with coaches as early as November has some advantages. With early evidence of academic viability, you have a legitimate reason to contact a college coach.
While there are no restrictions on a student (of any age) contacting a college program, there are restrictions on how and when a college coach can contact a student. In my opinion, email contact during the junior year is most appropriate and should include updates of test scores, academic and fencing accomplishments, as well as any questions about a specific school’s program. While these emails are seldom acknowledged in real time, our experience indicates that most coaches kept a file of all our correspondences and were prepared when we eventually met them after SN before senior year.
Thank you very much to @thibault @superdomestique @sherpa for all your insightful reply and advice. At the stage that my daughter is in, I guess we have some serious decisions and planning to do regarding academics and fencing. Her high school stands as the top 2 nationally amongst private schools, and approximately 30 to 40% of the senior class are admitted to an Ivy school each year. However, unlike other postings where students have taken 10 AP’s, the average student at her school do not take more than 3 due to the overall rigorous nature of their average course work, but still ultimately are accepted by very good schools. As @superdomestique mentioned, I’m sure all of the Ivy admissions officers are quite familiar with her school and aware of its workload, which is why I am hoping by her taking regular classes and receiving good grades would be better than taking advanced level classes and receiving mediocre grades. Obviously she will still need to do exceptionally well on all the standardize exams. Thanks again for all your great advice.
@fencerdad, I think you are missing my point. Ivy admissions officers look for kids who make the most out of the opportunities (limited or vast) they have available to them.
To attend an elite private school, only to take an easy academic load may, in my opinion, not present a strong case that your child has made the most of her opportunities. I think this goes for not only HS but college programs as well. It is possible the admissions officers at HYP will not appreciate a history of squandering rare academic opportunities in favor of global fencing point accumulation.
If your daughter is already a top 10 Cadet fencer, working to become a top 5-10 Junior fencer will not get her more than she already has in a college coaches eyes. After a certain level of fencing accomplishment has been reached, an Ivy coach needs someone who he/she can get thru the admissions preread. There are examples every year of top HS fencers who end up attending ND, PSU, OSU, StJ etc. because their academic records did not match their very impressive fencing accomplishments.
It is worth noting that just because a private HS school is well-known for its rigorous academics does not mean that all its students are considered to have gone thru a rigorous program. By virtue of your school’s top status/recognition, it is possible the lower level of rigor in your daughter’s specific academic course selection will be more obvious, rather than less, to an experienced Ivy admissions officer.
Question: What elite private HS school (day or boarding), allows so much time off for non-school tournament travel/participation?
To paraphrase @stickdude (#309), there is a delicate and difficult balance to be struck between academic achievements, fencing results and sleep, but at the end of the day, academics should be the most important. In my humble opinion, there is no short cut to the Ivy LL for fencing. Everyone who gets one deserves it. I hope @sherpa and @thibault will agree with me on this.
With your interest in leading the college admissions charge with her fencing results, perhaps she should consider going to a less rigorous school so she can take the most challenging program offered and demonstrate academic excellence while maintaining her global fencing schedule.
In the alternative, I know of families with global fencing schedules who also have Ivy (and Olympic) aspirations that have gone the home school/on-line academy route. This alternative would give your daughter the ultimate in flexibility to achieve all her fencing goals.
In any case, please take my comments in the spirit they are given (trying to be helpful and not critical). Good luck with whatever direction you chose.
Agree 100% w above points, eloquently made, by superdomestique.
At this point you’re gilding the lily.
In economic-speak, the value of, or return derived from, each marginal hour your daughter could now spend on fencing is minimal. The return / value derived from that same hour, were it invested in academic study, will be much greater. (By “marginal” I mean above/beyond your current, steady-state pattern of time allocation, for example, traveling internationally for fencing meets.)
Also: I suspect - I don’t know for sure, but I strongly suspect - that HYP etc adcom staff can easily spot the applicant whose choices have been motivated as much or more by her wealthy parent’s ambition as by her own inner drive, curiosity, focus, intensity.
It’s the latter that counts. Adcoms like coaches also care about things like character, balance, maturity etc. Hence the emphasis on evidence of real intellectual curiosity, spark, excitement - as opposed to laundry lists of (very expensive) overseas trips and branded summer camps…
Anyway, that’s my $0.02. Best of luck to your daughter.
@fencerdad
I just read this article online and felt it might be related to your questions:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-r-cole/a-little-secret-athletics_b_787461.html
Excerpt：
" The objective never was to win national championships; it was to provide opportunities for extremely bright youngsters to participate in athletic competition and I daresay, to live up to that old cliché of having a sound mind and a sound body"
" the central mission and values of these elite schools is not to produce athletic powerhouses (something that is impossible without athletic scholarships and lower standards than the Ivy League will permit), but to advance the work of brilliant youngsters with extraordinary talent who are apt to make very important contributions to society in a variety of institutional spheres, the least likely of which will be professional athletics"
Thank you all for a very enlightening, honest and helpful replies. I do agree that despite how well my daughter succeeds as a fencer, it is the overall experiences and lessons she will acquire in academia and social maturity that will make her a better person, student, athlete. Fortunately my daughter enjoys fencing very much and so far has also managed her school work well despite all the traveling and absences from school. Being that she’s still a sophomore, she has the slight luxury of being able to focus much more on fencing than if she were a junior, thus her goal for the US world cadet team in April. But definitely next year will be focusing much more on academics and little less heavy on fencing. Thanks again to all.
For those of you who aren’t on Fencing.net, the annual thread that posts recent HS Senior commitments (where various HS Class of 2016 fencers are going to college) has been updated recently.
I just saw on our local news - the number 2 USA men’s cadet saberist scored a perfect 2400 on his December SAT. The number 1 cadet had also scored a 2400 in one sitting last spring - he has already committed to Harvard’s team. The number 2 cadet is still a junior and told the reporter he’s looking at Penn, Harvard, Columbia and Notre Dame. Report said he is a straight A student currently enrolled in 5 AP classes.
That is tough competition for the few Ivy League recruiting slots!
@arwarw, aren’t both fencers you reference from the same club?
Yes. This one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUMRjC_U8xk
It is nice they have each other to train with.
For a junior, when is a good time to start reaching out to coaches to try to schedule meetings at Summer Nationals? Now? April?
Hopefully you have already initiated some form of correspondence by now, if only to get a file started/opened.
While NCAA rules stipulate that there can be no official contact before July 1 before the student’s senior year, there have been some years where SN events were in late June where a fencer may be done with their events before July 1st. As an accommodation to families so they would have to stay at SN until July 1st, the NCAA would often grant exceptions to the July 1st date (the schools must apply for this exemption), with the stipulation that the fencer had to have finished all their competitions at SN before meeting with any coaches.
Fortunately, this year it seems that the bulk of SN events will be after July 1st. However, I am not sure if the idea of meeting after all your fencer’s competitions are completed is a rule or a guideline. From the fencer’s standpoint, it may be better to separate/serialize the pressures of competition and meeting a potential coach by finishing one before beginning the other.
I guess this is a long way of saying it may be hard to pin down a date to meet with the coaches until the event schedule for SN comes out. In any case, most college coaches are in the midst of their NCAA seasons and may not really know their needs for next year yet. As the college fencing season ends for the most part in late March, April is probably a good time to start asking to get on a coach’s SN schedule.
One other thing, given this is an Olympic year, it is possible that some college coaches may not be at SN if they have Olympians there are helping prepare. This is very possible at Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, etc. I think because of this, it is worth checking ahead of time (now) as it may impact your plans for unofficial visits over spring break.