<p>Yeah, I am a junior.
So, when is the “right” time to talk to coaches? Should it be by the recruitment form or email or in person or having your coach talk in person or what?
And do you think a fencer without any junior points (yet…) but some decent cadet results still has a chance at recruitment at hyp etc.? Hopefully something good will happen at JO’s to tell the coaches about when I get there…</p>
1 Like
<p>So many variables here. First, it is certainly possible to be recruited without junior points; it will depend on the school, year, and weapon.</p>
<p>When my kids went through this we made a spreadsheet table showing the roster by year in their weapon at each school to size up who would need recruits when. If there are fencers you’re unfamiliar with on a college’s roster, take a minute to search them on ASKFRED to find their rating and see some results. If they’re not there, you can search the USFA membership roster by division to find more info. It’s amazes me, though, how many kids quit fencing USFA events once they’re in college; amazing, but understandable, sometimes it seems that the USFA designs their schedule specifically to conflict with the Princeton academic calendar.</p>
<p>Which brings me to a “fencing in college” observation. Once in college, top kids seem to go in one of only two or three directions with their fencing. Some go the “majoring in fencing” route, where the WC schedules and Olympic points paths are paramount. This works out OK at Penn St., Ohio St., and maybe Notre Dame, but to me that’s a recipe for wasting one’s collegiate opportunities.</p>
<p>Others phase out the USFA stuff and really get into NCAA and academics.</p>
<p>Some drift away from fencing altogether.</p>
<p>End of digresssion.</p>
<p>Back to when to contact the coaches. Your a junior w/ a good cadet rank, a D2 gold, and some top 64 D1s. No need to wait. I’d try to talk to them soon. Call them at their college and try to get them. By rule they shouldn’t return your messages; some will, most won’t. We found the online questionaires pretty worthless. Direct email works better. Having your club coach advocate for you can be the best, but so many variables there.</p>
<p>Some generalizations about quality and professionalism of coach communication. Disclaimer, this is only one data point, YMMV.</p>
<p>Yale - Coach is cordial but not a recruiter. Tough guy to read.
Harvard - Nothing good to say here. He blew it with our family by blantantly misunderstanding (being generous here) NCAA recruiting policies.
Penn - Stellar
Princeton - Ditto
Stanford - Nice but embarassingly disorganized. May be better now.
Duke - As good as Penn and Princeton
Brown - Tough to get in the door, then easy guy to work with.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’d try to make phone contact pre-JOs and shake a few hands there. A friendly hello is the official limit of what goes on before July after junior year. Any recruiting talk has to wait, or you can talk in depth this year if you make on campus visits, which I recommend. Junior year after JOs we did the big college tour thing with both kids, including visiting fencing gyms, meeting coaches, etc. Everywhere except Harvard, that is, because apparently I misunderstood the NCAA rules. GGGRRRRR</p>
<p>I’ll wrap up for now. I don’t want to write another, as ihs76 put it, “tome”. Speaking of ihs, we and our families have become great real life friends since our CC introduction over a year ago. We have so much in common it’s unreal. I hope she’ll chime in with some stories of her son’s recruiting saga. JB is tearing it up at his school.</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with writing ‘tomes’ if they are as informative as yours are!</p>
<p>Compared to most of the recruiting stories on this forum, I feel like Salieri in “Amadeus,” where he speaks of the ‘Patron Saint of Mediocrity.’ My above average but not stellar (athletically speaking, of course) fencing child did manage to get recruited to a school where he is very happy with academics and athletics. Its a matter of finding the athletic match and fit and setting your sights low enough to where one is wanted :D. </p>
<p>Our limited experience with 2nd/3rd tier recruiting:</p>
<p>Caltech: Coach desperate for anyone who has held a blade before. Very friendly and communicative. Background in Sabre. Unfortunately has minimal to no influence with admissions. Need significant ‘demonstrated interest’ in math/science and otherwise meet their admission criteria. Couple of year ago, every member of their freshman class had 800 on SAT Math 2. One other issue is there are only 4 NCAA teams west of the Mississippi (Air Force, Stanford, UCSD and Caltech) so lots of traveling/flying to meets.</p>
<p>MIT: As noted in my last post, coach appears to have some pull with admissions. Eastern European, and primary weapon is Sabre, I believe. Not very communicative. Need largely to be admissable independent of fencing. Says they count athletic recruiting as a strong EC. If you are interested in MIT fencing, PM me and I will give you the details of our experience.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins: Coach has quite a bit of pull with admissions. Much easier admit if recruited and they have ED. Very nice guy and communicative. Comes from Foil background.</p>
<p>Feel free to PM me if you want further info on any of these teams/schools. It is possible to fence happily ever after as an NCAA athlete (so far anyway) even if you’ve never made it past the first DE bout at a Div 1 NAC.</p>
<p>
ihs makes a good point, and I can’t overstress its importance.</p>
<p>In so many athletic recruiting threads, and in many of the PMs I’ve been receiving from curious fencers and their parents, there is often a focus on utilizing the sport to get into “an Ivy”, or “HYPS”, or similar high prestige targets.</p>
<p>So much comes down to fit. My son is at an HYPS school and the academics and athletics (a&a) there are perfect for him. My daughter will be going to a slightly lower ranked school, and we think the a&a there will be perfect for her.</p>
<p>Fencers, please don’t get caught in the trap of hoping that your fencing will “get you into Harvard”. It seems that most kids shoot for the top schools and overlook those slightly lower down the food chain. In my opinion this creates a great recruiting opportunity for academically strong kids with less than stellar national fencing results. A “B” or “C” rated fencer w/o national points but with good grades and test scores not only can fence in the NCAA, they can probably get a boost into a very good college in the process.</p>
<p>As I’ve come to realize from my son’s experience, fencing in college can be very rewarding. There’s the social benefit, the instant group you become a part of, the daily exercise, the thrill of training with new peers and, of course the Ivy Championship rings. (sorry, I guess not everybody gets those, but they are pretty damn cool.)</p>
<p>ihs’ son and my daughter may never get the Ivy rings, but they each got a boost into very selective colleges where they can enjoy all of the other benefits I listed above.</p>
<p>I’m sincerely sorry for going off on this tangent, but I feel very strongly about it. My point, if I can summarize briefly:</p>
<p>Utilize your athletic skills along with your academic accomplishments to gain admission to the college that’s best for you. Find the right balance that works for you. If that’s HYPS, great; if it isn’t, and you can find a place where you’re happy, that’s great too.</p>
<p>My S is a HS junior who has ramped up his fencing practice the last 5 mos. He has moved up to a D and qualified for the JO later this month. Before he even knew they had a fencing program, he was looking at Stevens Institute in Hoboken. He wants a small school with a practical engineering focus. SATs will be great. Grades A/B, but 3.82 with weighting. Right at the 75%tile in HS and climbing. Any scoop on the Stevens program? Possible that he could fence there (I think he will be a C in the next 3-4 mos)? Possible to fence and carry a 16+ hr engineering load?</p>
<p>It must be exciting for your son to identify a target school based on his academic interests and then find out afterward that it has fencing.</p>
<p>I just checked out their fencing website and I learned a few things.</p>
<p>First, they have some pretty strong fencers at the top of the roster but it falls off pretty quickly from there. That tells me there is definitely an opportunity for a “C” or “D” to contribute.</p>
<p>Second, in October Marcos Lucchetti was hired as their new coach. Wow. What a coup. Lucchetti is a great coach. I had no idea he was coaching in college again, and I’m sure Stevens’ program will flourish under his leadership.</p>
<p>Stevens could be perfect for your son. It has the small school, engineering focus he wants, and with Lucchetti as a coach his fencing might really take off.</p>
<p>I’d recommend your son fill out the online recruiting form and maybe introduce himself to Lucchetti at JOs. He’ll be there, I’m sure. He’s at every national event.</p>
<p>
Depends on the kid, but I’d say yes. I’d think that most kids at Stevens will be carrying similar loads in similar majors; that’s the type of school it is, after all, so I think they’ll all be handling the same balancing act.</p>
<p>Like I said, it depends on the kid, but as one data point, my son is studying physics (not exactly engineering, but a comparable load) at a very rigorous college and is successfully balancing academics and athletics. For him, fencing is two hours a day, five days a week, plus one or two private lessons a week. All of their competitions are on weekends. The competition schedule is relatively light, much lighter than his USFA schedule was in HS.</p>
<p>I think you’ve found a gem for your son.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks! I had emailed the coach. He’ll be at JO. He said he would like to meet my son. I then sent the bio sketch and my cell. He did not acknowledge, so I assumed he would just call that day (or that he was so put off by my son’s credentials that he didn’t bother). Sounds like the latter is unlikely, so I’ll have my son fill out the form and wait to hear from him that day. Thanks for the homework and the info. Is the coach great like Lombardi or great like Bill Walsh?</p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time to share so much information. It really cleared up a lot of things for me.</p>
<p>But, I’m starting to try and write the emails that I’m going to send to the coaches (eek!). Should it just be a sort of general “I’m applying to your school in the fall…and I’m a fencer” do you think or more of a “these are my results and my sats and my gpa” or a “im visiting over spring break anyway could I meet with you or talk at jos.” Or do I have to call??? I feel like that might be a nightmare. I’m pretty personable…but I think this could get awkward pretty fast.</p>
<p>I hate casting this sort of stuff off into cyberspace…My guidance counselor has been 0 help but one of my friends is going to send me a letter that her hired college person gave to her.</p>
<p>My daughter is 13 in 8th grade. If she wants to be a fencer in college, is it too late to start now?</p>
<p>@ cowtown</p>
<p>The coach probably won’t call you at JOs. He might, but it would be an NCAA violation. Better to seek him out in person there. It will be easy. Look at his photo on the college website ahead of time so you know who you’re looking for and at the venue ask around and someone will point him out to you. Fencing’s a small world, I’ve introduced myself to a lot of college coaches.</p>
<p>As far as how he is as a coach, I can’t say a lot. I don’t know any of his students, but I’ve watched him stripside. He’s very knowledgable and gives an aura of an expectation of hard work and serious training. He coaches all three weapons. I formed my first opinion of him about five or six years ago. There was a group of kids from California who were quite good, lots of national medals, but apparently no coach. I asked around and learned they’d been trained by Lucchetti but that he’d moved to New Jersey for a college coaching job, at Princeton, but that only lasted a year or two. I don’t know the details or politics, if any, but I know these kids were good. It was foil, FWIW.</p>
<p>@ muskrat
Great question. I like a phone call to establish first communication, followed by an email expressing interest and including an attached brief resume highlighting academic and fencing achievements, with the ultimate objective of having a meeting on their campus during spring break or whenever you’re there.</p>
<p>@ lz48880
It depends. If she’s smart, athletic, dedicated, and has access to good coaching, it’s realistic.</p>
<p>I’ve known a couple kids who went from absolute beginners to “A” rated, national medalist, college recruited fencers in three years. That’s not the norm by any means, but it can be done. The coaching is probably the biggest challenge. You can’t do that in three years in a New Jersey HS fencing league. You’d need a high level coach. So much depends on where you are located and your daughter’s weapon of choice, i.e. there are good sabre coaches in Chicago or Atlanta, there’s a great foil and epee guy in Denver, etc. etc.</p>
<p>I’m getting carried away here with this talk of national medals, Olympic caliber coaching, etc. So back to your question. Yes, starting at 13 and getting good enough to fence in college is very realistic, especially for a woman, since there are more women’s fencing programs than men’s programs. Cornell and Northwestern, for example, have women’s teams only. Feel free to PM me with specific questions.</p>
<p>Hi Sherpa,
I read in a post somewhere on here (can’t find it now), that you made some kind of spreadsheet for college fencing. My son would like to fence in college, he is currently in 10th grade and a D rated fencer, with high grades. He most likely will not have an A rating before college, maybe or maybe not a B. Is it still possible to get into NCAA school, perhaps Div 3? Thanks for any info.</p>
<p>Hi Jayne,
Here’s a link to a list of colleges with NCAA fencing
[List</a> of NCAA fencing schools - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_fencing_schools]List”>List of NCAA fencing schools - Wikipedia)
At most of those colleges there are “B” and “C” fencers, and some schools field teams with a few "E"s and "U"s.</p>
<p>I try to encourage people to find the right balance between academics and athletics. I’m sure there will be a good match for your son.</p>
<p>Also, don’t woory too much about D1, D2, or D3. They compete against eachother all the time.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>What a great and informative thread. A lot of good information here. My D is still too young (IMO, I’ve seen parents of children her age on CC before) to worry too much about college (I’m on here for older D) but this is a good blueprint of what to do for the future. Thank you. Does anyone have any more information for girls’ epee, specifically?</p>
<p>My focus is foil, but I know a lot of epee people, too, and the recruiting will be about the same. The biggest differences, recrutiing-wise, between the weapons will be due to variations among numbers of kids with the higher ratings. Generally, there are more high ratings in epee, then foil, then sabre, for a couple of reasons. First, simple numbers; epee events are usually larger, whereas sabre events often lack the numbers to give higher ratings. Also, there is more randomness in epee results due to the double touches. Taken together, this is why you’ll see more epee "A"s than foil or sabre "A"s, and it is only one of many reasons that ratings are much less important than USFA rankings for elite college recruiting.</p>
<p>I’d really like people to focus less on elite recrutiment, though. For example, I’ve been trading PMs with a kid who is striving to fence at a HYP school, while his academic and athletic stats are more in line with any of a number of slightly less selective colleges.</p>
<p>Sorry to digress, Q’s mom, but ask away about WE; if I don’t know the answers, I’ll point you in a better direction. And I truly do know a little about it; DD is fencing both foil and epee at JOs this weekend.</p>
<p>Good luck to your D, sherpa. I really have no questions right now since D is only 12, and frankly, I have no clue where she’ll end up in 5 years either athletically or academically, but I would appreciate it if I could keep you as a knowledgeable resource for the future.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think one thing to remember, strictly athletically speaking, is whether its more ‘fun’ to be #8 on the depth chart at a top notch fencing program, vs #1/2/3 at a less competitive program. Fact is most college fencers are not going to the Olympics and really are doing it for fun. Generally only the top 4 or so in any weapon on the team will be traveling to meets (NCAA meets fence 3/weapon/team) so if you’re #8, chances are you will never see the inside of the bus. That’s not a bad thing (esp the 8 hr rides), but just a matter of what you want out of your college fencing experience.</p>
<p>I know my ‘B’ rated son, who happens to be #1 foilist on his mediocre team, has been to every meet this year, fenced the maximum number of bouts at each meet, has had a chance to fence some top notch guys from many top notch teams (although ND did not deign to send Gerek Meinhardt to fence him (drat)), gotten a lot of respect and encouragement from his teammates, improved a great deal, and has had a great time. What more could a kid ask for? A team championship? Yea, I guess. So if your team wins the championship but you were basically on the practice squad, doesn’t sound like much fun to me. </p>
<p>So, think about what works for you, not what looks glamorous.</p>
<p>Agree with Sherpa one million percent-(what a great resource).</p>
<p>My S is also a “niche sport” competitor. He was one of the best in our section, but not good enough for State level competition. However, because few boys in his sport at his level had the academic side of the package, he was a “hot property”, recruited by multiple “little Ivies” and similar schools.</p>
<p>I estimated that there were fewer than 200 hs seniors in the country that would be able to compete with his academics and athletic level. He was looking D3, so obviously the incredible talent was going D1. As Sherpa says, it put him from a 10-20% chance at getting in to a highly selective school, to a 90-100%.</p>
<p>As I told him when he said “Mom, I’m not good enough to be recruited”, “You are the cream of D3”. He is competing now and has qualified for the Conference meet as a freshman.</p>
<p>So the point of this post(yes, there is a point) is that you should recruit yourself, but it isn’t that difficult and adds to your “package” at the school of your choice. There are thousands of straight A 6 foot tall right handed pitchers-fencers, not so much…</p>
<p>Hello all, again. I apologize sincerely from seemingly abandoning this thread and simply leeching information, but I have just been taking a little break from all this worrying about college and concentrating on school, fencing, and above all, friends/family =). </p>
<p>Anyway, I’ve pretty much changed my approach with looking at college (with a lot of influence from Sherpa’s thoughts on priorities and academics - with whom I agree with 100%). I’ve pretty much fully decided on going in a direction of pre-med, and later medical school, which unfortunately lends the dilemma of figuring out where and how to spend my family’s decidedly limited reserves. HYP would be nice, but I feel that even if I did get in, I don’t believe I could comfortably afford it. My priority is medical school, which in itself costs a great deal of money, and I don’t feel that a prestigious, expensive Ivy education is all that worth it in my career path.</p>
<p>That being said, I’m now focusing my fencing/academic recruitment to other great non-Ivy schools and going for a scholarship. As of right now, my two main choices seem to be Duke and Stanford, but I am worried about both. I’m liking what I’m seeing with Duke, but everywhere I’ve read says that Duke offers fencing scholarships, except for one place: their own website… </p>
<p>“Duke does offer Division I athletic scholarships in most sports. The exceptions are fencing (men’s and women’s), and swimming (men’s and women’s)”</p>
<p>[Duke</a> University Admissions: Scholarship Opportunities](<a href=“http://admissions.duke.edu/jump/applying/finaid_scholarships.html]Duke”>http://admissions.duke.edu/jump/applying/finaid_scholarships.html)</p>
<p>Do any of you have information to the contrary on this, or should I go ahead and contact the coach?</p>
<p>As for Stanford, I’m not that big a fan of the school, and with the frail situation of their program, I’m not too sure with my chances of not only getting recruited, but getting any scholarship money.</p>
<p>Are there any other D1 schools that offer scholarships (other than Ohio State, Penn State, or Notre Dame, because I am not convinced of their academic status) that I should be considering? Duke sounded great… until I saw that quote on their website.</p>
<p>Nothing much has changed for me schoolwise, except for a 235 PSAT score that makes me confident going forward, and in fencing, just got Bronze in Cadet (renewing my A) at J.O.'s (though I continue to dispute the final call in a 15-14 semifinal bout… the wrong call was made, but alas, c’est la vie).</p>
<p>I wish to thank you all for your considerations and experience in this tangled process, and I would like to again voice my appreciation for all of you who have gone through this process yourselves and are so generously imparting your knowledge on the rest of us.</p>
<p>Sincerely and with thanks,</p>
<p>ATastyBurger (in retrospect, the Pulp Fiction reference in the username likely is not as evident as I had first imagined)</p>
<p>Welcome back to the thread, ATastyBurger. Yeah, I missed the Pulp Fiction reference, great movie, was it a Royale with Cheese, no, it was from Kahuna Burger, IIRC.</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread, it’s turned into a great one, and thanks for coming back. And CONGRATULATIONS on your JO Bronze, and sorry about the disputed call at 14-14; those are tough to handle, and doing the “what if” thing can drive you nuts. I see that the eventual winner had a much tougher time with you than he did in the final. Right of way weapons, questionable calls. Oh, well.</p>
<p>As far as your collegiate options go, I agree that athletic scholarships at OSU, PSU, or Notre Dame are the wrong route for you. I’m afraid a Duke scholarship is unlikely and I’m highly skeptical about a Stanford athletic scholarship, too. Stanford fencing only has a few to share among all their athletes, so they get chopped up. That, plus the tenuous state of affairs there, probably drops Stanford down the list a bit.</p>
<p>So, for you, I’d forget the athletic scholarship angle and focus on great schools that offer the best need based aid. That list will start with HYP and will also include Columbia, Brown, Penn, and Duke. I think your athletic/academic accomplishments will get you into any of those, and I also think you and your parents will be pleasantly surprised by their generous financial aid.</p>
<p>Congratulations again, welcome back, and good luck.</p>