I am a female A15 epee fencer with div1 points. I was ranked top ten in cadets for two years and now am amongst the top 15 in juniors (going into my first year) I didn’t make the world team though…
My top choice is by far princeton but I was also looking into harvard, UPenn, duke, and Vassar.
Am I good enough for the princeton team? Would it be wiser to apply to UPenn early as a safety school?
I have a 3.9 unweighted GPA and EXCELLENT extra curriculars. However, I only got a 28 on my ACT
Are you using “safety school” differently than most people? Because…lol.
Your Fencing coach should be able to provide you with a sense of whether your skills will compensate for an ACT score that would otherwise remove you from consideration at the colleges you mentioned. I would consult with him or her instead of with anonymous sources on the Internet. If he or she has not been providing you with active guidance, then perhaps you should consider that a message in itself. Your coach should have an idea of how low an ACT score those colleges will admit, and whether you have a chance. My advice will not change regardless of how many threads you initiate on this subject.
These responses seem a little harsh to me considering the age of the OP. I would suggest you start with talking to your coach AND calculating your Ivy API. Have you tried taking the SAT to see if you score any better? Are you willing to put in the time to study for the ACT or SAT and try to raise your score? The Princeton coach is very clear that he is looking for people who are hard workers - he really emphasized this point when we talked with him - and who can show that they are up to the challenge of maintaining good grades AND a rigorous practice schedule. Have you taken the most rigorous courses available at your school (AP, IB etc.)? Have you taken any SAT II’s?
Please fill out the recruiting questionnaires for the schools you like. Also look at the current NCAA rankings of fencing teams and pick a few more.
The recruiting questionnaires are on the schools’ athletic website. You can also email the coach directly with a short summary of your fencing history. The coachs’ emails should be there as well. Do not at this point talk about your academic profile.
If the coach is interested they will reply but most likely say they cannot talk to you until July 1st.
I assume you are a junior now correct and going into senior year?
Do you have a highlights video?
If they are interested you should ask for a preread of your transcript.
Division 3 schools can recruit before July 1 so keep that in mind. Hopkins, Haverford, Brandeis, Tufts, Vassar and Wellsley are Division 3. They recruit just as heavily.
Good luck!!
Also consider schools with great fencing, very good academics, but a little more accommodating of academic parameters = Ohio State, Penn State, Sacred Heart, Temple (all Div1), UCSD (Div2). If you can get your test scores up, any coach who actively recruits will be interested in you.
BatesParents2019 and PolarMama have given you good advice. What I can say is that based on my knowledge of Princeton recruiting, if you were the coach’s top recruit and your courses have been rigorous, I don’t think that your ACT score would keep you out. However, if you could raise your scores (whether by retaking the ACT or taking the SAT) it would be helpful. In addition, if you have AP scores that are 4s or 5s, that could also be an important factor.
Talk to the coaches early about all this. Discuss athletics first, talking about if they need you, what their program is like, and possibly showing them a highlights video if you have one. Once academics roll around, you can discuss your course rigor and average SAT/ACT scores. I recommend taking both the SAT and retaking the ACT. For the places you want to go to, I personally think a 31+ ACT and/or a 2050+ SAT should be fine for you but TALK to the coach about that. He/she will be able to tell you what the average score for current team members is. If the coach likes you enough, he/she may say they can support you in admissions whether you raised your score or not.
You might browse the Athletic Recruiting forum there is some discussion you can find on the topic
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/
@sdfskjh
There is already a wealth of fencing recruiting information at:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/930200-college-fencing-recruiting-p18.html
You may want to read the whole thread, however if you begin at post #267, that is where the most current information begins. @Sherpa is the most knowledgeable parent on CC about college fencing recruiting.
Your fencing accomplishments are impressive. I assume you are a rising senior. If so, you should be contacting coaches of all the schools you are interested in to schedule meetings after your events are completed at Summer Nationals in two weeks.
The Ivy recruitability question can only be answered by calculating your Academic Index or AI (google NYT Academic index for a calculator). You will need an acceptable AI to be recruitable at any Ivy.
Generally speaking, your AI cannot be below 176, and should be above 205 to be competitive for the Ivy League in any sport.
If your AI is not in that range yet, it is important that the Ivy coaches know you are trying to improve it in the short time that you have left. It has been our experience that many of the Ivy recruiting decisions for rising seniors are made soon after SN.
If you are a rising senior and you haven’t yet initiated contact with any college coaches, you may want to have your club coach make direct contact with the programs you are interested in to gauge interest.
FYI, for most people, ED and safety school are generally not used in the same sentence.
You should be aware that Penn (that is U of Penn) is an ED school, so if you apply early and are admitted, you are committed to their program. I am not sure what the early restrictions are at Penn State.
To the moderators, I would suggest moving this thread and the one the OP created at
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1784089-fencing-recruitment-at-princeton.html
to
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/930200-college-fencing-recruiting.html
Sorry for posting twice, however, it is important to keep the institutional memory of CC’s college fencing recruiting threads intact for the ages.
The advice from @woogzmama about asking your current coach for advice sounds good in theory, but in reality very few club coaches know this stuff. My son fenced at Princeton and his coach wouldn’t know the SAT from the ACT. Same thing applies for another very successful coach I’m friends with who has a student who will be a freshman épéeist at Princeton next year.
OP, you have two things working against you. 1) your ACT is on the low end of acceptable and 2) WE is the toughest of the six weapons to be recruited at Princeton. It seems that every year the top women épéeists all have Princeton at the top of their lists.
Edit to add: I disagree with @BatesParent2019 about holding back on discussing academics with coaches early in the process. The coaches have already seen you compete and know your national rank. They’ll want to know your academic qualifications from the outset. And they certainly don’t need to see a highlight video.
This is disappointing. Can you at least combine both the OP’s threads into one, preferably in the athletic recruits category?
There are probably more students/parents interested in college fencing recruiting than Princeton’s team can handle.
@superdomestique Sometimes there are knowledgeable users who only look at school specific sites. Since the OP specifically requested info on Princeton, and the thread has gotten a good deal of action, it is appropriate to reside in 2 places.