<p>Okay, cool. Thanks.</p>
<p>I think some teams do need to keep numbers down to a particular level. But if you pick a less popular weapon there could be room. As I'm recalling, either some foil or epee fencers (or both) had to be cut from my daughter's team. But there weren't enough saberists for this to be necessary. No one last year (her first in college) came in as a complete novice, although I've heard of it happening before.</p>
<p>But at a school with a club, no one will be cut.</p>
<p>I don't know how free it is. My daughter still provided all her own weapons, cords, clothing, etc. Maybe this depends on the team? But it is cheaper than paying for club membership, private lessons, transportation and housing at tournaments, and the like.</p>
<p>As far as I have heard most of the equipment at least in the Div I schools is provided (except a glove and another equally silly thing), but it may depend on a particular college.
My son fences sabre, so chances are there will be a room for him almost everywhere. The only team with the abundance of sabre fencers I know of is Princeton, but I do not really know how good these fencers are.
Both Sada and Emily Jacobsons not only competed but also won NCAA championships during their novice years.</p>
<p>My daughter is finally around so I asked about equipment. She said all was provided but most people had their own. It was also pretty much expected that you would end up with your own stuff if you continue with the sport.</p>
<p>This last year, her recollection is that her team (Brown) had to cut one each from men's foil, epee and saber.</p>
<p>Sada and Emily won NCAA championships in their first years of college. They had a number of years of experience prior to college, however, to the best of my knowledge. Looking in the USFA archives, I first found mention of Sada as a cadet (below 17) with 3,672 points at the end of the 98-99 season and Emily as Y-14 with 960 points by 99-00. Their father was a fencing champ in college; I imagine they started young and the points seem to confirm that. There are two younger Jacobson sisters working their way up the ranks now.</p>
<p>Now it IS possible to do well starting in college if you are exceptional. At my daughter's club was someone who did start in college and eventually reached the top 10 in the country in women's saber. But she bemoaned starting so late -- said all her competitors seemed to have started at age 11 or so!</p>
<p>You are right, Sada and Emily started prior to college. Sada started at 15 and Emily, I would guess at 13. There is one more sister, Jackie, who will fence on a team somewhere as well, being already a junior world champion. And yes, their father is a national champion and a member of a national team going to England this month. They fence with my son at Nellya.
What I rather meant was that it is possible to start fencing on a team right away having some previous experience.
Yes, you are right that fencing is highly technical sport and on average it takes about 5 years to reach really good level, which means that you need some time before you can fence for a team. Exceptions happen, but not very often. Especially in men's fencing, since majority of good fencer start as 8 year olds. BTW, another member of Nellya, Nhi Lan Li, became an olympian after starting fencing at college. Natural talent + drive + expert coach + a lot of money. :)</p>
<p>What a small world! I am fairly sure that I know your daughter (she was at Nellya's camp last summer, right?)</p>
<p>To all of people out there however slightly interested in fencing: notice, once the topic of fencing came up, even mothers are talking about nothing else! :)</p>
<p>You're getting some good advice here from some fencing parents. But I think there are some things maybe I can add.</p>
<p>My son fenced in a very competitive club (over 50 individual national champions in 18 years) and he fenced against five members of US National teams as well as another 10 or so A rated epeeists and foilists, numerous members of the US Pentathlon team, and the like. He had two coaches who were past USFA coaches of the year, both of whom are currently coaches for US National Youth teams. </p>
<p>In two years, he acquired a B rating in foil and a C rating in epee, which is very good for two years of fencing in A-rated tournaments. He was nationally ranked in his age group.'</p>
<p>I don't know of any high school, anywhere, that provides that sort of training. Let me put it this way. If my son's high school had a fencing team, it would have included (at one time) the point leaders in men's cadet and junior foil and men's cadet and junior epee or, to look at it another way, four members of US National teams, two of the top 10 in men's 14 and under epee, and two women ranked in the top 10 in their weapons/age groups.</p>
<p>But all that coaching came in a club, not from a high school coach.</p>
<p>Three of those kids in his club have recently gone on to Penn State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State, the only three colleges (that I know of) that offer athletic scholarships in men's fencing. Others have used fencing to gain admission to Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and many other schools. How good one has to be to be a recruited athlete varies GREATLY by school.</p>
<p>So, my son, who was a good but not great fencer after two years, was recruited at Vassar and Duke, two schools that have anemic fencing teams and often have people on the team who learned in college. He could never have been recruited at Stanford or Harvard. He was not good enough.</p>
<p>So, to restate what you've seen here:</p>
<ol>
<li> Fencing is damnably expensive ($12,000/year + for my family)</li>
<li> It is insanely difficult to learn to do well</li>
<li> You are unlikely to excel in just a few years fencing without having superb coaching and extremely difficult competition, neither of which is likely on even the best high school teams</li>
<li> You CAN be recruited, but only at schools with lousy fencing teams (but they may be very good schools)</li>
<li> If you love fencing and can afford it, then do it. Who cares about what it does for your college admissions chances.</li>
</ol>
<p>A lot of people in my area have started taking up fencing because it seems like an easy way to get into a top school: with so few people doing it, it seems like an obscure sport, therefore giving a false feeling of "oh I want to do this to get recruited." </p>
<p>It is, as the parents above stated, insanely hard to be good at. I fenced for about two months, once a week for about two hours. After two months I was able to beat my instructor (he was a HS student as well), who had a D rank in foil. Of course, this gave me a lot of confidence. I didn't have time to fence after that but I got a chance to watch some A and B ranked fencers in action and let me tell you, they are a step above. The be recruited you have to be REALLY good.</p>
<p>Tarhunt, I agree with every word, of course. (In our case it is around $13,000 - 14,000 a year, so I feel your pain). What matters the most recruiting-wise is the level of your coach and the club. My son is a B in sabre, no world championships. The good thing about fencing is that the really top colleges usually do not have very strong teams, for a very simple reason: they cannoy get the strong fencers in. Henry Harutunian from Yale is famous for not going to admissions to ask for a fencer unless the fencer has 1500/1600 on SATs. My son happens to be very strong academic-wise and it is funny to see the ivy coaches to get excited not so much about his fencing abilities, but about his academics.<br>
I looked up a lot of rosters these past months, visited some NCAA competitions, and I have a very strong feeling that at the top colleges (except UPenn and Harvard) majority of fencers have a very weak hs fencing background.</p>
<p>That's interesting about Yale. A top women's epeeist from our club got into Harvard with good but not stellar credentials. Princeton has quite a fencing tradition and is still strong many years, I understand, but I have not seen them lately. Air Force men's epee is very strong, but the women's teams are not.</p>
<p>It seems we agree that fencing can be a good hook, but it's not quite the hook football can be. </p>
<p>And I HOPE it's only about $12,000. I've always been afraid to add it up.</p>
<p>While the usual advice for ANY time-consuming EC applies - do it ONLY if you really like it - athletic pursuits have an added benefit. Beyond the resume-enhancement aspects, being recruited by colleges can yield an athletic scholarship. Needless to say, that's a desirable benefit. (Not at Ivies and schools that don't do athletic scholarships.) Of course, the hard part is getting recruited - in sports like basketball or football, very few HS athletes end up with a full ride. And ANY varsity sport requires a major in-season and year-round commitment that will probably conflict with other ECs. Even with the potential admission or tuition benefits, taking up fencing could be a major downer if you don't enjoy it. On the other hand, if you DO enjoy it and excel at it, it's probably a better sport in many ways than some of the more heavily populated ones.</p>
<p>Taking up fencing at a nationally ranked high school would be great for getting noticed by college coaches, though I'd guess it would be a real challenge to go from zero to recruited athlete in the space of two years.</p>
<p>Well, given the money we pay (see above), we have to enjoy it really much, right? :)
We do, fencing is a great sport, and also great social environment, since people who are attracted to it tend to be of very educated and interesting variety.
It does have totally detrimental effect on other activities though, since fencing at a national level requires constant practice year round. My son goes to 2 fencing summer camps and one winter camp almost every year, no chance of him ever going to "leadership" conferences etc. for the resume padding purposes. On the other hand, he has just one life to live, and precious little time to do what he really enjoys doing, so if a college does not like him because he did not display his "leadership" abilities, oh well, it is the college's loss.</p>
<p>Yeah, you nailed it fizik. My son would take the bus directly from school to the club where he'd do his homework until others began to show up around 4:30. He'd then take lessons and fence from 4:30 to 8:30 or so just about every day. There are summer camps, summer competitions, trips around the country, trips out of the country, etc.</p>
<p>But you already know that ;-).</p>
<p>Only too well...
Does your son fence at Duke? We are considering it as a possibility.</p>
<p>Very sad. Make your own decisions: do what you want to do, not what you think colleges want you to do.</p>
<p>I would not really consider it sad. My son is lucky to do what he enjoys a lot without thinking how it will affect his college admissions, he is much happier for it. He will have a lot to worry about in his future life, college should not be one of them. It is for ME to worry.</p>
<p>fizik wrote:</p>
<p>
[quote]
What a small world! I am fairly sure that I know your daughter (she was at Nellya's camp last summer, right?)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes, if we're talking about summer, 2005. She really wanted to go this year too but it conflicted with a long archaeological field school in Bolivia (speaking of expense :( ), as did summer nationals. She didn't go to an NACs on her own last year because she wanted the time for academics (and a social life). She's already trying to plan for next summer, but then she is hoping either to go on another dig or get an internship in a museum. It's tough when the academic thing interferes with fencing!</p>
<p>Maybe she can find a nice camp during semester break. Didn't look for one last year because that's when we took our vacation. Isn't there a camp in Oregon around that time? Or maybe you know of another.</p>
<p>She really wishes she had started fencing earlier but had no idea she would like it. She just started in 8th grade because it was her first year of homeschooling, there was a homeschooler fencing class at the club, and we thought it would be a nice way to meet folks and get some exercise. But a lot of people wish they could go back in time and do things differently!</p>
<p>Picking up on another comment here -- I found it disconcerting to speak to some of the parents of kids taking the hour a week group classes who seemed to think that, "Well, fencing is so rare; if my kid continues with these classes for a couple of years s/he will be recruited with a fencing scholarship because schools need folks with some experience for their teams." I would try to explain the realities but they never wanted to believe me.</p>
<p>don't do it. The colleges will know to have to keep a better eye on you...</p>
<p>fizik:</p>
<p>My son decided not to fence NCAA after being admitted as a fencer at Vassar and Duke. He really felt Chicago was a better fit for him and I tend to agree with him. </p>
<p>So, he may fence at the club level at UC ... or not.</p>
<p>w00t i love fencing i'm a sabre fencer myself...and to all those people who say you can't get recruited after only 2 years....</p>
<p>well i would have been fencing competitively for 3 years by the time i go to college. </p>
<p>i started doing it competitively since the beginning of sophomore year (i'm a junior now)</p>
<p>i got my C06 in sabre in one year lol and i do national tournies...only went to 1 nac and junior olympics last year...but i'm hoping to get on the cadet rankings this year</p>
<p>i do go to one of hte top clubs in the country...there are people in my club who are/have been in teh top 5 in national rankings...for junior/cadet etc and we had one of hte top coaches...but he left to coach at an IVY=(
i know someone who got recruited fencing (well not recruited but helped a lot) ...person didn't have much ec's other than fencing but she did have good grades/test scores</p>
<p>i don't just do fencing for college though...if i'm putting as much dedication and effort into it as i have been...it's definately not JUST for college...</p>
<p>i don't have as much time as other people for 10 thousand clubs etc...though i do try to get a couple other ec's in...mainly scientific research....</p>