Hi! We have a similar weighting system in our very competitive public district. From our experience, kids in those top classes are really crushed with homework, which makes it hard to compete in a sport and also sleep. We were able to persuade DD to “drop down” to honors in the one subject she was least interested in, to take a bit of pressure off in junior year. I am sure her unweighted GPA suffered because she was so overloaded. But she wouldn’t have had it any other way–she liked the intensity of the hardest classes (although not the homework). When she went through the pre-read process, she did have one school say her unweighted GPA was not high enough. But the school she really wanted to attend gave her the green light, with the single caveat … don’t drop an AP class. I interpreted that to mean that her chosen school cared very much about the rigor. In the end, that is the school she attends and it is a great fit. It seems very focused on rigor and intense learning, but I am told that no one talks about grades.
This is a recurring theme; the balancing and coordination of academic rigor versus commitment to sport and its ultimate impact on recruitment. When our fencer toured schools and met with coaches our most consistent exercise was imagining himself at a school if he was no longer fencing. I think the same exercise should be done in selecting high school classes. This should not be about “dumbing it down” to make some academic index or other cut for recruitment. If a recruiting school does not understand that a top student’s grades may be impacted juggling the demands of high performance in a sport, then they may not be the best landing spot. Fencing is a niche sport. No one outside of fencing knows about or really cares about the sport. If you reach the pinnacle of the sport, making an Olympic team, winning an Olympic medal, it still may get you a “drink milk” print ad at best. But what one learns at school, how that channels into college and possibly into graduate school, and ultimately into a career path, is what much of one’s non-family/friends life is about. I have spoken to many, many parents with fencers on this path and my advice has not changed in the more than a decade since my fencer’s achievements in the sport and his recruitment process: Don’t mortgage your non-fencing future by putting school second. It will make life that much harder when fencing is a memory of NACs, hotel lobbies, and convention centers.
Thanks for providing all that feedback. My DD has just started her Junior year and the “heavy” AP/Honors load is very apparent. On top of that her fencing schedule is just as intense with NAC’s and international tournaments. I am worried about her maintaining her high GPA (that she has been able to maintain up til now). We have been told by others what is echoed above…keep the rigor as academically strong colleges will be requiring that.
I was wondering about @Midwestmom2022 and your DD was in the process of “several” pre-reads? Does this mean that several colleges are doing them at the same time for your DD? I was under the impression that pre-reads only happen the summer before Senior year after the fencer already gets a commitment from a college (and vice versa). I didn’t realize you could have several done at the same time. If anyone with recent experience can shed light on this?
Although our experience is a bit back from recent, our understanding was that pre-reads were not the norm. These are generally reserved for those being seriously considered for recruitment. Some schools, including several in the Ivies with which we had experience, were reluctant to pull the trigger on a pre-read prior to at least an oral commitment to accept a recruitment slot. This was not as much the case with non-Ivies which may explain circumstances in which a fencer receives multiple pre-reads. Not saying it is impossible, but several of the very top Ivy fencing programs would not do a pre-read without an oral commitment. Our fencer’s pre-read was done in the spring of his junior year. I honestly don’t know if this is “early” or not, but he was a very top recruit and there were additional circumstances involving his fencing that probably caused his top choice to do a pre-read as quickly as possible. Am sure there are those with more current experience.
I lost my argument with my fencer about changing one or two of classes to a lower, yet still advanced, level. I think this year (junior) will be like a war zone, trying to balance school work, training and competitions. It’s not like my child is super organized or super driven academically. It’s simply that child is super competitive. For reference, the rigor of our high school is such that only 2 AP classes are allowed to be taken and many say that honors level classes are at least as demanding/involved as AP classes. School has barely started and I am already dreading it :).
Did anyone read this article from today?
Yes, and we didn’t quite get it. So the ruling against the affirmative action will trigger slashing down on fencing recruitment? Can anything be blunt like that?
Interesting responses in the fencing Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fencing/comments/y684ll/nytimes_article/
The thinking is if affirmative action based on race will be disallowed in college admissions, there will be pressure to eliminate preferences that benefit groups that are already privileged, e.g. legacies, athletes, donors, etc… Focusing on athletes for the moment, the greatest amount of criticism against athletic preferences have focused on “country club sports”, such as golf, tennis, squash, sailing, skiiing and fencing. One decision is not legally linked to the other, but there will be political and institutional pressure to remove certain preferences in response to the elimination of racial preferences.
There is an extensive discussion of this article on Reddit, accessible via the link included in 2032_2’s post. That discussion raises my concerns with the message sent by this article. While I cannot speak to the motivation or intention of individual coaches and club owners when it comes to emphasizing fencing as a gateway sport to Ivy League recruiting, I do think parents should take a deeper dive into such claims.
Generally, only the top 4-5 elite fencers in each weapon/gender get the immediate attention, as well as most of the top recruiting slots, from Ivy League and other elite schools. That leaves a whole mess of recruits who will either be at less “elite” schools or will not be recruited at all. While club teams provide a wonderful milieu, I think most competitive fencers will acknowledge that the level of competition is not at the same level as on the NCAA circuit. That does not foreclose the club team route as both viable and perhaps a wonderful option, but there are distinct differences.
If fencing persists in the kind of growth described in the NYT article, it will quickly become like other sports in that more athletes will be pursuing the same number of desirable recruiting slots. So, if anything, promises of Ivy League recruiting will become even less bankable.
I do not agree that changes in affirmative action will result in a cutback in elite fencing programs provision of fencing equipment. I don’t think this is done in the first place as a nod to URMs or to otherwise less economically well-off student-athletes. This is done, particularly at the most competitive school, as an incentive to attract the top recruits these schools seek. If Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia are not prepared to provide the most basic of equipment, believe me, PSU, OSU, and Notre Dame most certainly will.
One important point (near and dear to the heart of every fencing parent) raised in the Reddit posts is that of finances. As we can personally attest, fencing expenses are like a snowball rolling down a hill. By the time the snowball gathers speed (enough to roll right over you), your kid is vested on so many levels that retracting from the sport has become a major issue. For us, we had no idea the hill was a mountain! So, IMHO, no one should go into this sport thinking it can be done on the cheap. To rise to a level to even have a chance at a major recruiting slot will entail a big investment on many levels.
Do you think the pressure will most likely guide colleges to follow the MIT model where coaches accept whoever AOs have handed over to them?
That’s not quite the MIT system. MIT coaches are allowed to support a limited number of athletes, but there is no almost guaranteed slots for them. It is like a supercharged EC. My kid, not fencing, was offered support but was told his chances were 50/50.
If athletic preferences are eliminated, I do think it will go to a similar system where coaches are given the opportunity to offer soft support for a limited number of recruits.
Your last paragraph is one I’ve repeated to every non-fencing parent who sent me this article with “Did you read this?!?!” You said it far more eloquently however!
Yes, that is actually what I meant. MIT coaches can support athletes, but their support seems to mean almost next to nothing if they say the chances to get admitted is still 50/50. The chances to get into MIT with all the academic accolades like STEM olympiad are also 50/50 these days, so I think if it really gets down to the MIT system, it will practically mean the end of recruitment.
Lawrence University Head Fencing Coach Eric Momberg was on USA Fencing’s First to 15 podcast. Lots of good information about collegiate fencing, differences between divisions, how the sport can grow at this level, how to be recruited, etc.:
My daughter fenced for Coach Momberg at LU and loved him as a coach. He is passionate about collegiate fencing and really wants to see the sport grow and be successful. Definitely worth a listen for anyone who wants to continue fencing into college.
50/50 is still way better than 7%.
Interesting. Maybe it’s my math. I thought 50/50 practically means coach’s support doesn’t affect the scale. If the admission rate is 7%, 50/50 with the support should mean 7% stays? It can’t really be that support increases the chance of admission from 7% to 50%.
Yes, that is what it means, your admissions chances go from 7% to 50%. The caveat is that the recruits who are told 50/50 have GPA and test scores that are competitive for MIT. For schools that offer true recruiting slots (Ivies, academic D3’s), the chances are over 90% unless the applicant blows it after the preread with a horrible application or if they do something stupid (e.g. make racist comments on social media).
I don’t think this is correct. I have spoken directly to several Ivy League coaches about the concept of “support” and none of them indicated that such support increased an applicant’s chances of admission above 50/50. In fact, only the more successful of these coaches raised the odds as high as 50/50. In some cases, the coach’s support only helped if the student was wait listed. It is true, as you point out, that many if not most of the recruits at elite schools have the stats to be competitive in a straight-up admissions process. But that may actually skew the implication of the stats by indicating that a coach’s support was the deciding factor when in fact it may have had no bearing on the admissions decision at all.
This could be true for fencing at some schools, but is not the case for other sports (at most highly rejective schools, not including MIT and CalTech).