The Only College Fencing Recruiting Thread You Need to Read

Athletic Recruits
561

I think the definition of “recruited athlete” can get blurry when it comes to fencing. It may be clear cut at Ivies (LL = recruited, no LL = not recruited), but at schools where the number of coach’s slots and the number of scholarships may be unequal (in either direction) it seems more murky. Miniblue’s D was offered money but not a slot, and there are kids at other schools who are given slots but no money.

I’ve seen people use the phrase “recruited walk-on” or “preferred walk-on” to describe kids who are guaranteed a place on the team without a scholarship, but generally that refers to kids who also get in on their own without the coach’s help. What about kids who do get a coach’s slot, but no money? If the coach considers you a recruited athlete, and admissions considers you a recruited athlete and accepts you on that basis, but you don’t get scholarship money (so no NLI), does that not count as “recruited”?

562

@Corraleno

“UNC quickly became one of my D’s top choices, but did not apply early.”
She was accepted to her first choice school through ED,
so she did not submit an application to UNC at all.

It was the first week of October when we visited UNC and had this conversation. Their early action dead line was Oct 15. The coach encouraged her to apply early action and told us the early NLI signing period is sometime in the beginning of Nov and once you sign it, it is complicated to get out.
She was planning to apply during regular decision to UNC if she does not get in her first choice, but did not have to.

For her first choice school…
Even though the coach said he cannot recruit her (but is welcomed to team if she gets in on her own), she told him she would submitted her application when she met him in Anaheim during Oct NAC. He saw her fence and making it to the top 32 for Div 1. She submitted her app the following week (late October) and was notified by the coach on November 7th ( one day before the start of early signing period) that ahe will be getting a NLI. She was formally notified by the school in mid December .

I hope this answers your question but of you have any more question, don’t hesitate to ask. My D’s recruitment journey was long and required a lot of patience.

563

@Corraleno
To comment on post 560, if a fencer is recruited without a scholarship wouldn’t the fencers receive a LL, just as in all Ivy schools? Duke does not give out scholarships to men, so recruited male athletes gets LLs and recruited female athletics get NLI.

564

@Miniblue77 S’s school does not do LLs for recruited athletes without scholarships. I personally know 3 kids, and I assume there are more, who went through admissions as recruited athletes without either scholarship money or a LL. They were accepted very quickly after applying, so maybe a LL is kind of redundant in that case. One had very high stats and almost certainly would have been accepted on his own, another had pretty low stats (~25th percentile for admitted students) and may not have gotten in without help, and I don’t know about the 3rd. I do know that they were considered recruited athletes by the coaches and by admissions, and they had all the perks associated with recruits (such as housing priority).

565

I think perhaps a review as to the nature of the Likely Letter (“LL”) and of the National Letter of Intent (“NLI”) is in order so that we all are speaking accurately and within the same parameters. I am NOT an expert on this and stand to be corrected if necessary.

My understanding of the LL is that it is unique to Ivy League schools. It is not solely issued to athletic recruits. It is often issued to high-level candidates in other fields. We know of students in the fine arts and sciences who received LLs. It is not a guarantee of admission and is not binding on either the school or on the recruit, but it it is a very powerful indicator of a strong probability of admission. It is not tied to any money. Ivies do not give athletic scholarships and, more and more, do not even give merit aid. It is all becoming need-based financial aid. At least in athletics, and I assume in other disciplines, there is a limit on the number of LLs available for each coach/sport. In fencing, my experience is that most Ivies have an average of 4 LLs/season for each gender.

In contrast, the NLI are actual creatures of the NCAA and relate solely to college athletics. The NLI is literally signed by the prospective recruit. Once signed, the recruit must attend the school to which he/she has committed, for at least a full academic year, in order to received the committed scholarship/financial aid. I do not know whether or not an NLI is ever issued without money consideration. If so, however, there is still a penalty in place for reneging on an NLI in the form of forfeit of a year of eligibility. The NLI does not guarantee admission as, with any other athletic pre-commitment, a potential recruit can be rejected for academic reasons. There is a limit to the number of NLIs that can be signed with respect to each gender/sport as provided under NCAA rules.

By contrast, the concept of “support” is much more intangible. In my experience, support ranges from actually ‘tagging’ files to highlight athletic support to the admissions committee, to a pitch made by the coach directly to admissions. While neither an LL nor an NLI are an absolute guarantee of admission, barring extreme circumstances, they are very close to a certainty. Support is much less certain and largely depends on the school, the coach, and the candidate. At some schools, the coach admittedly has very little clout with admissions. Some coaches have more power with admissions than others. Some candidates are much stronger, academically and/or athletically, so as to increase the impact of coach support.

Generally, coaches do not risk losing a prime recruit by putting them in the support category. Fencers whose candidacy is supported by a coach, in lieu of an LL or NLI, are usually lower on the recruiting depth chart. They are desirable and the coach may be happy to have them on the team, but they are not at a level that the coach is prepared to spend an NLI or LL on official recruitment.

Considering the two methods of tangibly committing to recruitment (as far as that goes), one can see that neither of these are consistent with support. Either a recruit is receiving the appropriate form of tangible commitment or he/she is receiving support, not both.

Hope this is helpful…It was to me…lol

566

At S’s school there is only one level of admissions support, which is equal to a “slot,” and is the same whether the athlete is getting money or not. Recruited athletes go through a separate admissions process, and it’s basically a guarantee of admission unless there is some major red flag in the application. Also, students who are offered athletic money and are also likely to qualify for academic scholarships may not get an NLI in the fall; they apply EA in October, get academic scholarship offers (if any) in December or January, the athletic dept then tops that up to the full amount the coach offered, and the student signs an NLI in spring.

567

So at your son’s school there are two categories: Recruited & Supported, correct?

Supported athletes get a “slot”. Are they guaranteed admission or is this just a commitment from the coach to support their candidacy?

Recruited athletes get the “guarantee” but the NLI pends final award, balancing athletic and academic scholarships.

This sounds in line to me.

568

No, at his school there’s really just one category: athletes who are guaranteed admission, whether or not they have a scholarship, would be considered recruits. Applications from recruited athletes go to a completely separate admissions committee from the main committee, and if you are on the coach’s list, you will be accepted (unless they find out you have a criminal past or lied on your application or something). A scholarship offer, with or without a November NLI, does not add any extra weight or a higher level of “guarantee.” Either your application is processed by the recruited admissions committee and you’re in, or your application is processed by the regular admissions committee and you’re on your own.

If athletes who are given “slots” without scholarships are considered recruits at Ivies, then wouldn’t athletes who get slots without scholarships at other schools also be considered recruits? And even at schools that do offer scholarships, they may have multiple slots but only a single scholarship available (per gender) per year. If they have four slots but only one scholarship, unless they are willing to give all four recruits some portion of the one available scholarship, then there will be recruits at those schools who were given a slot (guaranteed admission, or close to it) but no money. NLIs cannot be issued without a scholarship offer, so if a coach tells an athlete that he will use one of his four slots on him, but can’t offer any money (so no NLI), that athlete would still considered a recruit, wouldn’t he?

569

FWIW, I was having a little trouble following the discussion and found this explanation of NLI helpful: https://www.athleticscholarships.net/what-is-the-national-letter-of-intent.htm

570

@Corraleno: So my understanding is at the school where your fencer is going, there is either support or no support from the coach with regard to admissions. Not the “soft support” we hear about at some some schools where the coach does not use a recruiting slot but writes a note to admissions, etc. Then the NLIs/scholarships are a separate conversation.

@SpaceVoyager: The official NLI site is helpful as well: http://www.nationalletter.org

To clarify on the NLI…it is ONLY related to athletic scholarships, and not a guarantee of admission. HOWEVER, I think it’s fair to say that — especially for fencing recruiting — a coach is not going to offer an NLI unless s/he has the green light from admissions. IMO, the only way a fencer who signs an NLI (assuming s/he does so before ED/RD notification deadlines) does not get into that institution would be for the same reasons an Ivy LL recipient does not get in (major infractions/precipitous drop in grades).

571

@SevenDad Yes, exactly. You either have a slot (your application goes to the recruited admissions committee) or you don’t; there’s no lower level of support, like sending a letter to the regular admissions committee saying “I’d like to have this kid, but I’m not going to officially recruit him.” They do have more than 4 slots, though, and they don’t like to break up the scholarships too much, so there are plenty of kids who get slots but do not have scholarships (and some who are offered scholarships but don’t have NLIs).

That’s why I think it’s confusing to define a “recruited athlete” strictly as someone who has either an LL from an Ivy or an NLI from a nonIvy. There are procedures by which nonIvy coaches can offer near-certain admission slots to students who do not have NLIs, just like Ivy coaches do, with or without the equivalent of an LL. What determines whether a student is “recruited” (IMO) is whether the coach is using his influence in a way that will generally guarantee that the student will be admitted.

572

@corraleno - I understand the way in which you are perceiving “recruitment”, but believe you are confusing the dictionary definition of the word versus the term of art used in NCAA fencing. Fencers who receive the equivalent of support, whether from an Ivy League coach going to bat for the fencer with admissions, or from a non-Ivy offering what you refer to as “near-certain admission”, are not recruited athletes under NCAA rules. They are receiving the support of the coach. You will note, in every announcement by a DV1 school of that season’s recruits, that the only fencers mentioned are those who received an LL or an NLI. Also, it is my understanding that there is no such concept as an NLI without at least some level of scholarship.

573

@Miniblue77 Thanks so much for your insight! This worries me as by senior year Ill be taking only 6 AP’s and my SAT score is only in the low-mid 1400s. Still, I’ll be working very hard to try and get recruited by them despite not really being at their academic standard.

574

@BrooklynRye I’m confused as to whether you consider Ivy kids with LLs as “recruits” — you say that they are just supported, not recruited, by NCAA rules. But then you say that students with an LL are considered recruits, just like those with NLIs.

If it’s dependent on money, then kids with Ivy LLs are not recruits, but if the criterion is the extent to which admission is pre-agreed or guaranteed, then students with Ivy LLs, nonIvy LLs, and other forms of “guarantee” would also count.

575

So I decided to try to find the official NCAA definition of a “recruited athlete.” This is from the 2017-2018 NCAA Division I Manual:

“13.02.14 Recruiting. Recruiting is any solicitation of a prospective student-athlete or a prospective student-athlete’s relatives [or guardian(s)] by an institutional staff member or by a representative of the institution’s athletics interests for the purpose of securing the prospective student-athlete’s enrollment and ultimate participation in the institution’s intercollegiate athletics program.
13.02.14.1 Recruited Prospective Student-Athlete. Actions by staff members or athletics representatives that cause a prospective student-athlete to become a recruited prospective student-athlete at that institution are:
(a) Providing the prospective student-athlete with an official visit;
(b) Having an arranged, in-person, off-campus encounter with the prospective student-athlete or the pro-
spective student-athlete’s parents, relatives or legal guardians; or
© Issuing a National Letter of Intent or the institution’s written offer of athletically related financial aid to
the prospective student-athlete.” (page 95)

The definition in the Div II Manual is the same as above, but adds a 4th condition: “Initiating or arranging a telephone contact with the prospective student-athlete, the prospective student-athlete’s relatives, guardian(s) or individual of a comparable relationship on more than one occasion for the purpose of recruitment.” (13.02.10.1, page 73)

The definition for Div III has the same (a) and (b) as Div I & II, and it includes the Div II provision regarding phone calls, but it eliminates the one on NLIs. (13.02.08.1, page 68)

So, according to the current NCAA Manual, an athlete who has arranged an in-person, off-campus meeting with a coach (e.g. a scheduled meeting to discuss recruitment at a NAC), would count as a recruited athlete at that school, regardless of whether they get an NLI, and even regardless of whether they get a guaranteed “slot” or just “support.” And Div III athletes can count as “recruited athletes” even though there are no scholarships.

576

I thought that I was clear that I believe that athletes who receive an LL or an NLI are deemed recruited athletes. Supported athletes are those athletes who do not receive either of these tangible forms of commitment. It is not dependent on money for the LL as Ivy League schools do not award athletic scholarships. My understanding with regard to the NLI is that, however token, an NLI is always accompanied by some form of scholarship.

I am aware of the NCAA definition of a “recruited athlete,” but there is a real-world difference between a recruit and one who is recruited. More fencers than those who receive tangible forms of commitment have official visits, phone contact, or otherwise receive solicitations from the athletic program. If a school flies my son in for an official visit, was he recruited? Sure he was. If he is ultimately not offered a place by the same school, is he a recruit? Of course he isn’t. Also, as I previously mentioned, the schools themselves do not recognize as recruits athletes who did not receive some form of written commitment.

Know this sounds like minutiae and over-parsing of terms, but there is a marked distinction between recruitment and support. This is very important for parents and fencers to understand. When a coach tells you that he is prepared to allot a Likely Letter, he is fully and unequivocally recruiting you for the team. When a coach tells you that she is prepared to support your admission candidacy, there is no tangible commitment other than the coach’s word that she will flag your file and/or make a pitch to admissions. The distinction is important as parents and their children determine the relative security of such offers in weighing their options.

577

I think the key takeaway from the recent back and forth about terminology is that at a certain point in the process prospective student-athetes (using the NCAA term) and their parents need to ask VERY direct questions about what level of support the fencer is receiving in terms of admission and/or scholarship dollars (for schools that can give them).

578

@SevenDad Yes, I agree, knowing precisely what the coach is offering is more important than how it’s labeled, and the key to knowing what is being offered is to ask very direct questions, since the process can vary so much from school to school.

Fencers at S’s school are provided with evidence that they are “being unequivocally recruited for the team” in a way that is more formal than just the coach’s word, but is not an LL. We explicitly asked admissions if this guaranteed acceptance, and the answer was yes. We explicitly asked the coach if he always got the fencers he wanted, and the answer to that was also yes.

I believe there are other schools where coaches can offer an “LL level” of guarantee, which may take the form of an actual letter or something else. These sorts of details may not be widely known, so as SevenDad says, students and parents should not be shy about asking exactly how the process works and exactly what the coach is offering.

579

This has been a great discussion, but I’d like to ask a slightly off-topic question. My son is a Class of 2019 fencer and has produced some strong SAT scores (mid-1500’s). For those that have been recruited to schools where SAT Subject Tests are “highly recommended”, has the school provided a LL or NLI without the Subject Tests (assuming the fencer has strong SAT scores)? Taking two subject tests would take an extra couple of months of hard work (on top of AP tests, classes and training). I’m hoping admissions will forego the “strongly recommended” requirement for a recruit.

580

@Rollhigher: If it’s about fencing recruiting, it’s not off topic! To answer your question…in the case of my daughter (NLI), she took the subject tests. Prep was not too onerous. Unless your son is planning to do a STEM major, he can just do English Lit and whatever foreign language he is taking. To me, I’d rather my kid had all the boxes checked rather than asking for an accommodation (of sorts). However, this would be a good question for the coaches of programs your son is targeting.