@Corraleno : no disagreement here. College recruiting experience, especially timing, will depend on the Year, college, coach, weapon, gender, fencer, in no particular order.
You make an outstanding point about potential scholarship or financial aid as a critical factor in the timing for some.
In addition, certain colleges, or at least their coaches, are not in a position to be able to make early commitments, even informal ones. This seems to be true, especially on the far West Coast.
@SaberJR, we went through this last year as well. You definitely need to be pro-active. Yes, there are college coaches reaching out to club coaches, but you need to broadcast interest. I think DS was #3 or 4 in his graduating year. He didn’t hear back from a single ‘on-line recruiting form’ submission and resorted to direct email around Winter Break.
Re Maturity and independence, he usually showed me the emails before sending. I went to the meetings but let kid take the lead and only chimed in when I had legitimate questions.
By Summer NAC it was a handshake and letting the other schools know so they could move on.
FYI, Saber seems to be in demand. 'not sure why, but I hear about Ivies fighting over Saber recruits more than other weapons. 'could just be rumors though.
Good Luck!
Oh Gawd, it was already 2 years ago. Feels like yesterday
Recently, I received a few questions from a fellow parent that I think prospective families would appreciate seeing, along with my responses. I realize that there is some risk in me giving hard numbers (even a range) for recruitment opportunities, and I’m totally open to being shot down/corrected. I figured that at the very worst, we could have a constructive dialog about the topic. The questions were edited slightly for clarity.
While I appreciate the desire for some hard numbers or even estimates, this is a very tough question to answer.
Part of the challenge is defining what “recruited” means. The most definite sense of the word would be being offered an NLI or LL or one of the equivalents like the Stanford “pink envelope”. In these cases, assuming academic thresholds are met and no injuries or discipline problems arise, the prospect is a presumed admit. Then there is the system of “slots and tips” that I’ve heard about for some Div3 schools (for other sports), where a slot carries weight of an LL and a tip is a recommendation, but less sure. And then there are coaches letters of support, which seem to vary on a program by program basis in terms of the degree of influence it has on admissions.
But since I know that people want numbers, not my equivocating, given that there are 40+ NCAA fencing teams across all three divisions (I, II, and III) and the assumption that not all weapons/genders will have an LL or slot in every year, I think it’s safe to say that there are 15-25 available roster positions per weapon/gender in a given year that get some degree of coach support.
This number is going to ebb and flow from year to year as needs change for various schools. I kept pretty good track of the Class of 2022 WE and those numbers seem to match up with what I see on rosters. Again, I am making some assumptions on just how much support various people received.
Again, I think a lot is going to depend on how you define “recruited”. If we rephrase the question to “Is it possible to make an NCAA fencing team without being on the Junior National Rolling points list?” the answer is a definite “Yes”. In the group of fencers I am most familiar with, I count at least 6 people who were not the points list — including one who saw significant strip time for an Ivy. I don’t know how many were walk-ons vs. recipients of LLs/LL-equivalents (or something in-between).
Obviously, being on the points list (and the higher, the better) helps make a case to college coaches that you’d be a good addition to their squad. But keep in mind that you are only competing against your own graduating class, so you can be in the high 30/low 40s on the NRPS and still be within the top 10 of a graduating class.
Another possibility are international fencers who don’t fence in USFA competitions. This past year, Northwestern had a freshman WE from Poland who was ranked #12 on the FIE Junior points list, but was not on the US points list. She’s an excellent fencer, and qualified for the NCAA Championships.
For those looking at recruitment specifically matriculating in Fall 2019 (Class of 2023), an interesting wrinkle to consider unique to this recruiting year – There are several top fencers at the most competitive programs that will take a gap year to compete for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. This may leave top teams short in certain gender/weapons. By my count there are at least 3 top epeeists, 2 top foilists, and a couple of sabreists, at a minimum, who will take off the 2019-2020 NCAA season. Research these as you head into Columbus for final coach recruiting meetings. You may have more leverage than you think.
Correction: Looking at matriculation in Fall 2020 (Class of 2024). The reason this occurred to me was due to the uncertainty of actual returning fencers.
@BrooklynRye If they’re taking the 19-20 year off, wouldn’t this benefit those looking for entrance in this coming year, not 20-21?
Yup. My bad. Losing track of recruiting time. The only potential value lies in fencers who opt not to return to Ncaa fencing in 2020-2021.
The other potential impact would be that a small number of extremely strong college fencers will graduate one or two years after their original class. This could have an impact on recruiting classes after the Olympic qualifying year.
Good point @“helmut?” There are always questions about returning fencers as well. Some are already disenchanted with undergrad and/or with NCAA fencing. Others will view either missing or making 2020 as a sign they should devote full time to making 2024. All kinds of permutations, but I am willing to bet that not all of those taking off from college to compete for 2020 will return to college.
For those of us who follow Ancient Epee’s annual “Unverifiable Rumors and Dubious Gossip” data relating to collegiate acceptances at NCAA fencing program schools, it is heartening to see a wealth of team slots, clearly not limited to A-rated fencers. First, however, some important caveats: (i) Not all listed fencers are official recruits. Some may just be reporting admission. There is also no guarantee that each fencer will be an active combatant, let alone a starter; (ii) Assessing international fencer rankings can be difficult, so leaving these to the side, (iii) the list is not etched in stone or necessarily exhaustive. Not everyone reports, people change their mind, etc., and (iv) for the most part we are not talking about the most competitive programs. With few exceptions, sub-A rated fencers fell outside of the Ivy and most competitive Big Box schools.
With this said, upwards of 1/3 of fencers reporting school commitments have a rating of “B” or less. This includes a healthy amount of “C” rated fencers and even a few Unrated ones. Notably, there are at least 3 sub-A’s reporting admission to Ivies, including 2 to Brown and 1 to Yale. There is even a sub-A at Notre Dame!
It will be interesting, come the fall when teams announce their official 2019-2020 rosters (with some ID’ing official recruits), to revisit this rough data.
Typically fencers added to Ancient Epee’s list this late got in RD, and without being recruits. This list shows where this class of fencers are attending school. Not all were recruited or intend to fence in college.
That being said I know the new WE on the list at Northwestern and Notre Dame intend to fence. Happy for them.
Thank you for confirming all I wrote in my last post. As I noted at the end of that post, it will be interesting to identify the official recruits as each team makes its announcements for 2019-2020.
Of particular interest of high school fencers entering junior year this fall. The NCAA just changed the off-campus contact rule, so now after 8/1 of the summer before JUNIOR year, coaches and athletes may meet off-campus.
The prior rule limited off-campus contact to after 7/1 before SENIOR year.
This may change the dynamic regarding a long tradition of student/coach meetings at summer nationals for rising seniors. Many collegiate coaches go to certain NACs each year (especially the Jan NAC and JOs), so it is now permitted for coach/athlete meetings during those events in junior year. Whether coaches will want to start meeting with athletes at these earlier events remains to be seen.
These rules apply only to Division I schools, Div II and III are not affected.
http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/di-council-adopts-rules-curb-early-recruiting
With the NCAA D1 changes, when do you think a fencer at/near the top of their weapon and year would need to have SAT or ACT scores?
@picklish - Speaking from recent experience, but prior to this rule change, the game for top fencers was to study for the standardized test the summer of sophomore year and take the test for the first time in the fall of junior year. The goal is to allow for academic pre-reads for top recruits to allow for early commitments. Since coaches could always have at least indirect contact with recruits and during unofficial, on-campus visits, not sure whether the rule change alters this test-taking protocol. Also, there is a question of resources and focus in turning recruiting attention to the succeeding class prior to confirming the immediate one. Since there are often math components in junior/senior year that are at least partially represented on the tests, I would not take the test too early.
Regarding SATs my comments would be for any college-bound student, not just a prospective recruit. It can be valuable for a student to take a real SAT on the earlier side, ideally summer before junior year, for a few reasons (most of these are known, I’m not saying anything uniquely profound). 1 Studying during the summer doesn’t compete with other courses; 2. There is less pressure, because there is plenty of time to retake the test (although the flip side, depending on the student, is that they may not take it seriously :-); 3. taking a real test is different from practice ones and having that experience once can make a retake much easier (if things go well, of course, not retake would be necessary); 4. The point raised about whether the student has the necessary math is valid, but it can vary a lot, and many students either have had the math, or don’t find it too much of a challenge to learn while SAT studying. All that said, I would also note that if a student has a strong academic record (GPA, high level courses, etc.) having the SAT scores in hand are not always necessary for recruiting discussions.
Most kids take the PSAT in October of Junior year, and that would provide a reasonable predictor of SAT scores if the student hadn’t taken the SAT or ACT yet. And students can even take the PSAT in 10th grade for practice. My son didn’t have ACT scores yet when he did an unofficial visit to his first choice school, so he told them what he expected to get based on multiple practice tests taken under timed conditions, and they could tell from his other academic stats that he was likely to hit those scores (which he did).
Public Service Announcement!
With the advent of admissions fees for tournament spectators, many fencing parents have become supporting members, which means you get to vote for the USA fencing board of directors and hall of fame. Also fencers 18 and up can vote. Voting ends this Wednesday, May 29 so look for an email from USA fencing about this in your inbox.
Yale has announced its new head coach.
http://www.yalebulldogs.com/general/2018-19/releases/20190531djqohm