My D, who is currently a HS junior (entering college in 2022), just committed to an Ivy program. She is very happy, and we are all grateful and relieved. Not sure if it is typical timing for Ivy’s to recruit this early or if affected by Covid. I also heard from the grapevine that several other kids have committed and some programs may already have finished recruiting for 2022. Does anyone know which programs may still be recruiting vs finished? My D’s clubmates’ parents (for mostly boys) have been asking and it may be helpful for them to know before deciding how big of a net to cast. Thank you.
Although @superdomestique and I have gone back and forth on this, I know from firsthand experience that recruiting can be as early the summer prior to junior year in high school. In my son’s recruiting year, 1 of his friends committed to a top Ivy program in July-August prior to the start of his junior year. Another by October. My son also committed to an Ivy early, September-October of his junior year. Understanding that these are mutual good faith commitments, not officially binding recruitments, you are in great shape. Congratulations! @SevenDad may have a better sense of which programs may have completed recruiting. Although recruitment can start super-early, it is unusual for a school to fill all of its slots that early. There are always those recruits, including some very top ones, who take their time in the process. Also, it remains to be fully seen how COVID, e.g., gap years, impact the recruiting process.
superdomestique- I have been lurking in these threads reading BrooklynRye and SevenDad and other. I read a few of your posts that I have a few questions about your fencing recruitment process, how can I DM you?
“Federal prosecutors in Boston said that Peter Brand, the former coach, accepted more than $1.5 million in bribes from Jie “Jack” Zhao in exchange for helping his sons get into Harvard by recruiting them to the men’s fencing team.”
@daddycaddy thanks for sharing. Here’s another one:
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Its amazing the the Atlantic reporter who wrote the article last month about niche sports (since retracted) failed to mention all the Harvard fencing coach/bribery drama.
The Peter Brand story is salacious and sensationalistic with so many verifiable facts…
The younger son, Ed Zhao, is still listed on the Harvard fencing roster. Wonder if Harvard will do anything or let him off the hook. With all these corruption cases, lawyers always say that the kids were left in the dark and ignorant. His best record was NAC top 32 (maybe cadet) when many of his teammates are Olympians or USA team members.
If you don’t mind my asking, is your D very high in the points rankings? She is lucky to have been recruited so early and congratulations to your family
Thank you. From this forum, someone said Ivy fencing recruitment usually requires both: top 32 Junior National Ranking and within top 10 of the birth year for that weapon. My D meets this and is within top 5 of her birth year for Cdt, Jr, and Sr. I think each program may also look for certain elements or chemistry that would be a good fit for the team. Luckily, I had all of her NAC bouts on HD/4K video so I was able to make a very informative video collection. My D heard that the coaches spent their time analyzing her video before finalizing their decision. With Covid, video may be more important than ever before.
Congrats @RYNAKEL on your D’s accomplishments. Might I ask how early you started reaching out to colleges and when you started communicating with coaches your D’s interest? My D is only a freshman but has indicated she would like to fence collegiately. As a Y14 fencer she is consistently ranked in the top 5, and is also on the Cdt & Jr. points list but unfortunately with NAC’s up in the air as well as Summer Nationals it is going to be very difficult to see how the next year or two will go and how to best guide her thru this process if it will be difficult to get the points to materialize (due to lack of competitions)
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Thank you @roseleafmom. We were late. Apparently, many started reaching out from the first week of June right after the sophomore year. Not sure if the rules changed this year. My D found out from her interview in October that these talks had been ongoing since June and most recruitment slots had already been filled/committed. She was lucky to find her weapon slot still open.
As the senior members like @BrooklynRye have been saying here all along, it all starts in the summer between HS sophomore and junior year. Maybe not for all the programs, but for highly sought after slots like the Ivy’s, it starts in the summer BEFORE the HS junior. So, I would recommend that you start early especially if your D/S is near the top of their birth year. Also, take good quality video of all the bouts so you have plenty to choose from.
They say Feb ‘21 for the first NAC after Covid, but we never know for sure. Winter is coming. With Covid, I suspect if more kids committed earlier than usual. Hopefully, NAC’s will resume some time next year, and your D would have a whole year of competitions before her junior year starts.
Slight qualification to the early Ivy League recruiting. While parents can attempt contact with coaches, it is ultimately the coach who will make definitive contact. The sophmore-summer into junior year is more a measure for elite recruits. If a prospective recruit is not in that year’s top 10 recruiting class, with significant points in upper age divisions, it is unlikely that he/she will be a super-early recruit.
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Dead period extended again - this time through April 15th.
An article in today’s Harvard Crimson describes how the roster size of most varsity sports has been adversely affected.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/11/20/athletes-roster-leave/
Happened to just read a piece of this. I don’t know fencing at all (though I did watch the world championships by chance in Paris one year when an American woman won the sabre), but I do know athletic recruiting.
First, the presumption is against Zhou given what the father and coach did with the transparent gift that passed between them via the fraudulent house purchase - and the IRS will be after Zhou for not paying a gift tax here too. I can’t imagine a defense to that. So you don’t have to worry about “smoking gun” evidence.
Second, as to the UPenn basketball recruit situation, the player was not “good” by college standards, and wouldn’t even be able to walk on . Indeed, he never played a minute and it was clear from the first practice he didn’t belong.
Third, whether the gift went directly to the coach or to the school does not matter if the player was fraudulently recruited. Stanford’s sailing coach had to resign for taking compensation for advocating recruits (confusing story), and the money went to the sailing program. That still is bribery - it is depriving the University of the honest services of the coach. (And don’t think the coach didn’t get indirect benefit as part of the job of these non revenue sports is to fund raise for their programs, but in a legitimate way, not by selling slots).
Finally, its a myth you bring in one athlete at an Ivy to raise the stats of the others; they have to meet the academic index.
There is more to it than suggested in the article. For the squash teams, the top players are mainly foreign (there were threats of visa issues by Trump early on if it was remote learning) and they are all basically at the pro level. Consequently, they can stay in their countries and continue to practice and play, where at Harvard they could not. Rowing is similar, though there is no pro career ahead, the next cycle of Olympics looms, and frankly it is tough to train on an eight without teammates. Many want to come back and compete in the IRA’s as a boat.
So I think like above, other factors come in to play when making that decision.
Congratulations to you and your daughter. Can you tell me what weapon she fences?
The court of public opinion and college confidential aside, the presumption in a criminal proceeding is never against the accused. To the contrary, Zhou is presumed innocent until proved guilty. While on its face, the purchase of Brand’s home smells fishy, Zhou would not be the first person to overpay for something he passionately wanted. In my own recent experience, I have a close friend who was dying to purchase a lake house in a specific location. He even boiled it down to one house. The house wasn’t even for sale. He went in to the homeowner and offered him double what the average sale prices in the community was at the time. Not a bribe. Nothing untoward. Do I believe that is the case in the Zhou-Brand matter? Absolutely not, but the prosecution will have to prove that.
I am very curious as to the basis for your absolute statement that the recruitment of athletes with higher AI to compensate for a recruit with a lower AI is a “myth”. In my personal experience, including many cases, this is clearly done at Ivies. The disparity between the average AI accepted at an Ivy and that of the less-academic recruit will be much, much less than perhaps at a non-Ivy, but there is no question that Ivies recruit top fencers with less competitive AI and compensate by recruiting less competitive fencers with much higher AI. In fact, there are even built-in systems at Ivies in anticipation of such circumstances. For example, Penn has a mandatory tutoring/study hall program for recruits with less competitive AI.
Yes, “beyond a reasonable doubt” is the criminal standard, which studies have shown to be around the 90% certainty level. Citing an emotional purchase from an unwilling seller of a unique property hardly corresponds to this admitted “investment” “unseen” purchase. I think there will be little trouble convincing a jury given the fact circumstances.
Making an absolute state,ent of course is wrong and too dangerous but I believe it is generally true. We shall see the fact base here if it goes to trial. My statement is based on fencing and other select sports AI’s are used to offset the AI’s of the helmet sports, so they are required to have high AI’s, in my belief. It’s not hard to find top athletes in these niche non revenue sports that are star academic performers as well. And I do know in these sports they are required (would an exception be made for the very best, perhaps). The tutoring required is to make sure the students can perform successfully in the classroom.
PSA: in case you missed it, this was in my email inbox today (I know nothing about it, just wanted to make sure folks saw it since if you are anything like me, you might not always pay attention to these kinds of emails):
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