I’m so glad you posted this! I was just talking to my kids about these very considerations and one asked if it happens often that a recruit- specifically in a D1 college- might ever decide to quit fencing (for reasons other than the pandemic perhaps having upended things). Glad to be able to share your insight with them.
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I wouldn’t say it happens “often”, but I think my characterization of “more than you’d think” is accurate.
One of the hottest WE fencers (a late bloomer, but one who was on a bunch of NAC podiums in her final year on the circuit) in my daughter’s recruiting class never fenced a bout for the Ivy that recruited her. Had she continued fencing, there’s no doubt in my mind that she would have been a force to be reckoned with on the NCAA strips.
Part of what prompted my post was seeing a shot of the seniors on my daughter’s team…and I was like, “Wait, I thought there were X women in her frosh class?” I think they’ve lost 2 (maybe 3?) to attrition.
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I’d agree this is accurate. I think there was one fencer that dropped from the team (and NCAA fencing entirely) after one or two seasons each year at my daughter’s D1 school. The reasons varied – from just being tired of fencing and wanting to be a “normal” student to deciding to transfer to a different, non-fencing school to change majors, be closer to home etc.
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For those of you not watching at home. Perhaps distracted by the “other” big sporting event that took place yesterday, this past weekend was the Ivy League Fencing Championships. Princeton romped to the women’s title with a perfect 6-0 record. Columbia took the men’s crown at 4-0 (RIP Brown’s men’s team, and Cornell has yet to reinstate its NCAA men’s squad).
The Ivies are a launching pad into the various regional tournaments that ultimately lead to the NCAA Championships. As such, they showcase potential regionals individual participants, as well as prospective NCAA Championship berths. If I were an NCAA DV1 coach, I would be watching the Ivy Championships carefully. While it highlights the best and brightest, it also gives insight into each team’s weaknesses.
If, rather than a DV1 coach, I was a fencing parent with a fencer looking for recruitment at these schools, I would be viewing those same Achilles’ Heels as opportunities; as openings on each team into which my fencer might fit. I have advised many parents to make a table consisting of all of the NCAA fencing teams in which their fencer is interested. List the roster in your fencer’s weapon/gender for each team, including each roster member’s projected graduation date.
Reviewing your chart, ask yourself: Who is expected to graduate and leave the team in proximity to your fencer’s recruitment season? Who remains on your fencer’s gender/weapon squad? How does your fencer’s gender/weapon squad rank in terms of priority for each team to fill slots?
This can be a very productive and strategic process. From experience, it is extremely empowering to interview with a prospective recruiting coach, knowing that they desperately need a fencer in your student’s gender/weapon. With a limited number of “elite” fencers in each gender and weapon, tracking a desirable team in need of your particular combination, may provide an in with a team with which you might never have even thought you had a chance. It can also save you some time, knowing that a team in which your fencer is interested is full-up in a particularly gender/weapon (with the opposite strategy being, if you are not an “elite” fencer, your chances just got a lot, lot more improbable).
So check out the results from the Ivies (as well as from other regional equivalents). You may learn far more than you imagine.
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Interesting to note that while Cornell boasted an unbeaten duals record (including beating ND) going into Ivies this season, they only had one overall squad win this past weekend…over Brown.
I was at another duals meet this weekend and will reiterate my love of NCAA fencing events (vs. USA Fencing events). If your kid is having a bad day (or not even fencing), you can always root for his/her line…and if his/her line isn’t doing well, then you can always root for the team. Or root for that perennial reserve who finally gets his/her turn to shine. When that 13 flips over to 14 for the team you’re affiliated with…that’s a great feeling!
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As NCAA Fencing Championships event is getting close, could anyone share some knowledge about the selection criteria for the Championships? How are the top 24 fencers for each weapon selected? How is the quota allocation decided for each region (midwest, northeast, west etc)? As each college has a different schedule and fences different schools with different strength, how to determine overall win percentage for the fencers? During the event, will the other fencers (not qualifiers) from each D1 school be required to attend the event to support their teammates? And many others… Thanks a lot.
You can find much of what you seek here:
Some of the calculations require either NCAA software or a lot of work. Estimates can be pretty close.
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Agree that Ivy League looks very strong this year. Agree with looking at Rosters for those wanting to be recruited. I’d add to think about how you want to contribute to the respective team. There are some squads that were so deep that former national team members or alternates didn’t fence and possibly didn’t even suit up. Only 15 per gender could suit up at Ivy’s.
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Thanks a lot!
Thank you all so much for the helpful info in these 1900+ posts! We relied on this information as DD went through the recruiting process over the past year. I am offering our experience here as it may be helpful to others. This was her path to D3 fencing …
DD started fencing in high school on her school team. In between sophomore and junior year she began fencing at a club. When regional tournaments started back up after covid closures (mid-way through junior year), she started competing regionally, and went to JOs and SNs last year. At some point during junior year, while looking at colleges, she realized it would be really fun to be on an NCAA team. She began looking in depth at D3s, particularly the LACs. She emailed and zoomed with coaches, met in person at JO/SN last summer, did pre-reads and visited campus. In her experience, the coaches were happy to support her if her grades/scores were high enough (i.e., based on the pre-read), despite the fact that she was unrated. The academic expectations of some of the liberal arts school are so high that they cannot fill their rosters with recruits. Some schools are training walk-ons who have not fenced before college. These schools were excited to have a fencer with team experience, national tournament experience AND who can make the academic cut.
I provide this information with the caveats that maybe it is just her weapon, maybe the weird covid schedules had an impact on this, and maybe it is just for the five schools she looked at most closely. But my takeaways were (1) a really smart kid with great grades/scores and an average fencing record can fence D3; and (2) said kid can use the coach support during early decision to make a reach school with a low admissions rate (some of the D3s are reaches for everyone, even the “average excellent”) a safety school during early decision.
My DD is thrilled to be heading off to compete D3 next year at a school that is a great academic/social-emotional fit for her. Thank you to all who posted on here and helped us through this process!
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This is a wonderful post and great addition to the data pile. Your post is particularly important because it highlights circumstances that often get pushed to the side. First, DV1 NCAA fencing is not the only way to continue to train and compete as a fencer. Second, there are opportunities for lesser-ranked or less competitive fencers to continue competing at an NCAA (or at a club level), without being recruited by a DV1. Third, D3 schools are most often very competitive, highly-ranked colleges and universities. As you point out, they also play to the strengths of strong students who may not be as highly ranked/competitive when it comes to fencing. Very happy for you and your fencer’s successful process. Thank you for sharing!
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To emphasize what @helmut said about the Ivy’s (which applies more generally): there are pros/cons to consider when thinking about team size. On the plus side of a larger team: there are lots of people to train with and the team can be strong even if a player is sidelined with an injury (among other things). On a smaller squad, there are fewer people to train with but each one gets to compete a lot (which can be a pro or a con depending on what you want!).
Overall my sense this season from the kids is happiness that they are getting to compete in a full season (positive tests aside … let’s all keep fingers crossed that things continue to look more optimistic).
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I can also add a data point I know about high academic fencer going to D3. She is a B rated fencer with some D2 medals at National Championships. She didn’t attempt to be recruited at any schools because she thought no chance for B rated fencers to be recruited anywhere. In the end she applied MIT EA anyway without having any coach contact. By chance she sent coach an email expressing willingness to fence for MIT after her EA application was already submitted, and received a surprising reply from the coach offering letter of support of her admission. She eventually got in EA and will fencer for MIT coming fall.
The recruiting process for D3 is definitely different, and because the requirements on academic is so high, chance for lower rated fencers to continue college fencing is realistic if they have strong academic record.
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New member here – thank you everybody for the incredible information in this thread.
Apologies resurrecting an older post, but I understand that USFCA rules dictate that a fencer competing under a different flag at an FIE sanctioned event is automatically barred for 3 years from competing at USFCA national level events.
Would this have a detrimental effect for a Junior fencer in this situation when speaking with college fencing coaches? I am unclear about the relationship between the NCAA and the USFCA.
I belatedly realized that the College Confidential Discourse forums do not have the “post editing” function enabled, so I apologize for the quick follow-on post.
In an attempt to answer my own question, I noticed that many squads have fencers with FIE/foreign rankings, but was unsure if this also covered dual citizens who chose to compete as Juniors under a different flag.
I also came cross this informative post on FencingParents that tries to dig into the topic of dual citizenships and USFA rules, but with only a tangential reference to college recruitment.
I don’t think this comes into play at all in college fencing. People fence for their schools, not their countries. There are plenty of international fencers at Div I and Div III schools, as you point out, and some of them were recruited; I don’t see why dual nationality would be different. Some college fencers compete nationally and internationally, many do not. But anecdotally, I believe that some do fence at NCAA and represent non-US countries at international events.
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I agree with this.
Also did the OP mean USFA or USFCA?
USFCA is the fencing coaches association.
There are regularly a large amount of fencers, on just about every NCAA team, that are from countries outside the US. Many of these fencers regularly fence for other countries. At least several are dual citizens. The general rule is that teams do not where their national colors at NCAA events. This even goes to the American flag symbol popular on fencing masks, e.g., all white masks at NCAA National Championships.
Thank you for the replies. Glad to know that, even if this were even a remote possibility, that it wouldn’t negatively impact recruitment.
Apologies, that was a typo on my part – I meant USFA.
I hope I can bounce off this thread to ask a question. My 2023 DS received a verbal offer at a D1 school (not Ivy) and when the coach asked him (in December) when he might be able to give them an answer, he said “March.” But (to your post) he is now questioning what kind of fencing experience he wants to have in college, which is extremely affecting his ability to make a decision. What are his options here? Can he ask for more time to give his reply? Does that jeopardize anything? And what if he verbally commits and then over the summer has second thoughts? Thanks-