<p>@Periwinkle: Thanks for the link and info…</p>
<p>Again, I’m surprised that so few of the top-tier NE schools offer it on a varsity/interscholastic basis. I mean, how are supposed to forget the damn foils on the subway if they don’t offer fencing at your school?</p>
<p>SevenDad, fencing’s a great sport. It’s entertaining to watch, although I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand the scoring.</p>
<p>I know many more families whose children have tried out fencing, than ever tried it when I was a child. I think part of the problem could be an under-supply of coaches? It’s a sport which requires a fair amount of expert knowledge. I could coach a recreational soccer team (badly.) “Here’s the ball. Kick it to each other. There’s the goal. Be nice.” I couldn’t coach fencing. It’s very technical. It isn’t as simple as, “Here’s a piece of metal. There’s your opponent. Score lots of points but don’t kill him.” </p>
<p>Maybe, with time, enough job applicants to prep schools will have fenced in college, and will be able to coach fencing and teach geometry. If parents start putting it on their “nice to have” or “must have” list, I predict interscholastic fencing will grow. However, schools can’t keep adding sports to their lists. To make space for a new sport, resources must be diverted from an existing sport. </p>
<p>I don’t know enough about fencing, to know if it would fit into the sports regimen at prep schools. Is it a year-round sport, or could a boy spend a year rotating through soccer–fencing–cross country? Would it draw students who might otherwise play squash?</p>
<p>I’m actually surprised more schools don’t have fencing. It’s a very intellectual, strategy based sport but also very finicky when it comes to form. My son loved it, but he was youngish when he did it. Teachers are very hard to find and often very expensive.</p>
<p>@neatoburrito & Periwinkle: We are lucky to have a few good training facilities for the sport here in NJ…including one of the largest in the country. Additionally, it’s a varsity sport in many public high schools.</p>
<p>In one of our new year’s resolution jags, we signed the girls up this past winter and they seemed to like it/have some aptitude. We’ve never been a sporty family (no soccer, lax, or hockey — field or ice), but I wanted the kids to have a sport/organized physical activity. And now even I take lessons. And as I note to them…there are tons of soccer players out there, but not too many fencers.</p>
<p>Fencing was definitely not a sport in my consideration set when I was growing up. For me, it always seemed this mythical prep school thing (hence my reference to Holden Caulfield’s “foils on the subway”). The costs are not as bad as you might think…a couple of hundred once you get into electric gear…but I’ve spent (some would say wasted) much more than that on a set of golf clubs for myself.</p>
<p>I think it’s a winter sport in the high schools. There are intra-club and inter-club tournaments throughout the year and the nationals are in the Summer. I think it uses many of the same muscles as squash (lunges and such), but I don’t know if the seasons overlap.</p>
<p>Hopefully more NE schools will elevate the sport above the club level in future years.</p>
<p>I know the Dana Hall School in MA has a fencing studio. They have boarding there too.</p>
<p>@Ephant: Thanks for that info…for some reason, I thought Dana Hall was a day school.</p>
<p>The Masters School has won the ISFL Championship 6 years in a row (Independent School Fencing League). It’s proximity to NYC also allows the Class-A and B fencers to fence on weekends at some of the best fencing clubs in the country throughout the school-year. The two graduates from 2010 that I know of went to Duke and Cornell to fence. It’s one of the best in-house programs at a boarding school that I know of in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic area. They even had an alum in the 96 olympics.</p>
<p>Dana Hall is a girls school with 134 boarding and 226 day students (from website), so a minority of boarders (and some of those live in the greater Boston area and so can go home often, but the ones who stay on campus seem to do fun things). It’s got a beautiful fencing studio. I like the school a lot, many of my daughter’s friends go there.</p>