Best Fencing Colleges

[RF]

This thread is frustrating. It all depends on what you want to get out of your fencing. If education is your priority pick a school based on that and then fence where ever the opportunity presents itself, either club or team. If you are serious about fencing and wish to improve your ability you have two choices, neither of which will compromise your academics. 1 go to a school that is located near a major fencing center (New York, San Francisco, LA). From there you can attend one of the local clubs. 2, and the option I prefer, is to attend a school with a successful fencing team. This is a relatively small group of schools that train their fencers to be competitive and do not have a large number of beginners on the team. Penn State, Ohio State, Stanford, Notre Dame, and St. John's are the top group followed by schools like Columbia, NYU, Brandeis, Rutgers, Duke, UNC, etc... After that there is a pretty significant drop off.

One of the other posts suggested the club teams, and while they are better than some varsity programs, they are nowhere near the top tier schools. At best, they may fit into the Second Tier group. That would include Northwestern, but probably not Florida, and I have never seen anyone from UMass Amherst, so I don't know where they would fit.

If you are interested in a school send the coach a letter telling him or her about yourself, both athletically and academically. Describe your interest in their program and express the desire to learn more. If you are eligible to be recruited (based on NCAA regulations) you should receive a letter or phone call back and you can start a dialogue. From there it's up to you to weigh all your options and make the best decision.

[U.M.Amherst.Sabre95]

There are any number of colleges out there that provide fencing as a recreational or competative option, if not both.

From a competative standpoint, it's entirely up to the potential student in determining his or her goals as they relate to the sports, academics, and other extracurriculars.

I never picked up a weapon until I came to UMass, that decision in large part having to do with my goal of playing mens's soccer for the University. But also factoring into my decision was my interest in their Political Science Department, as well as the multitude of extracurriculars offered through such a large institution.

But I picked up fencing through a P.E. class and subsequently joined the club, going through the novice program and eventually moving up the varsity ladder. This was some ten years ago mind you, but even then we competed (as a club) against both varsity and non-varisty competition. At the time it was our goal to be the best club team in New England, and after achieving that measure of success we set our sights on being the best team in New England, club or varsity.

In many ways the proximity to well-organized USFA clubs helped offer increased opportunity for competition and training, but arguably fewer people took advantage of it when compared to the current crop of UMass fencers. It also helped having any number of organized collegiate clubs or varisty teams willing to engage in competition.

For example, the following is a breakdown of the intercollegiate opposition UMass has faced over the course of the 2002-2003 season:

UMass Women

Tufts (varsity)
Boston College (varsity)
Harvard (varsity)
Wellesley (varsity)
Vassar (varsity)
Sacred Heart (varsity)
Farleigh Dickinson University (varsity)
Drew (varsity)
Brown (varsity)
MIT (varsity)
Brandeis (varsity)
CCNY (varsity)
Dartmouth (club)
University of New Hampshire (club)
Marist (club)
Smith (club)
United States Military Academy (club)
Boston University (club)

UMass Men

Boston College (varsity)
Harvard (varsity)
Vassar (varsity)
Sacred Heart (varsity)
Johns Hopkins University (varsity)
Brown (varsity)
MIT (varsity)
Brandeis (varsity)
Tufts (club)
Dartmouth (club)
University of New Hampshire (club)
Marist (club)
Worcester Poly. Tech. (club)
Boston University (club)

Of these schools, varsity programs such as Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Brown, Johns Hopkins, and Brandeis are nationally ranked or have received votes for as such.

So you pretty much have a crop of "home grown" fencers being developed at UMass... some coming in with previous experience, who competed intercollegiately against a mix of varisty and club competition, a majority of which is against the former. Of these varisty programs, some of them are arguably in the top ten to twenty such programs in the country.

On top of this there also opportunity for competition in numerous USFA events attracting a wide variety of competition, from smaller regional events, to larger ones that draw some of the top-ranked (USFA) competitors in the country.

But, if you fence for UMass you won't be able to compete in the IFA's, NCAA Regionals, or the NCAA Championships, simply because the sport at UMass does not enjoy varisty status. That being said, they will be sending squads to the National Collegiate Club Championships.

Just depends on your preferences.

Evan

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by U.M.Amherst.Sabre95
That being said, they will be sending squads to the National Collegiate Club Championships.

It should be noted that this is the first year that collegiate club nationals is being held. It is being held at U Florida Gainsville this year, but will move around in future, and will hopefully be held in the northeast (probably @ Smith) next year. In addition, just to clarify: when Evan says we will be "sending squads", he means we will be sending a full team.

-m

[U.M.Amherst.Sabre95]

Exactly.

So it goes to show that there are competative collegiate options outside of the varisty ranks.

[Gibo]

It is a great deal of fun to beat a varsity team that recruits fencers, has a large team, and gets a ton of money (relatively) when you're a team that trained most of its fencers from beginners, has about 18 fencers, and gets nothing from the school aside from some transportation money.

William and Mary (where I fence) finished second in MACFA last year, defeating four or five varsity teams, finishing behind Drew. We won the epee, defeating such notables as Johns Hopkins, Army, and Cornell (along with the aforementioned Drew).

I would go out and say that if you want a really top-notch fencing experience, where you get to fence with a bunch of people who've been fencing for a long time, where you have multiple coaches, and don't have to worry about equipment, then you'd probably be happier at a varsity level. But if you want to be on a competitive team and have a lot of fun fencing, a number of clubs teams can oblige you. I would definately make sure and see if the team has a coach or not though. Having a coach and not relying on grad students and seniors to teach everyone helps a LOT. While fencing itself might not help you get into schools like W&M, unusual activities like fencing make your application stand out. I know, because I wrote an essay about it and got an email from the dean of admissions about it

[DamedEscrime]

NOTRE DAME NOTRE DAME NOTRE DAME
enough said!

[SFfencer]

There are colleges on the west coast too.

The Northern California Collegiate Fencing League includes

Cal State Bakersfield
Cal State Chico
Cal State Montery Bay
California State Polytechnic San Luis Obsipo
Foothill-De Anza Community College
Santa Rosa Juinor College
Truckee Meadows Community College (Nev)
University of California - Berkeley
University of California - Davis
University of California - Irvine (S Cal)
University of California - Los Angeles (S Cal)
University of California - Santa Barbara
University of California - Santa Cruz
University of Reno (Nev)
University of Southern California (S Cal)

and the
Intercollegiate Fencing Conference of Southern California

USC
UCI
Cal Tech
UCLA
UCSD
UCSB
Cal State Fullerton
ASU (arizona)

and there are other Colleges like

City College of San Francisco
San Jose State

[noodle]

talk about rehashing an old thread
(go clemson university fencing)

[AndrewH]

Um... go RU.




Woo.

[sabreman]

Back before Title 9 Clemson, UMD and NC State all had top 10 NCAA men's programs. All these programs were dropped back in the early 1980s. Now only UNC and Duke have teams in the ACC. Duke was absolutely horrible back then. Sorry forgot BC is now a member of the ACC.

[Addicted]

James Madison Univeristy. Fur sure. Whoop-whoop!

[la_riposte87]

Note that when you're picking a school for good fencing to consider that although many programs recruit top junior fencers many of these fencers can often get away with not coming to practice (or coming and just taking a lesson then leaving), meaning that you don't necessarily get to train them.

Find out at which schools practice is taken seriously and at which schools the top fencers mainly fence at their nearby club rather than attend practice. Find out what a typical meet schedule is for your school, find out what practice is like.

Does you school meet with all the other top 10 programs? If your school attends a small number of meets and has a lot of good fencers, are you going to get a significant amount of strip time?

So, take a look at so-called "Tier 1" and "Tier 2" schools and be sure to consider what the school's going to be like outside of fencing.

[la_riposte87]

Also, I forgot... take a look at US News and World Report's College Guide, see how the good fencing schools stack up academically. It's kinda important.

[KD5MDK]

Holy Thread Necrophilia Batman!

[whtouche]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

Holy Thread Necrophilia Batman!

Haha, seriously. I read the thread about halfway down before I caught on. I finally came across a517dogg's post saying he goes to brown and loves it, and was about to reply with "I thought you graduated like 2 years ago" then I looked at the dates on the posts.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

Holy Thread Necrophilia Batman!

The best part is this post from two years ago:

Originally Posted by noodle

talk about rehashing an old thread
(go clemson university fencing)

-B

[fencerbill]

The sad part of reviving such an old thread is the reinforcement that Rutgers has dropped fencing. How many others?

[bunbury]

Originally Posted by la_riposte87

Also, I forgot... take a look at US News and World Report's College Guide, see how the good fencing schools stack up academically. It's kinda important.

I love people who actually use that crap ranking.

http://www.arwu.org/rank/2007/ARWU2007TOP500list.htm if you want a ranking where the amount of money the alumni donate isn't a factor in the formula.

[bigdawg2121]

Phewww, for a second I thought you were implying that that ranking was less crappy. Then I read through some of the rankings and realized that you were just referring to the alumni giving.

[wahrman]

21st in the world?! We were robbed I tells ya.

Originally Posted by bunbury

I love people who actually use that crap ranking.

http://www.arwu.org/rank/2007/ARWU2007TOP500list.htm if you want a ranking where the amount of money the alumni donate isn't a factor in the formula.