ihs76

I read/heard that the fencing team at Caltech is the only competitive sports team on campus. Is that true? DS is a fencer very interested in Caltech.

With the cutbacks at various schools, we are worried about the future of some of these niche sports teams but maybe they'd be less likely to cut back on the fencing team? Small matter of first getting admitted, I know

Batllo

What are your kid's SATs, SATIIs?

ihs76

I don't want to publish his numbers without his permission, but they are/should be at least average for CalTech (hard to be above an 800 average).

My question was more about the fencing team, and its place in the social/athletic fabric of CalTech life. He'd go to CalTech even if there was no fencing, but it is a big part of his life, so, were he so fortunate as to be accepted, it'd be nice to know that it's not likely to evaporate in a year or two due to funding cuts.

Batllo

Hard to predict what budget cuts will be made by colleges.
Have your son email the fencing coach once school starts and inquire.

lizzardfire

Caltech actually hasn't been suffering that much from the budget cuts--much less than other schools. I haven't heard of any sports being cut. My roommate is on the fencing team, so I'm pretty sure I'd hear about anything related to that...

ihs76

^^ Is it true that the fencing team is the only non losing team, or least a team that wins with some regularity, amongst all the sports teams?

oaklandmom

ihs, my son's on the fencing team. Feel free to pm me if your son would like to contact my son with his questions about fencing at Caltech(or anything else about his experience at Caltech). However, it is Caltech, my son only fenced high school for one semester of P.E. and didn't fence again until his junior year at Caltech then was invited to join the fencing team. I did meet the coaches briefly last year when some of the team (including my son) were fencing at the Western Regionals at Stanford(I'm still clueless as to how my son made it to the Western Regionals after fencing for less than a year - maybe great coaches? a fluke of the rating system?). The coaches were great(but then again, I don't really consider myself a fencing mom since my son only started competitive fencing last year so I don't know anything about fencing coaches except the Caltech coaches are really nice people).