Ivy League universities – Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Penn and Cornell – are the most competitive in the world.
In 2024, 14 per cent of Oxford applicants and more than 20 per cent of those applying to Cambridge received offers, compared to just 4 per cent for the Ivy League colleges.
But, there is a chink of hope for those hoping to crack the rigorous Ivy League admission process. It is well known that being a star on the (American) football field can be a route into a top university – but as a mainstream sport, the football route is hugely competitive. At Ivy League universities (or ‘Ivies’), less common young person sports such as rowing, fencing golf and tennis are highly regarded and can be a way to impress the admissions team.
Spear’s speaks to an in-the-know expert to discover how your child could fence their way to a top-tier university.
[See also: How to get your child into an Ivy League university]
Why do Ivy League schools want to recruit athletes?
Adam Nguyen, founder and CEO of Ivy Link, is a former admissions reader and interviewer at Columbia University and is one of the leading advisers to families and students on strategies to increase their chances of admission to Ivy League universities.
‘There is a myth among parents, especially those coming from outside of the US, that the Ivies are completely based on merit,’ Nguyen tells Spear’s. ‘But in fact, a significant portion of the class is made of students that receive some sort of preference.’ This includes being a child of an Ivy League alumnus (legacy student) or being a standout athlete.
Content from our partners
[See also: Padel: the fast-growing racket sport becoming a popular setting for networking]
‘Recruited athletes can get accepted with much lower scores and grades than others,’ Nguyen says. Admission rates for recruited athletes range from 70 to 90 per cent, making them 20 times more likely to get into one of these elite institutions, he says.
The Harvard Crimson reported that the admitted class of 2025 is made up of over 10 per cent of recruited athletes.
There are several reasons why sport can give would-be Ivy League students an advantage.
First, the term Ivy League originally referred to sport: though it’s now synonymous with the eight prestigious universities, it was first coined in 1954 to designate the NCAA athletic conference that governed sport competitions among these schools.
But it is also about money. ‘Athletic recruiting has its roots in alumni donations’, Nguyen says.
[See also: Do super-rich graduates value their universities?]
While there is a consensus on the correlation between athletic discipline and academic success, the main aim of these universities is ‘to produce future leaders and successful people who will contribute back not only to society but also to these educational institutions,’ Nguyen explains.
‘Harvard and the other Ivies have a huge endowment because of successful alumni who donate back to the schools, and athletes are particularly loyal to the universities.’
But if athletic skills often translate to success, there is still an ‘important distinction to make between playing a sport and being really successful at it,’ Nguyen stresses. As with any other extracurricular activity, applicants have to demonstrate achievement, he says.
How to play your way into an Ivy League university
Nguyen says he often asks his tutees: ‘Are you good enough that the school wants to recruit you for it?’ He advises starting a sport at least 10 years before applying to university.
‘If you are going to do a sport, do it strategically,’ he says. For him and his team at Ivy Link, this means selecting a sport early, committing to excelling in it, and proving that progress through measurable achievements like competition rankings.
‘It’s a real investment,’ he says.
[See also: Where did the world’s richest billionaires go to school?]
What are niche sports?
Some sports are more competitive than others – an outstanding American football player faces tougher recruitment odds than a top fencer, where the competition is far less intense. Less popular, niche sports include fencing, which has deep roots in many elite prep schools in the US, rowing, squash, tennis, sailing and lacrosse.
Harvard’s 2024-2025 men’s and women’s fencing teams had 34 athletes – about half the size of the football roster. At Princeton, the 2025 sailing team has just 10 members, while nearly 100 students competed in swimming, a far more competitive sport. But on balance, while the team numbers are smaller, the pool of athletes will be smaller for niche sports increasing the odds of gaining admission to a top school.
‘It’s all about barriers to entry,’ Nguyen explains. ‘I advise families who have the means to do it to pursue those sports because they will have a much better chance at standing out, simply because there is far less competition.’
Niche sports have one thing in common: they are exclusive – and expensive. They are expensive to play, require specific and costly equipment and can often only be played in the countryside or distinct locations.
‘If you’re a [student] from public [state] school, you’re not going to have the opportunity to be a fencer, for example, unless your family is really wealthy and puts you into a fencing training programme because the facilities needed for the sport are exclusive and quite [scarce],’ Nguyen says.
It is therefore no surprise that these ‘country club sports’, for example, tennis and golf, are popular among HNW and UHNW families.
Increased scrutiny over niche sports recruiting
As Nguyen puts it, ‘the common denominator to athletic recruiting is money’.
‘You could have okay abilities, but if you have all the money to train and [commit to it over several years] you know you could get far ahead,’ he adds
[See also: The 10 best private schools in North America]
However, he admits this channel of entry could face increased scrutiny in the future.
In 2023, the US Supreme Court banned affirmative action – also known as positive discrimination – in college admissions, forbidding schools from favouring applications based on race, a practice aimed at increasing diversity in elite institutions.
According to the former admissions reader, this means that the de facto positive discrimination in favour of wealthy students recruited through niche sports could receive closer attention.
‘Very few people can play these niche sports, so it could be argued that it is effectively affirmative action for children of HNW and UHNW families,’ Nguyen explains. ‘Now that the practice is under scrutiny, it could raise serious conversations about [recruiting niche sports athletes].’
That said, Nguyen predicts that niche sports won’t be removed from athletic recruiting, as he knows how deeply entrenched they are in the institutions.
For him, an attempt at banning these sports on the basis of inclusivity would face ‘alumni mutiny’ and pose too great a risk for Ivy League universities, who rely on them to maintain their prestige, secure funding and attract top talent.
[See also: Introducing the Spear’s Schools Index]
