Recruiting international athletes to come to Penn is like reaching into Forrest Gump's box of chocolates: coaches never know what they're going to get.
Whereas American high school athletes are very visible due to highly-publicized national competitions, it's harder to find and recruit international athletes. Their sheer number and a lack of time and resources for coaches to scout them out present obstacles.
Oftentimes, it's left up to the prospective recruit to contact the athletic department and initiate the recruiting process.
"I've had some that I've made a point of inviting," fencing coach Dave Micahnik said, "but there are many others who have expressed their interest in coming and I've had to look into it and decide if they'd be helpful to the team."
Engineering freshman Tammy Levy, a fencer from Mexico, was one of those who preemptively contacted Micahnik.
"I sent my resume out to various coaches and the ones that were interested contacted me," Levy said.
Most of the time, these phone calls and e-mails are the only communications between international athletes and the coaches.
For Wharton senior Mikhail Bekker, a tennis player from Russia, the recruiting experience was different. Bekker showed up on Quakers tennis coach Mark Riley's radar after a former Penn women's player mentioned him. When recruiting Bekker, Riley had to rely on e-mail correspondence and the word of others.
"It's a little easier nowadays with the Internet," Riley said. "We can look up rankings and news stories very easily."
Nevertheless, Bekker did not play in front of his current coach before matriculating.
"The first time I ever came to Penn was for [New Student Orientation]," Bekker said.
Bekker has enjoyed a prolific career in college, reaching No. 2 singles and helping the Quakers to two Eastern College Athletic Conference championships. But despite the success of athletes like Bekker, there are still fewer than two dozen international athletes currently at Penn.
Those that do come to Philadelphia are from all over the globe, including Qatar, Romania, England and Brazil.
One reason foreign athletes are so scarce is that the epicenter of Riley's recruiting process - like many other coaches - originates close to home. Riley first looks at students in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, then at students in the South and Midwest, then in the West, and lastly to international students.
The process isn't helped by Penn's high academic standards and inability to offer athletic scholarships or need-blind financial aid for all overseas students. Need-blind aid is offered only to Mexicans and Canadians.
"It's hard to reconcile international programs of study with American ones," Micahnik said of recruits' history. "Sometimes their preparation is good, sometimes you have no idea."
In other cases, an athlete can qualify academically for Penn but choose not to come due to the school's high price tag. Comparable universities in Europe and Canada are a fraction of the cost, and coaches at Penn are handcuffed by Ivy League rules prohibiting scholarships.
But even recruiting Canadians for some sports is a challenge. Although it's easier to follow them and make recruiting visits, by the time those athletes can apply to Penn, many have already been snapped up by junior or senior national teams. Coming to Penn from a national team is a drastic change, and one that many athletes are unwilling to make.
Penn is certainly able to attract athletes with its academics, something that most non-Ivy and international schools cannot.
Still, there's debate over whether the final result warrants the extra effort. Both Micahnik and Riley express the desire to recruit more international athletes, but for Micahnik, "on a cost-benefit analysis, it's not worth it."
For the athletes who make it to Penn in spite of the obstacles, though, the arduous process is well worth it.
"The whole system in the U.S. is that you can pursue a good education and continue your athletic career," Bekker said. "That's something you can't get in Russia."
