The deadline is approaching.

It's clear in how Sage Palmedo's shoulders tense up whenever the topic drifts toward her future plans. It's clear in her exasperated coach's pleas for the 17-year-old Portland resident to please make up her mind.

In about three months, Ivy League schools will stop accepting applications for early admission. And in about three months, Palmedo -- the nation's top-ranked women's sabre fencer in her birth year for eight years running -- will need to make a commitment: Will she fence for one of the nation's premier college programs, or will she fully dedicate herself to training for the 2016 Summer Olympics?

"People go like, 'Rough life,'" Sage's mother, Kelly Palmedo, said with a chuckle last week. "You have to choose between the Olympics and Harvard. It's really difficult, right?"

For Sage Palmedo, it is. She decided to forgo a mainstream high school experience so her practice sessions with Ed Korfanty, the U.S. National Women's sabre coach, wouldn't have to end when first period started. Now, after three years of Skyping into online classes, Palmedo is hesitant about delaying college two years while she trains fulltime at Oregon Fencing Alliance in Beaverton with some of the world's top talent.

She said she feels there's a "stigma" to being a 20-year-old college freshman. She's not too excited about the notion of spending another three years under her parents' roof. And she thinks it could be "cool" to start pursuing a career in the health profession.

But Korfanty has other ideas.

"I'm always supporting academics," Korfanty said as he glanced at Palmedo standing in the corner of his office. "But if I see potential, I want to use this potential."

Korfanty knows what he's talking about. He stood proudly at Athens' Helliniko Fencing Hall in August 2004 when his 19-year-old pupil, Mariel Zagunis, beat Tan Xue of China, 15-9, in the first-ever Olympic final of the women's sabre competition. Four years later, he watched as another one of his trainees, Rebecca Ward, held her bronze on the medal podium while Zagunis received gold in Beijing.

Palmedo, Korfanty believes, has a shot at stepping on that stage in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at the 2016 Olympics. She's already beaten Zagunis, now 28, in practice a few times. And her lengthy 5-foot-10 frame suggests she can build off her current role as the first alternate on the U.S. senior national team.

Regardless of potential, though, Olympic ambitions require full-time commitment to thrive. College exams and papers would take time away from training, time Korfanty said Palmedo can't afford to waste.

"Part of me feels like there are other things that I could do," Palmedo said. "I'm the type of person that wants to do everything, so it's hard to focus on one thing. ... I'm going to have to make a decision."

Knowing she could lose a coach only adds to the anxiety. Korfanty's aim is Olympic medals, not NCAA championships. Opting to sign with a college come fall, Palmedo realizes, would spell the end of a mentorship that has lasted more than half her life.

Palmedo first met Korfanty when she tagged along with her older brother to the Oregon Fencing Alliance as a first grader. Within a couple of years, Korfanty helped the young tomboy emerge as one of the country's premier girl fencers.

By the time she graduated from the eighth grade at Catlin Gabel School, Palmedo realized traditional schooling wouldn't jibe with the travel schedule of a world class fencer. She enrolled at Stanford University Online High School, and started cramming a rigorous course load into the random pockets of time life affords.

Palmedo appeared in her first World Cup in ninth grade. Since then, the rising senior estimates, she has trekked to Europe once or twice a month for competitions. She's written papers on planes, studied for exams in Polish hotel lobbies and watched online lectures at her training facility in Beaverton.

"It can be a lot at times," said Palmedo, who is the only member of her club who fences at three different levels of competition.

Palmedo's laundry list of honors this season doesn't suggest the frenzy has impacted her performance.

She earned women's sabre gold medals in cadet (Under-17) and junior (Under-20) at two North American Cup competitions, and helped a Zagunis-led senior national team capture bronze at February's World Cup in Belgium. In April, Palmedo was part of the first U.S. women's sabre team since 2006 to win gold at the junior World Championships.

Since returning from a competition in Tianjin, China less than three weeks ago, Palmedo has mulled her future. She's weighed her options, listened to Korfanty's tireless pitch and discussed the decision with her parents.

Still, Palmedo feels torn. She knows many of the country's top college coaches will bombard her with texts and phone calls when programs can start contacting recruits July 1. And she understands an individual NCAA title is within reach. Palmedo, after all, ousted the reigning NCAA champion, Princeton's Eliza Stone, at a World Cup in Chicago earlier this year.

But, in truth, the allure of college has little to do with fencing. Palmedo talks to her older brother, a trumpet player at Harvard, and envies how much fun he's having as an Ivy League student. She wonders what life would be like away from the onslaught of practices and flights. Maybe, she thinks, it's worth forgoing a chance at the Olympics.

And then someone -- her mother, Korfanty, or even a friend -- reminds her what's at stake. The Olympics are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, they say. College will always be there.

-- Connor Letourneau