Stanford or skating? Rachael Flatt chooses both

Rachael Flatt is enjoying her college/skating experiment, even if she has to get up at 5 a.m. for training.

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This is what I posted on this over at MKF:

I have my doubts that she won't end up in a corner chewing her hair by the time finals start. I know I almost did, and I was just a regular college student! Granted I was taking 18 hours at the time. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I had four classes: two in the morning, 15 mins apart, an hour and a half break around noon, and then two more classes in the afternoon, again only 15 mins apart. I also worked part-time at the school's bookstore. I managed well enough for the first few weeks, but when the tests started coming around that's where I almost lost it. I'd have three test in the same week and most of the time they were on the same day!

I did an 18 hour semester once, and after that I went back to 15 or 16 hours...that one class makes a big difference. I finished the semester with As and Bs but I was so stressed out the whole time. I didn't have time to go party or hang out...I woke up, I went to class, I went to work, I came home, I studied, I went to sleep, I woke up and did it all over again.:sheesh:

I love that Rachael is ambitious enough to attempt this and it will be interesting to see if she can make it through the season/semester (or however they do their classes) without anything slipping. It's an extremely delicate balancing act when it comes to school work in terms of putting your efforts towards a certain subject. At times when I wasn't doing as well as I'd like in one class, I'd throw my effort and time towards that class...but then I'd end up declining in a different class. When you give more attention to A, B suffers and vice versus.:disapp:

I figure it'll be the same thing for Rachael. She's got to put the time and effort into training so that she will be ready for this season, which should be the most competitive season we've seen in a long time. At the same time, your first year in college is your foundation for the rest of the time you are there. It's critical that you start off well...

She's bitten off a rather large bite with school and skating. I wonder how things will change during the course of the season? Remember, Michelle started off at UCLA living in the dorms and then had to move out to an apartment. There are a lot of distractions at college, especially in a freshmen dorm (kids finally free from mom & dad tend to go wild!). There are a lot of things she'll have to sacrifice in terms of experiences because she simply won't have the time.

I honestly wish her the best. But if she's actually able to manage doing both school and skating then I will truly be shocked and impressed...

I will actually take less doubtful point of view on this. I'm not going to definitively declare that Rachel will return to the top of the heap in the US. But I don't think that attempting to balance school and skating are necessarily a bad thing. It used to be the norm among top level American skaters. Dick Button, Tenley Albright, Hayes and David Jenkins, Debi Thomas and Paul Wylie all managed to complete fairly successful careers while juggling college and/or graduate studies with skating. I know some will dismiss this as irrelevant because skating is technically more difficult now, but I think the physical difficulty of the elements is less important than the amount of time consumed by training. All the skaters I mentioned, trained and competed when figures still existed. Training for figures was tedious but also extremely time consuming. What Button and others have said is that having to maintain that sort of balance actually makes the skater have to force him or herself to be more focused and efficient with but training and class work. Having played college tennis (which was extremely time consuming with on and off court training and travel for matches) I can certainly say that what Rachel is attempting is possible. Of course she is competing at a higher level and in a different sport than I did, but the idea is the same. I wish her the best of luck.

And maybe Rachel is one of those people who actually does better when she has more to juggle. She definitely fared quite well in 2010 while she was juggling all those AP classes. And I seem to remember that Debi Thomas won her WC while doing her studies at Standford and actually did worse when she didn't have to juggle school.

If Rachael is at the top of the heap of US ladies skating at the end of the season then we are screwed for yet another year if that's the best we can do. Not hating just the way it is.

You guys are all so accomplished! I can't imagine taking more than 16 credits in a semester or playing competitive tennis by itself, let alone with college courses.

I tend to worry about the doability of this enterprise also. I don't remember Debi Thomas having a great time carrying such a full load. As Kwanatic says, there's a lot of rushing around trying to put out one fire after another. If Rachael wants to try it, that's her privilege, of course, but something's bound to suffer. I'd love to be proved wrong by Rachael, of course.

The point that jcoates makes about school figures being time-consuming is valid, but I think that the difference in the physical demands of school figures and the demands of practicing triple-triples is more significant. For one thing, it's not so easy to get injured practicing school figures. On the other hand, practicing jumps incorrectly or while tired can lead to injuries that make everything harder.

Whatever happens...go Rachael! I am already quite impressed.

Olympia said:

The point that jcoates makes about school figures being time-consuming is valid, but I think that the difference in the physical demands of school figures and the demands of practicing triple-triples is more significant. For one thing, it's not so easy to get injured practicing school figures. On the other hand, practicing jumps incorrectly or while tired can lead to injuries that make everything harder.

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Olympia, I agree. Also, it seems to be that once one has mastered figures to a certain level, you are able to maintain that advantage fairly consistently.

If anyone else has managed to juggle engineering at a prestigious institution while doing elite athletics, please let me know. In Canada we do not have an "hours" system, but I do know that while I was in engineering most days were 9-4 for me in class/tutorials (which we couldn't skip because they would have quizzes or problem sets due) with an hour for lunch, Wednesdays ending at 7pm and Thursdays at 6pm.

It's not just that Rachael Flatt is juggling school and elite skating that impresses me, she's likely to have a similar schedule full of tough science and math courses. Free time is precious to start with, but these courses will also be extremely challenging. AND she is enjoying her college experience by participating in things like 12-hour dorm scavenger hunts. Wow!

One thing I think a lot of people are overlooking is that Rachel is not the only elite athlete attending and succeeding at balancing her coursework and athletics at Stanford or any other top school. The NCAA prides itself on holding its athletes to a fairly high academic standard (football scandals notwithstanding). Stanford is no cakewalk as colleges go. So regardless of the major, one should expect the courses to be tough. Consequently all of its athletes will be expected to put in the hard academic yards. As a school, it has top level athletes in a very wide range of sports (football, basketball, soccer, tennis, swimming, gymnastics, etc.). Many of these athletes are actually actively competing as Olympic eligibles while in attendance. So Rachel will certainly not be alone in her efforts. I think she'd actually be able to find support and perhaps even some mentoring from other athletes.

Check out the section on Stanford's Athletics in the link below. Pay particular attention to the Olympic achievements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University#Athletics

Regarding Olympia and Prettykeys' comments. I certainly think your concerns are valid, but I am far less worried about her than you. I have expressed my concern before that we skating fans collectively are too protective of skaters and tend to view them too much as fragile individuals rather than as elite athletes and hard-edged, driven competitors. They are a lot tougher than we give them credit for most of the time. They are supposed to fall and get beck up, literally and figuratively. That's how they learn. Whether Rachel goes on to maintain her status as a top level skater or not, the process and journey she is embarking on will be invaluable to her as as person. She'll learn tremendous lessons about herself during the next few years that she could never have learned while in Colorado Springs. She'll grow into herself as an adult making her own choices. She's stretching herself in ways fay too many young professional level athletes don't these days. Failing to become a skating champion won't be the end of the world if that's what happens. Also, don't forget Debi Thomas earned her undergrad degree in engineering from Stanford while actively touring as a pro. She'd been a pre-med major while an amateur (and won two national titles, three world medals of each color and and an Olympic bronze; something I'm sure Rachel would love to do) and then switched majors after the Olympics. It's certainly possible.

As far as injuries from training goes, I think there is a tendency to assume that training 20 or more years ago was somehow less injury prone than it is now. That's a mistake. Debi and Ito trained and competed triple-triples. Ito, Harding and Tiffany Chin were training triple axels in the 80s that were of better quality than any of the women doing them now. Kristi Yamaguchi was doing two disciplines (and landing sbs triple flips with Rudi) and better singles skills than many of the overly careful women attempt now. By and large ladies skaters 20 years ago were older and taller on average than now (a naturally increased risk for injury by itself). They also jumped higher and with better distance landing their jumps with more complete rotations. Training to reach that standard carries inherent risk and injury. Still many of those injuries were simply not talked about like they are now.

Jcoates, you make a powerful argument. And yes, I do tend to worrywart about things.
I hope that you are right, not me. It would give me great satisfaction to watch Rachael pull this off. Even if she doesn't, good for her for trying. Thanks for reminding me of what it means to be a scholar-athlete, and that there are so many young people who make that commitment and follow through on it.

Jammers said:

If Rachael is at the top of the heap of US ladies skating at the end of the season then we are screwed for yet another year if that's the best we can do. Not hating just the way it is.

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I think I rather wait until the season begins before I make any determinations. We haven't seen her since W.C. and she's under a new coaching team. As I said in my previous comment, Rachael seems to thrive on balancing a whole bunch of stuff. And I agree that having other elite athletes around, as the article (and jcoates in the previous post) points out, is a motivator as well.

I'm not being "overly protective" or a "worrywort" regarding Rachael, I just don't think some people realize how much of a difficult task she is taking on. And I am giving her a lot of respect for that, regardless of whatever her results in skating or school might end up being.

Here is a sample first-year engineering schedule at my school (not mine):
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/81/wintertimetablemp3.jpg/

How many "hours" might this count as? Just outta curiosity.

Following up on jcoates post...
went to Stanford's Athletics page....Flatt is one of many "student-athletes" at the school, from the info quoted below, who excel at many levels in their lives.

Overview
Unparalleled in its success and considered the dominant athletic program nationally, Stanford promotes excellence in both academics and athletics. Consider the following:

Stanford has captured 17 consecutive Directors’ Cup titles (1995–2011), an award that honors the nation’s top overall Division I athletic program.
The National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) recently ranked Stanford the #1 Division I Program in the U.S. in its Annual NCSA Collegiate Power Rankings. The Collegiate Power Rankings are calculated by averaging the U.S. News & World Report ranking, the U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup ranking and the NCAA student-athlete graduation rate of each college/university.
300 athletic scholarships are awarded each year.
Stanford sent more athletes to the Beijing Olympics than any other college in the U.S, winning 25 Olympic medals. If Stanford were a country, it would have ranked #11—tying with Japan—in total Olympic medals.
The Stanford campus is home to 116 national championships—more than any other college in the U.S.
Tiger Woods, John McEnroe and Mike Mussina (formerly) of the New York Yankees were all once Stanford athletes. Michelle Wie and Heisman Trophy finalist Andrew Luck are current Stanford students.

and, Each student chooses their own path, and in light of what happened earlier this week, to partially quote Steve Job's commencement address at Stanford in 2005.....

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

It seems to me, before she is even 20 yrs old, Flatt has a focus to her life that is unique to her and unusually driven for someone so young. She obviously values her education but also has valued the experiences that she has been provided thru skating. I think she is an example of what Jobs described above....and probably fairly typical of many Stanford students.

Nigel said:

It seems to me, before she is even 20 yrs old, Flatt has a focus to her life that is unique to her and unusually driven for someone so young. She obviously values her education but also has valued the experiences that she has been provided thru skating.

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I would honestly be thrilled if my future children turned out a little bit like her. Smart, sweet, motivated, and wanting to push herself both academically as well as athletically... There is only one other skater I know of who was enrolled in engineering as a competitive skater, and that's Jeffrey Buttle, who was also doing chemical engineering but part-time.

My posts were not to be a downer about Rachael. People who don't know may claim that other studies are not "cakewalks" but having been through the engineering gauntlet and then doing other studies, I can say that everything else actually was a cakewalk, for me. And I admire her for what she is choosing and wish her the best. The truth is, I am also a little skeptical that she is going to get good marks on top of having as good a skating season as in the past few years, but she is a winner in my book just for trying and yes, I think that's a winning approach to life in general.

It’s really a matter of what’s expected of you and what you’re trying to get out of your college experience. Rachael’s taking three classes – that would be considered a rather light course load for an undergraduate where I live, especially considering that only one of them appears to be engineering-related. But going to university here means your goal is generally to study and get your degree; having a “college experience” in the American sense is not a high priority. Not that there is anything wrong with what Rachael is doing, but if she has time for scavenger hunts and football games, I imagine she’ll be able to combine school and her skating career. After all, it’s not like she went with easy classes when she was in high school, and she managed that just fine. I agree that finals might be a bit tough - we had them spread out over a longer period (possibly because people take so many classes? I'm not sure). I don’t think I’ve ever done more than three in a week, and I wasn’t skating competitively (or skating at all ).

It’s also not that unusual for skaters to be in school – just look at all the people competing at the Universiade each time! As others have noted, many great American skaters in the past were student-athletes in the truest sense of the term. Nowadays, a large number of the Michigan-based ice dancers are University of Michigan students, and that’s a good school (I’ll single out Lynn Kriengkrairut, who is pre-med). Outside the US, I can think of several recent skaters who have done well academically: for instance, as of last year, Kristoffer Berntsson was finishing a Master’s degree in electric power engineering at Chalmers University of Technology (Wikipedia indicates that this is a very good university); he told Absolute Skating last year that “Someday I won’t skate anymore, but I will still have my brains and my knowledge.” Indeed! :thumbsup: Nathalie Pechalat has completed most if not all of the requirements for a graduate degree in management from EM Lyon, and Alban Preaubert has a Master’s degree from ESCP Europe and is now working in the financial sector (he’s probably done with competitive skating). AFAIK, EM Lyon and ESCP Europe are both very well-regarded. And I’m sure there are other skaters who have successfully combined academics and skating.

While I don’t think what Rachael Flatt is doing is unprecedented, I will say that it’s great that she is pursuing her dreams both on and off the ice. I think she’s a good role model and wish her all the best in both pursuits.

Buttercup said:

It’s really a matter of what’s expected of you and what you’re trying to get out of your college experience. Rachael’s taking three classes – that would be considered a rather light course load for an undergraduate where I live, especially considering that only one of them appears to be engineering-related.

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Ooh, where did you read that? I thought she was doing the full workload.

Buttercup said:

for instance, as of last year, Kristoffer Berntsson was finishing a Master’s degree in electric power engineering at Chalmers University of Technology (Wikipedia indicates that this is a very good university); he told Absolute Skating last year that “Someday I won’t skate anymore, but I will still have my brains and my knowledge.” Indeed!

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Edit: I just re-read the Golden Skate article, and you're right, Buttercup. Well in that case, skating+school looks very doable but it's also a good choice by Rachael. :thumbsup:

prettykeys said:

Ooh, where did you read that? I thought she was doing the full workload.

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It was in the ESPN article that was linked in the first post:

In the meantime, she's a college student with three classes: computational mathematics, writing and rhetoric, and humanities. She has joined her friends to cheer on dorm mates who play on the men's and women's soccer teams.

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Doesn't seem like something she can't handle.

The thing that I think is essential to keep in mind here when considering whether it is possible, is to bear in mind who the specific skater or athlete is. There is no question that competing at the top level is the equivalent of a full time job. So layering school at an equally elite level on top of that is quasi-inconceivable. But when I consider the athlete (Rachael, who has been there and done that all throughout her career) and the school (Stanford, which has high standards but rewards excellence amongst both its students AND athletes) I actually think it could work.

A full time course load? That could be tough. But having balance in her life. That seems to be one of the ingredients that make for success amongst a certain breed of exceptional kid. I think we saw this with others in skating, like Paul Wylie. Rachael fits the bill. There are other top American skaters who do as well. Maia Shibutani was scholastic honors. Meryl, Charlie, Alex and Evan all go to Univ of Michigan.

It's a worthy debate for sure. That said, I think Rachael can pull it off.

Even a worrywart such as myself is heartened by all the enlightening examples you've all given. I didn't realize Jeffrey Buttle, for example, was so academically accomplished. I'm also relieved to hear that Rachael is taking only three courses: she might not end up lying with her toes pointed upward on the floor of her dorm room! Certainly if anyone can pull this off, Rachael seems like a prime candidate. I'll watch her skating with extra interest and delight this season, knowing of the efforts she's taken just to get to this point.

Debbie Thomas attended Stanford while she was competing and was at the top of her game (world champion '86). Paul Wylie attended Harvard while competing, and although he did not win a championship or even a world medal, he was #2 in the US mens field, which is nothing to sneer at. In 1988 he was second to only Brian Boitano.

I don't see why Rachael cannot handle both- Stanford and skating. She sounds like a very bright young lady who is very focused and has always excelled at what she did. If it turns out the academic load is too heavy, she can drop a class or two.

Rachael is taking just about the lightest load she can do (probably with special permission), and two of those courses are fulfillment of general requirements and likely to be the closest thing to a cakewalk for her. I believe Rachael will also take a light load next semester as well so that combining training and competitive skating will be viable for this entire season. Then she will have to face the reality of the full brunt of a Stanford engineering course load beginning her second year, and realize that doing well in her academics isn't going to be compatible with doing well at the highest levels of skating. She doesn't strike me as the type who wants to simultaneously do two things half-@ssed each. And she doesn't strike me as somebody who wants to go to university on the 8-year plan taking light loads the whole way through. Nor will Stanford likely let her. She's a smart girl and will do what's best for her long-term needs, and there's only one answer possible. I think she will retire from competitive skating after this season is over, and it when it will be apparent that her best is no longer good enough to take on the talent coming up internationally beginning in the 2012-2013 period.