Nathan Chen and University: A Yalie?

[ice coverage]

Nathan hasn't even done his first term at Yale, let the kid do his thing before debating whether he'll still want to do pre-med or not in 3-4 years!

:agree:

(Will quickly add that my posts above were only a discussion of meeting requirements. Not an opinion as to what Nathan [or any college student] "should" do. As a fan of Nathan, I hope that he will give himself four years as an undergrad to enjoy/explore all that Yale can offer, both academically and otherwise.)

 

[jenaj]

If we're being semantic, you're right, but in the spirit of what is intended by this conversation, not quite.





While AP credit can theoretically cover a whole year of study, this is highly unlikely to apply for Nathan's attendance at Yale, assuming he wishes to attend med school. As lilahozi pointed out, elite universities and pre-med requirements are both factors that make AP credits much less generous than they would be at less-elite universities and less-stringent fields of study.

ETA: And while it is still theoretically possible to take an overload of courses, summer courses, etc. in order to meet degree requirements AND med school requirements in three years at Yale, the time needed to prepare for the MCAT + to gain extracurricular experiences in the medical field make it less and less likely that Nathan will be able to skip a year of school at Yale thanks to his AP credits.

AP credit can be used to cover gen ed requirements that even pre-med students have to take.

 

[andromache]

AP credit can be used to cover gen ed requirements that even pre-med students have to take.

At Yale, these are referred to as "distributional requirements."

From this page: http://catalog.yale.edu/first-year-...on/acceleration/important-acceleration-rules/

You may not count acceleration credits toward any of the distributional requirements at Yale, including the foreign language requirement.

(It's actually really impossible to tell when acceleration credits earned via AP tests can ACTUALLY be used to reduce time toward matriculation, though they say you can. I just have no idea under what context they actually allow it, given the number of restrictions.)

 

[el henry]

Unless someone here can tell me differently from personal experience (and although my closest personal experience predates even the AP system:eeking:, other personal experience leads me to know the following:

1. Yale does not grant course credit for AP courses. Let’s posit one course per credit, and let’s posit 32 courses for graduation. You would need to take 32 courses to graduate. Meaning 32 classes. You may be exempted from certain requirements (let’s say languages, it’s the easiest to understand). You may get the highest score ever in French and not need to take a language course ever. You still need to take 32 classes at Yale. It’s just that among those 32 classes, you are not required to take a language course.

2. You need to take those classes at Yale. There are no online credits.

3. There are no part time undergraduate students.

So if Nathan plans on attending Yale, he will need to be on campus long enough to take 32, or whatever the requirement is, classes. I have no idea how or when he plans to do this, but I wish him every success.

And for someone as obviously determined and as bright as Nathan, I see no reason why he could not do both skating and classes.

 

[xeyra]

(It's actually really impossible to tell when acceleration credits earned via AP tests can ACTUALLY be used to reduce time toward matriculation, though they say you can. I just have no idea under what context they actually allow it, given the number of restrictions.)

AP credit is often used to a) allow you to skip language requirement course; b) skip pre-requisite courses to intermediate-level courses; c) accelerated track to graduate in less than 8 terms (a choice you make during sophomore or early junior year).

While I believe Nathan might use AP credit for a) and b), I'm not quite sure we can predict how he'll even manage his first year, let alone if he'll be able (or want) to graduate in 6 or 7 terms in order to use AP courses as credit requirement substitutes. So it's all a bit of a moot point because we don't know what he wants to do. Maybe he isn't certain either, which is normal, since he's still only 18. I just hope he has fun, doesn't stress too much and goes to a party at least once.

 

[el henry]

I am one of those carrying on the conversation, knowing full well that Nathan can, will, and should make all his decisions in the future as befits an 18 year old, so I know this horse is dead and buried but it’s the Internet, so I must add the following:

*We* think being a World Champion figure skater is a big fat hairy deal. Of course we do, we’re figure skating fans:agree:

Do not depend on Yale as an institution giving this title the same prominence that we do. It’s Yale. A lot of folks, including world class world champion athletes, have attended that school.

Which is not to say individual professors may not be understanding of his schedule, I expect they would be. But no one professionally associated with Yale is going to go, OMG, *Nathan Chen* is on our campus, let’s cut him multiple breaks.

Which I suspect is one reason Nathan may want to go.

 

[friedbanana]

Congrats!

 

[cruzceleste]

Unless someone here can tell me differently from personal experience (and although my closest personal experience predates even the AP system:eeking:, other personal experience leads me to know the following:

1. Yale does not grant course credit for AP courses. Let’s posit one course per credit, and let’s posit 32 courses for graduation. You would need to take 32 courses to graduate. Meaning 32 classes. You may be exempted from certain requirements (let’s say languages, it’s the easiest to understand). You may get the highest score ever in French and not need to take a language course ever. You still need to take 32 classes at Yale. It’s just that among those 32 classes, you are not required to take a language course.

2. You need to take those classes at Yale. There are no online credits.

3. There are no part time undergraduate students.

So if Nathan plans on attending Yale, he will need to be on campus long enough to take 32, or whatever the requirement is, classes. I have no idea how or when he plans to do this, but I wish him every success.

And for someone as obviously determined and as bright as Nathan, I see no reason why he could not do both skating and classes.

Sorry, just know Yale from Tv and their web... but they do have a module for Online courses... are this extra? why wouldn´t they count towards the 32 courses?

Thank you for your knowledge

 

[oatmella]

Yale has online courses offered in the summer that can be used to earn Yale College credit (though I think there is a limit on how many can be taken):

https://summer.yale.edu/academics/yale-summer-online

 

[el henry]

Sorry, just know Yale from Tv and their web... but they do have a module for Online courses... are this extra? why wouldn´t they count towards the 32 courses?

Thank you for your knowledge

I will say I have not looked at Yale’s website so it is very possible they could have changed their requirements (also why I said if someone has more recent knowledge I am willing to be corrected).

My spousal unit has a degree from Yale from waaaay back in the day He was an academic for 40 years (at another university) but as a result retained knowledge of students applying to Yale as transfers and from Yale as grad students.

*In the past* online course modules have not been available for undergrads. The reasoning is this: part of the reason for attending Yale is not just the classes, but the entire experience. You are meeting and mingling with the best and the brightest, with future world leaders. Spousal unit attended college with, for example, George W. Bush, Olympic gold and silver medalist Frank Shorter, cartoonist Garry Trudeau (not that he knows any of those people to talk to now). If you allow online courses to meet degree requirements, you are depriving Nathan of the chance to meet and learn from his peers, and depriving them of the chance to meet and learn from Nathan.

At least that was the ideal, not just of Yale, but of all the Ivies. I rather approved of it, so I hope it hasn’t changed....

 

[cruzceleste]

I will say I have not looked at Yale’s website so it is very possible they could have changed their requirements (also why I said if someone has more recent knowledge I am willing to be corrected).

My spousal unit has a degree from Yale from waaaay back in the day He was an academic for 40 years (at another university) but as a result retained knowledge of students applying to Yale as transfers and from Yale as grad students.

*In the past* online course modules have not been available for undergrads. The reasoning is this: part of the reason for attending Yale is not just the classes, but the entire experience. You are meeting and mingling with the best and the brightest, with future world leaders. Spousal unit attended college with, for example, George W. Bush, Olympic gold and silver medalist Frank Shorter, cartoonist Garry Trudeau (not that he knows any of those people to talk to now). If you allow online courses to meet degree requirements, you are depriving Nathan of the chance to meet and learn from his peers, and depriving them of the chance to meet and learn from Nathan.

At least that was the ideal, not just of Yale, but of all the Ivies. I rather approved of it, so I hope it hasn’t changed....

Oh interesting...

 

[Mamamiia]

Didn't Nathan get injured and have surgery in 2016, took almost half year off the ice and came back even stronger with added quads? I just want to say if he could accomplish that back then, he can probably handle school and training now. Maybe he is just that GOOD:luv17:

Now he is better educated on how to train smart and take care of his body. I hope he can stay healthy and enjoy his life!

 

[Danny T]

Yale has online courses offered in the summer that can be used to earn Yale College credit (though I think there is a limit on how many can be taken):

https://summer.yale.edu/academics/yale-summer-online

Thanks for the link. So I dug around and yes, they put a limit on number of online credit you can earn towards your degree. It's 4 only.

They did say that students may file petition to have more, but the petition must justify that the summer courses doesn't adversely affect their Yale experience. Which for Nathan it would, because he would want to lighten courseload during term time, aka skating season.

PS: I think none of us here are telling Nathan what to do, or judge his decisions in any way. It's the Internet, and it's fun to speculate.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

I don't find it surprising that Nathan wants to have the residential college experience while he's still young. Aside from earning an individual Olympic medal, Nathan has won every major title in the sport. He could have a lot of regrets if he puts his life on hold for four more years just to try to win an Olympic medal, which may or may not happen. As some point he'll stop competing, and it will be very helpful to have a college education that will allow him to transition into his post-skating life.

 

[oatmella]

It doesn't seem unreasonable to think that if Nathan wants to continue skating, he may not be able to be able to experience the full, entire college experience in all its facets. And maybe he's ok with that.

 

[Barb]

I just think he won´t give the 100% at Yale or Skating, I mean, the guy is human, the day has only 24 hours, maybe he will barely pass his exams, or he just will win some medal sporadically. He will not be developing to his full potential as a skater or as a student. There is a reason why gold medalists do not study such demanding careers while they compete, they are not lazy, they are realistic. It is well known as in the universities the students traffic with ritalin and other drugs just to stay awake and study, among people who only dedicate themselves to study, let alone those who work part-time, and to compete at elite level as Nathan, it is a lot harder than a part-time job.

 

[chopinskate]

I'm assuming Nathan has enough money to pay through college, but if not he could just sell all the rooms/mansions he has in the posters' minds here and get enough and then some.

LOL congrats to him though.

 

[lowereastside]

IIRC, having AP credits allowed me to avoid taking intro level classes in certain subjects like English and Math, but none of my AP classes counted as credit towards my college degree. I was also allowed to pass out of my language requirement with APs but again, it doesn’t count as college credit. I still had to do a full course load and meet the distributional requirements, minus the language requirement.

Plenty of ppl at Yale end up taking a year off for various reasons - being a part of the whiffenpoofs, traveling abroad for a year, personal reasons, etc. Its deferring for more than a year or deferring more than once that I think is more complicated and would probably require committee approval. If Yale really was inflexible about it though, he could always trander to another institution. Didn’t Michelle Kwan start off at UCLA and graduate somewhere else?

 

[cruzceleste]

Didn’t Michelle Kwan start off at UCLA and graduate somewhere else?

From Michelle Kwan wikipedia

Kwan attended UCLA for one year. In the fall of 2006, she transferred to the University of Denver.[22] In June 2009, she graduated from Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies with a bachelor's degree in international studies and a minor in political science.[23] In 2009, she began graduate studies in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University[24] and graduated in 2011.[25][26] On May 8, 2010, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Southern Vermont College

 

[ElSoteroLoco]

Getting accepted and actually going is two different things. Didn’t applying for colleges happen sometime last year? Before the successful season he had currently (withstanding the two Olympic short programs)? He could always defer and continue later on if he wanted.