Academically excellent top skaters

[treblemakerem]

Not getting a BA/BS before you're 21 doesn't mean that you're not smart/a high academic achiever. It just means that you're deferring education.

Also just graduating at 21 doesn't necessary make you academically excellent either. I graduated at 21 from a middle of the road university and no one would probably describe me as a great student. I got decent but not great grades and was way more focused on dancing than schoolwork and got my degree done in four years. So I would say graduating fast doesn't really mean anything. There are plenty of people who were way more academically brilliant than me but took longer to graduate. I think those people probably deserve more praise than someone like me who didn't really care and just wanted to get it over with as quick as possible.

 

[Shayuki]

I guess I have a bit of a different definition for "academically excellent", but I don't think that attending a school qualifies... Or even getting a degree like physical education. For being "academically excellent", in my eyes it really would need to be something like a MD degree, or law school. Or some more advanced engineering like quantum physics, radiation physics or some mathematics. Perhaps financial school.

Here, Valtter Virtanen comes to mind. He's a top skater... in Finland.

 

[ssffww]

Some of them dropped off or taking break. Only 4 people actually graduated with average Bachelor of Art. Anyone can apply to college, but not everyone can finish the program and graduate with degree. And what is "academically excellent"?

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-d...ual-Is-there-any-common-factor-in-all-of-them

 

[yume]

Seems like there are a lot of physical education degrees, and art history.

 

[Mathman]

I do not know the Mexican higher education system, but I am familiar with other (European) systems. It is very different from the US for professional school. In those other systems, you go to University and you graduate with a law degree, all you need (absent other testing or certifications) to practice law. No need for a graduate school, just up and at 'em

One big difference between the U.S. and most European systems is that in Europe, high school (gymnasium, etc.) is much more rigorous than in the U.S. In the U.S. system, for many students the first two years of college are spent catching up with the things they ought to have learned in high school, but didn't. In substantial part this is because in the U.S. we believe that "everybody ought to have a chance to go to college," whatever their qualifications and background.

In Europe, just entering university is more like at least an associates or community college degree in the U.S.

At the other end, in mathematics at least, in the U.S. you go to 4 years of undergraduate, 4 or 5 years to graduate school graduating with a PhD, grab a one or two year post graduate felllowship and then off you go -- you are a mathematician. As I understand the system in many European countries, after graduate school you get a job at a university as a lecturer, etc., publish a respectable amount of professional level research, work with a famous mentor or two, and only then write a dissertation and receive the degree of doctor of mathematics.

(The U.S. also has that strange pseudo-degree, PHDABD -- PhD All But Dissertation. In other words, you took all the courses and passsed all the exams required for the degree, but did not write a dissertation.) A master's degree from a prestigious European university would be the equivalent.)

 

[plushyfan]

Evgeni Plushenko has graduated from the Lesgaft National State University of Physical Education, Sport and Health (the coach department ) in St. Petersburg and as well the Saint Petersburg State University of Engineering and Economics. His first wife's father is a millionair hotelier and they wanted to engage in the business (they wanted to Plush leave the skating)

 

[Ducky]

I really dislike the whole "most European... high school (gymnasium, etc.) is much more rigorous than in the US." argument because 1) on the flip side many students in Europe don't complete the equivalent of high school because they're tracked onto a vocational program or aren't offered entrance into a high school versus the mission of public education in the United States to create a (somewhat) informed citizenry by ensuring that education is free for those who want it. Meanwhile in the States education, and funding, is very localized. There's no overarching curriculum, each state has a different set of standards for what their students need to learn and different graduation requirements. Can you really compare the educational output of Oklahoma which has put almost no money into education and where public schools are only open 4 days a week to a school in wealthy Westchester County, NY where the median home value is $618,200 and has high property taxes? (Speaking of... I believe in Europe they value teachers. Teachers are treated like professionals. Here they have to buy their own classroom supplies. Here there are states where the annual mean salary in $45,000 for elementary school teachers. Here what gets put into text books is a political event with the Texas Board of Education having an outsized impact upon other school districts in other states learn because they're the biggest buyer of textbooks).

Sorry... I'm going to stop ranting now...

 

[treblemakerem]

There's also private schools and charters. The US is huge. I went to an arts high school so we weren't required to take rigorous academic classes although AP classes were offered. Some schools are tougher than others in the US, I don't think you could say high school is easy or hard across such a big country. It depends where you are.

 

[vorravorra]

One big difference between the U.S. and most European systems is that in Europe, high school (gymnasium, etc.) is much more rigorous than in the U.S. In the U.S. system, for many students the first two years of college are spent catching up with the things they ought to have learned in high school, but didn't. In substantial part this is because in the U.S. we believe that "everybody ought to have a chance to go to college," whatever their qualifications and background.

In Europe, just entering university is more like at least an associates or community college degree in the U.S.

At the other end, in mathematics at least, in the U.S. you go to 4 years of undergraduate, 4 or 5 years to graduate school graduating with a PhD, grab a one or two year post graduate felllowship and then off you go -- you are a mathematician. As I understand the system in many European countries, after graduate school you get a job at a university as a lecturer, etc., publish a respectable amount of professional level research, work with a famous mentor or two, and only then write a dissertation and receive the degree of doctor of mathematics.

Are you talking about the two-tier system that many European countries have? You get an equivalent of a PhD after getting your Master's and then three (usually, can be more depending on how your research is going) extra years of grad school. But there is also a higher doctorate that the US doesn't have, and that you can only get after doing a lot more research/publishing/teaching work and, depending on the country, have to write another thesis at a more serious level that your PhD thesis. Usually you need a higher doctorate to be a full Professor.

 

[Scout]

Tenley Albright

Maybe these aren't quite "top" skaters, but that might be due to academic pursuits taking priority:

Curran Oi (6th US Nationals & 5th JW in 2009) is a PhD student in biochem/biophysics at Yale.
Yasmin Siraj (6th US Nationals & 11th JW in 2013) went to Harvard.

 

[el henry]

Kevin Shum, US men's skater and a current student at MIT, has my undying respect

Kevin is not a "top" skater, he'll never go to Worlds, but he did go to Nats last year and this essay shows just how difficult it is to attend one of the most academically arduous schools in the US and skate competitively at the same time:

http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/skating-or-school

 

[Oreo]

Matt Savoie
Tim Goebel

And to go back a lot earlier: Hayes and David Jenkins

 

[lichi]

I don’t know his GPA, and although what you said makes some sense, still it is just your assumptions. It is that the source of the that poster’s information is so doubtful. Unless you are an AO in Harvard, or counselors from Nathan’s school, or close friends with Nathan who Nathan would trust to give information to, how do you know his GPA?

IVY admission is like myth where luck also plays some part. And speaking of GPA, how do people know if it is the weighted or unweighted GPA is low. On level classes like orchestra, band, pe, debate or those AP class prerequisites if not CBEd are going to drag down GPA, but which doesn’t really make a student less competitive to elite school AOs. The missing schools part and GPA associationsis even more laughable in that post. Harvard rejects students for all kinds of reason or no reason at all, in fact that straight a student who is also top skater got deferred, would you say that kid has low GPA, or even jaw dropping low GPA. Let alone the admission bias scandal Harvard headlined theses days. And TBH, nobody even knows he was rejected or not. He just stated in his interview that he chose Yale over his two NoCal safety net schools because Yale is the first to reach out to work with him and there were sources saying he did get in. As a matter of fact, there were fans of other skaters went to Nathan FF vehemently tried to pursuance fans that Nathan HAS no other choice but to go to Yale because he cannot get into any school in California lol.

And medical school has been Nathan’s ultimate goal. High GPA is a must to apply for any medical school, that is why quite some students choose to attend less competitive schools to have better GPA to apply for medical school. Nathan must be a lunatic to aim for medical school if he could not even maintain decent GPA in a not very competitive school.

And as I mentioned in the previous post, he attended the online school as Alexandria Yao, who got into Columbia.

Still the person you were talking about puzzles me if he does well in AP calculus and PSAT but has very low GPA. Unless he lives in a state where the National semi finalist cut off is VERY low or he has quite some on level classes and didn’t do well which significantly would drag down your GPA. AP physics, and Ap calculus are comparatively little harder, compared to other APs, including AP CS, which are quite easy to most of people who are doing well with Physics and Calculus, although I do know some Asian students excel in STEM related courses but would find AP world History and AP English hard, but again, their GPA is no way near to be called low low, let alone jaw dropping low, the grades just not standing out compared to other applicants, in Yale and other elite schools cases, competing with valedictorians and salutations

"Edit; I don't believe that other people would know his GPA, but I don't think he got into Yale because of it."

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I don't think anybody except his school friends would know his GPA. I was mainly talking about weighted GPA, because that's what class rank is based on. I have no idea if he got into Harvard. My guess is that he did. My point was just that Nathan didn't get into Yale because of his GPA. It could not have possibly been high enough. About pre-med, I have no idea how he's going to simultaneously maintain GPA and skate. Although, I heard that students from Ivys aren't required to choose their majors freshman year?

As for that person, I was referring to his GPA in Ivy League standards. His PSAT score was 1490, high enough for any state (that year at least). He is an Asian student that excels in STEM, and he got 5s in AP Physics C (both) and AP CS as well. However, his class rank was ~80/500. For Ivy League, that's no way enough. He got rejected from UT Austin, and didn't even think about elite schools.

 

[alexaa]

"Edit; I don't believe that other people would know his GPA, but I don't think he got into Yale because of it."

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I don't think anybody except his school friends would know his GPA. I was mainly talking about weighted GPA, because that's what class rank is based on. I have no idea if he got into Harvard. My guess is that he did. My point was just that Nathan didn't get into Yale because of his GPA. It could not have possibly been high enough. About pre-med, I have no idea how he's going to simultaneously maintain GPA and skate. Although, I heard that students from Ivys aren't required to choose their majors freshman year?

As for that person, I was referring to his GPA in Ivy League standards. His PSAT score was 1490, high enough for any state (that year at least). He is an Asian student that excels in STEM, and he got 5s in AP Physics C (both) and AP CS as well. However, his class rank was ~80/500. For Ivy League, that's no way enough. He got rejected from UT Austin, and didn't even think about elite schools.

AFAIK, UT Austin is very hard to get in, especially CS and honor programs, I know a student got into an east coast elite school but rejected by the UT Austin’s honor program. Your friend’s class rank definitely hurt him when comes to UT system where class ranking plays ridiculously important role in admissions. He probably won’t need it, but I hope your friend would get some kind of scholarship with that national merit semifinalist. Some schools offer full ride to students with that award.

AS to declare college major, IIRC, it is true for HPY + Stanford you don’t need to declare major until sophomore year. It is slightly different when comes to Columbia, UPenn and Cornell. You don’t need to declare major until sophomore year in those schools either, but you have to apply to specific colleges in the school, 6 colleges for Cornell, 4 colleges for U Penn, and I believe 2 for Columbia, and 2 for Duke. I don’t know about Brown and Dartmouth.

For Nathan, he once stated he would do ECON back in April, after the bulldog day, he changed his mind to statistics, while fulfilling prerequisites for medical school. You are right that it is almost mission impossible to lots of us. But Nathan is Nathan, you cannot tell him what is doable and what is not based on some other athletes’ experiences. He has to experience it himself. He would not give up his plan until he personally encountered something big. We can only hope he would not get too exhausted from doing both. It is kinda depressing just to think about the amount of traveling and the prospect of self training, not even talking about class scheduling and workload.

 

[lichi]

AFAIK, UT Austin is very hard to get in, especially CS and honor programs, I know a student got into an east coast elite school but rejected by the UT Austin’s honor program. Your friend’s class rank definitely hurt him when comes to UT system where class ranking plays ridiculously important role in admissions. He probably won’t need it, but I hope your friend would get some kind of scholarship with that national merit semifinalist. Some schools offer full ride to students with that award.

AS to declare college major, IIRC, it is true for HPY + Stanford you don’t need to declare major until sophomore year. It is slightly different when comes to Columbia, UPenn and Cornell. You don’t need to declare major until sophomore year in those schools either, but you have to apply to specific colleges in the school, 6 colleges for Cornell, 4 colleges for U Penn, and I believe 2 for Columbia, and 2 for Duke. I don’t know about Brown and Dartmouth.

For Nathan, he once stated he would do ECON back in April, after the bulldog day, he changed his mind to statistics, while fulfilling prerequisites for medical school. You are right that it is almost mission impossible to lots of us. But Nathan is Nathan, you cannot tell him what is doable and what is not based on some other athletes’ experiences. He has to experience it himself. He would not give up his plan until he personally encountered something big. We can only hope he would not get too exhausted from doing both. It is kinda depressing just to think about the amount of traveling and the prospect of self training, not even talking about class scheduling and workload.

Yes, UT Austin is very much a class-ranked based school, he applied knowing he wouldn't get accepted. Also, yes, he received a full-ride + stipend at his University for the National Merit. You're really good at guessing about people!

And yes, Nathan is incredible. I'm sure he has a plan in mind to work out his schedule- but hopefully he doesn't exhaust himself. I don't see how it works out, but then again, Nathan's surprised me many times.

 

[ranran]

I guess I have a bit of a different definition for "academically excellent", but I don't think that attending a school qualifies... Or even getting a degree like physical education. For being "academically excellent", in my eyes it really would need to be something like a MD degree, or law school. Or some more advanced engineering like quantum physics, radiation physics or some mathematics. Perhaps financial school.

Here, Valtter Virtanen comes to mind. He's a top skater... in Finland.

IMHO I am in the group of people who didn't like to discriminate against any course in university due to my own experience. Just because it's a physical education does not mean it is any less easy to handle studies just because they are athlete and that is their field compared to say engineering or medic. Some engineering student actually said to a mutual friend of ours who was visiting me that they should run along because "their engineering homework required more focus right now, they are fine as they JUST have to draw something" (I'm an architecture grad) So I pick up my model-making knife and ask her to make the design model for me

Point is I thought regardless any course, anyone who is enrolled in university no matter what type of course should be respected for their effort because you never know what type of classes they are taking or what type of load work they have to do and in this case I respected these athletes who still enroll themselves in their university and some of them even a very good student despite their other life schedule.

 

[ranran]

Kevin Shum, US men's skater and a current student at MIT, has my undying respect

Kevin is not a "top" skater, he'll never go to Worlds, but he did go to Nats last year and this essay shows just how difficult it is to attend one of the most academically arduous schools in the US and skate competitively at the same time:

http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/skating-or-school

I think just the fact he is a skater eventhough not one of the top but still he is attending MIT while still actively competing Excellence comes in many form not just result :agree:

 

[ranran]

Didn't Debbie Thomas become a physician... because that requires stellar grades.

She even had her own practice didn't she? It's sad she was challenged by her bipolar. I watch one of the documentaries on her, she was brilliant.

 

[mrrice]

I'm not sure what Rachael Flatt is up to but I believe she was a straight A student at Stanford.

 

[concorde]

I thought Rachel was pre-med.

I do know that she is working on some project with USFS and I think it is nutrition related. This was mentioned at a parent seminar I attended this past Spring but I forgot the specifics.