<p>Goaliedad is a violist (or at least used to be - not much time these days) whose daughter is the goalie, not to be confused with violadad who to my knowledge doesn't play hockey and whose son (IIRC) is the violist.</p>
<p>I personally think both arts and athletics have a place in a student's development. S/he (not the parents) should choose what inspires/motivates him/her, not what improves chances at HYPSM. I've been watching this thread trying to stay out of the controversy. Quite frankly, they kid who is willing to donate a significant chunk of his/her time to make a better environment (either culturally or athletically) deserves an edge because it is a contribution. A 2350 SAT does not entertain or enlighten anyone else in Cambridge, New Haven, etc.</p>
<p>Mine doesn't look to be Ivy material, but she does care that people take some excitement from watching her team play. If that makes whatever school she wants to attend better, I say she deserves some token of goodwill from the school.</p>
<p>Hadn't waded all the way through this thread to the music stuff. My first though was Wow, bad weather for wooden instruments! Glad to hear they were playing their "second fiddles" </p>
<p>On the sports side, I recently shared a plane ride with a young man who said he was an assistant coach for a certain Ivy school in Lacrosse. He claimed that rowing for both sexes and lax for girls was the "golden" admissions tickets this past year. YMMV. On the other hand, we had a nice flight discussing college admissions.</p>
<p>Dragonmom,That is so funny. My son at UVa (who is 6'6" and played bb and vb in high school ) had the crew(rowing) people all over him when he initially got to campus in 2005. They saw him at the activities fair and saw he had the right body for crew. He had been to public school in high school. He called me , at least 3 times, confused about why these crew guys would not leave him alone. He had made a conscious choice to not pursue sports in college (beyond club,intramural) so that he could concentrate on school in engineering.If he had been at a private school with crew in high school, my guess would be he may have been recruited .Title iX for guys has effected lots of sports- Men's Crew at UVa is club , women is varsity.Varsity Volleyball is only women at UVa. Men's volleyball is intramural/club only,etc.! I get it but when there are 22 Division I varsity men's volleyball teams and 300+ womens's team, it seems there is an imbalance.</p>
<p>I just finished watching the US Women's National Figure Skating Championships. The girl who came in 6th (or maybe 7th), Kristin Hacker, is going to Princeton in the fall. Being a nationally ranked figure skater was probably a decent hook.</p>
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<p>agree with the decision to go memorex. No use in potentially embarassing the professionals playing under very harsh circumstances.<<</p>
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<p>However, the Marine Band was playing live at the inauguration. As they said on NPR, imagine what other military units, especially the Russian Army, would think if the Marines said it was too cold to play.</p>
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I just finished watching the US Women's National Figure Skating Championships. The girl who came in 6th (or maybe 7th), Kristin Hacker, is going to Princeton in the fall. Being a nationally ranked figure skater was probably a decent hook.
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<p>Sarah Hughes went to Yale; Emily Hughes is a student at Harvard.</p>
<p>And Kerri Strug got in to Stanford on her brilliant SATs, Intel science fair qualifications and national writing awards...
No, they want a balanced class, not a class of balanced individuals.</p>
<p>My recollection is that Sarah Hughes SATs were over 1400/1600. So she was no slouch either. I don't think the Ivy's accept every movie star or skater, but if you are smart and superlative at what you do, that's obviously a reason to accept you. (And I have no problem with that.)</p>
<p>I agree that lots of the skaters and gymnasts are really bright folks (the kind you love to hate - Olympic medalist oh, yeah, and high SATs). Many of the young elite athletes are home schooled in the best possible way. Of course, sometimes education does take second place to the sport. There's a well known private school down here that is attended by elite athletes - the HS students attend 2 1/2 hours per day. I've heard about kids who transfered from there to good suburban high schools and had a very hard time catching up. So each situation is different, but being a nationally ranked gymnast or figure skater with awesome scores is a great situation to be in!</p>
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I just finished watching the US Women's National Figure Skating Championships. The girl who came in 6th (or maybe 7th), Kristin Hacker, is going to Princeton in the fall. Being a nationally ranked figure skater was probably a decent hook.
Sarah Hughes went to Yale; Emily Hughes is a student at Harvard.
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<p>Paul Wylie went to Harvard, as did--I think--Michelle Kwan's older sister Karen, who at one point was a very highly ranked skater. </p>
<p>And of course there was John Mischa Petkevich (sp?), whom I think started Harvard's figure-skating connection.</p>
<p>Speaking of figure skating, I saw the men's national competition yesterday afternoon, and was totally blown away by the depth of the field and the artistry they displayed.</p>
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Speaking of figure skating, I saw the men's national competition yesterday afternoon, and was totally blown away by the depth of the field and the artistry they displayed.
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<p>I totally agree; we were much more impressed with the men than the women - although that Jeremy guy who won is a complete and utter goofball. I sure hope someone tells him that his mugging to the camera in the kiss and cry is NOT gaining him any fans. My girls and I all love Evan.</p>
<p>Jeremy's skating was amazing, though. He, Johnny Weir, and Evan are all superb. SUCH an improvement over the days of Todd Eldredge, who bored me stiff.</p>
<p>Ths thread has made me look up whatever happened to Matt Savoie, a figure skater who placed third at nationals a few years ago, made the Olympic team and was supposed to go to law school after that. I guess he finally did go to law school:</p>
<p>Wikipedia: He graduated summa cum laude from Bradley University in 2002, with a major in political science and a minor in biology. He went on to earn his master's degree in urban planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2005 and received the AICP Outstanding Graduate Student Award for 2005. He was admitted to the law school at Cornell University in 2005, but obtained a deferral for a year to focus on making the Olympic team. He joined the program in September 2006. While Savoie has not given up his Olympic eligibility, he has not competed since the 2006 World Championships and has focused on law school instead.</p>
<p>Sarah and Emily Hughes' older sister was my classmate at Harvard, and not a famous athlete in any field. Of course every sibling is different, but that suggests pretty strongly to me that the sisters were probably smart and hardworking students off the ice, too.</p>
<p>There are no figure skating teams or competitions among the Ivies, so figure skaters do not contribute their skating talents in any way to the student body or to the benefit of the university.</p>
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There are no figure skating teams or competitions among the Ivies, so figure skaters do not contribute their skating talents in any way to the student body or to the benefit of the university.
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<p>Right....it just must impress the admissions officers to think that someone could spend 5 hours a day or so at the rink (usually at some time like 4 am), travel all over the country (or even world) competing, and STILL have great grades and test scores. Sort of trumps "Drill team 9-12" or "French club 10-12".</p>
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Right....it just must impress the admissions officers to think that someone could spend 5 hours a day or so at the rink (usually at some time like 4 am), travel all over the country (or even world) competing, and STILL have great grades and test scores. Sort of trumps "Drill team 9-12" or "French club 10-12"
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<p>True, but I find it less impressive than the recruited D1 athlete who must devote 20 hours per week (NCAA rules), 3 hours+ per day, 6 days per week, in addition to passing all of his/her classes at Harvard and Princeton, which btw, must be limited to those courses which do not conflict with a 3:00-6:00pm practice schedule. They can participate in few other ECs or campus jobs, or trips abroad.</p>
<p>My point being, that much is expected of a recruited athlete at H and P, in return for a sometimes compromised SAT/GPA. Just because some other students may find rowing, or football, or swimming "boring," (football has very complicated rules which many people find difficult to follow) or wrongly assume "NO ONE CARES" about the sport, these athletes are donating a tremendous amount of their time to representing the school in return for their education. There is much tradition and spirit that goes with these sports, which are followed and appreciated by millions of people around the world. The very first intercollegiate athletic competition in the history of America was a rowing regatta between Harvard and Yale.</p>