<p>I'm very excited that he'll be a part of my class! This is just so amazing. From everything I've read, he sounds like a very great guy. I support his cause and hope to work with him at Princeton - because I can! :)</p>
<p>Go Princeton Class of 2010!</p>
<p>Go Joey Cheek! :D</p>
<p>Which school comes off looking worst, here?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Harvard, which turned poor Joey down, or</p></li>
<li><p>Princeton, which admitted him on the rebound, or</p></li>
<li><p>Yale, which admitted him, entertained him, but which Joey snubbed, or</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford, which admitted him, but which Joey didn't even bother to visit during "pro-fro" days (as they call them in Palo Alto)?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Well, not scottie, but I'll go for them:</p>
<ol>
<li>Of course Harvard doesn't look bad. It turned down Joey for one of it's more qualified applicants. Maybe another Kaavya?.</li>
</ol>
<p>In all fairness, Harvard got a decent bit of publicity out of the whole thing, but that's about the extent of it.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>In the vast majority of cases, I don't see celebrities as that big a deal...maybe a distraction from what a university is supposed to represent. But if you just look at the link f.scottie posted earlier, Cheek's humanitarian efforts are truly commendable; he geuninely does the sort of volunteering that so many HPYS applicants do to merely pad their applications. Here's a guy who worked hard to achieve something few people can (the Olympic goal) and genuinely is a good person. I'm glad to count him as a fellow Tiger-to-be.</p></li>
<li><p>Doesn't really matter much. Yale doesn't stop being a good school because Joey Cheek didn't choose it.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It's not a zero-sum game; there don't have to be "losers".</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Which school comes off looking worst, here?<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>I don't see where there is any best or worst involved here. It's a typical college application result: the applicant applies to several good schools. Most accept him but one or two don't. Among those that accept him he chooses one and not the others. Among those he didn't choose were some that apparently weren't really in the running. No big deal. It sounds a lot like my daughter's experience.</p>
<p>... your daughter's application process wasn't turned into the script for a reality TV show!</p>
<p>harvard looks a little foolish, but has its reputation for selectivity burnished a bit. princeton looks good for landing a guy with a lot of recognition and a lot of choices. yale and stanford look fine - he could only choose one school, and it's not like he chose GW or UNC over those two.</p>
<p>By the way, Joey Cheek was rejected early. He himself posted on an online forum last February:</p>
<p>My dad forwarded this thread to me thinking I might get a kick out of it. I thought it might be nice to post and clear up a few inconsistencies from both my supporters and detractors. First, I find it amazing and rather humbling that this many people would take the time to argue for or against the merits of admitting me into Harvard. Two, I WAS rejected out of the entire admittance pool for undergrads, not simply deferred. I called the office to see if I could find out in what areas I was lacking, their reasoning was that since I had been out of school for a decade they had reservations about whether or not I could handle the workload at an Ivy League University, which is of course a perfectly legitimate concern. I was told I was an ideal transfer student, since I had all of the pieces, except for recent academic work. I scored 790 on my verbal, 750 on writing and 610 on math on the SAT I. I know that the math was weak, but just two months later I took the SAT II math and received a 700, along with 740 on US History and 800 on Lit. Also in Harvard's defense when I applied I was not a gold medalist, but a bronze. So I guess that there are two points in all of this that I want to make: I am NOT a sore loser, I was not accepted into my first choice, like 22,000 other people, and now I will find a university where I can do my best to see what my academic potential really is. Second, I wouldn't be so hard on the kid who got accepted early action, he or she is young and just got accepted to one of the greatest universities on earth - so of course he feels on top of the world. My only advice to him would be to be careful, I have found every time I got to big a head, the universe quickly found a way to knock me back down to size. Oh yeah, one more thing: you don't need thousands of dollars to help someone in need so Harvard admit, if you would like, I would love to take you with me to Zambia, I leave April 9</p>
<p>Joey Cheek
2006 Olympic Gold Medalist </p>
<p>Here is the link: <a href="http://www.topix.net/forum/sports/T7N6933EBDN9E39LV/p2%5B/url%5D">http://www.topix.net/forum/sports/T7N6933EBDN9E39LV/p2</a></p>
<p>Thank you for sharing this. Assuming that it was actually written by Mr. Cheek, I applaud him for his candor and maturity. He is obviously a very strong candidate with impressive test scores and incredible extracurriculars that few applicants can match! Were I Joey Cheek, reading the snide comments of many of the advocates for peer schools that have appeared on this board and similar threads on the Yale board, I would be happier than ever with my decision to enroll at Princeton. I say, welcome, Joey, were proud to call you a fellow Princetonian!</p>
<p>Welcome to Princeton's class of 2010 Joey!</p>
<p>He has made the Princeton experience all the more exciting for me and countless other Class of '10 frosh, current undergrads, faculty, alums, .....the list goes on!</p>
<p>I'm proud to be a Princeton Tiger alongside Joey! :)</p>
<p>I don't understand why the Princeton kids are all so happy about Joey. In the post about what happened to him at Harvard (supposedly originally made by Joey), he's talking about wanting to go to Harvard and applying as a transfer student! In other words, he's basically saying he's using Princeton as a stepping stone to Harvard. What's there to be ecstatic over Joey for, Princetonians? He's basically dissing you big time.</p>
<p>...he said that BEFORE he got into Princeton.</p>
<p>It's quite imaginable that in the uncertainty of the post-Harvard rejection period, Cheek may have publicly discussed his options. Hey, I have friends that said the entire same thing last year after the shock of their initial negative decisions from their dream schools. Right now, they're all very happy with where they are and couldn't imagine being elsewhere.</p>
<p>And, who's to say we can't be happy to have someone as awesome as Joey around as part of our class? Regardless of his future plans, the fact remains that he will be with us for some amount of time. Not only is Joey an amazing athlete (as evidenced by his successful Olympic career), he is purported to be an amazing person; very down-to-earth, humble, and with a very big heart. Who in their right mind would NOT want to be around and learn from someone like him? Just by attending (for however long he decides to attend), he enhances all of our educations that much more!</p>
<p>Some may be excited because of his fame; others may just enjoy the attention he brings to Princeton; still others might be lost in the illusion that he's some rich dude and a valuable friend to have (financially); but I know I'm not the only one who's excited for the most important things that Joey has to offer his Princeton classmates; among them, a valuable learning experience; the perseverance that made his successes possible; a view through charitable eyes; a big heart; fun!! :)</p>
<p>CautiousPessimism, well, we'll just have to see what Joey Cheek actually does. Transfer out to Harvard (after 1 or 2 years), graduate from Princeton (at the age of 31), or just attend Princeton for a bit and decide that being a 30-year-old undergraduate with a bunch of 20-year-olds isnt exactly what he thought it would be.</p>
<p>maybe joey cheek is so rich he can fund our education</p>
<p>Or maybe he's not rich at all. And if your amnesia doesn't prevent you from remembering any of the articles about him, you'll recall that he's just a very generous guy with the money he won @ the Olympics! If he were rich, he would of course donate to very worthy global causes in a heartbeat before funding all Princetonians' educations (considering how most Princeton kids are richer than Cheek is anyhow)! ;)</p>
<p>He HAD to give the prize money away to preserve his amateur status. The stories praising him for his "charitable impulse" always left that little fact out bevcause it would have spoiled their theme.</p>
<p>Byerly, that's the most ridiculous thing I've seen yet on a Joey Cheek thread!</p>
<p>Is it just because Princeton has Joey and Harvard doesn't that you have to result to "ad hominem" in your logic? I'm almost 100% certain you wouldn't attack Joey's character like that if he had been "snapped up" by Harvard first.</p>
<p>You obviously underestimate Joey. Perhaps you have no faith in people like him. Maybe you're jealous. Or maybe you just don't like kindness and generosity and have to rationalize because you're cynical by nature. In any case, you're just attacking Joey and you're not giving him the proper credit he deserves! Shame on you!</p>
<p>I am not knocking his character in the slightest.</p>
<p>It is simply a fact that Olympic athletes wishing to preserve their amateur status must decline the prize money paid to medal winners, or donate it to charity.</p>
<p>Check this link, Doolittle, and perhaps it will help you to understand the facts before you fly off the handle:</p>
<p>Byerly--I thought that the NCAA rules only applied to collegiate athletes. Since Cheek does not plan to compete at the collegiate level, how is it relevant?</p>
<p>Just to clarify, read this article <a href="http://www.gazette.com/olympics/display.php?id=1315070%5B/url%5D">http://www.gazette.com/olympics/display.php?id=1315070</a></p>
<p>The USOC pays its athletes bonuses which they are allowed to accept and still retain their amateur status, as least vis-a-vis subsequent world and olympic championships. The article also states that NCAA athletes are allowed to accept such bonuses and still retain collegiate amateur status. While I don't know if there has been a subsequent NCAA rule change (which is I guess what Byerly is suggesting), since Joey Cheek does not intend to compete at the collegiate level, he could definitely have kept his bonus and still competed at a subsequent national, world or olympic championships.</p>