Nathan Chen and University: A Yalie?

ElSoteroLoco said:

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.

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He put in his Instagram account Yale´22 meaning the year of his promotion, so he is intending to assist...

Yes.

oatmella said:

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.

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It's a good decision to experience college, if that's what he wants to do. I wouldn't think being a male USA figure skater in non-Olympic years would be especially lucrative, so I don't think he's missing out on a ton of endorsements or other opportunities by pursuing his education.

Yale BA/PhD here. There's a lot of hypothesizing and wishful thinking floating around this thread. Yale requires 36 credits to graduate. In almost all circumstances, 1 credit = 1 semester-long course. (A few courses, such as intensive language courses that guide students through two years of language courses in a single year, carry 2 credits; in my experience these courses take much more than twice as much time and effort as a 1-credit course!) Under normal circumstances, students take nine courses per year: four one semester and five the other. Yale doesn't accept part-time students; not only do you have to take at least three courses in any one semester, you will only be promoted to your next year's standing if you are keeping up an average of 8-9 courses per year.

Those 36 credits must ordinarily be completed in no more than 8 semesters of enrollment, and no fewer than 6. You can't take a lighter courseload or enroll part-time in order to extend your degree over more than 8 semesters of enrollment, although you can take a leave of absence. You can only transfer a maximum of 2 credits from another university (unless you're doing a full-time study-abroad semester or year through the university)--and only if you're planning to graduate in 8 semesters; you can't use credit earned elsewhere to speed up your graduation. You can apply a maximum of 4 online summer courses taught by Yale to your degree. All other online courses fall under the rule about transferring a maximum of 2 external courses.

In practice, course offerings in the summer are far more restricted than those in the academic year proper (fall and spring semester). A student would be unwise to expect to be able to complete her major requirements by relying heavily on summer courses.

You can use AP credits to accelerate your graduation if you're planning to graduate in fewer than 8 semesters, but not to reduce the number of courses you take per semester. Your AP credits can be used to place into certain advanced courses instead of beginning with an introductory course, but they can't count toward your major requirements or any of the distributional requirements (the general education requirements that apply to all Yale undergraduates, regardless of major).

All these rules, and many more, are laid out here:
http://catalog.yale.edu/ycps/academic-regulations/

I can also say from experience that Yale does not make it easy to bend these rules. They have no reason to. They're not interested in making it easier to earn a Yale degree. They're interested in guaranteeing that the degree and the university maintain their reputation as among the best in the world, by upholding the extremely high quality of both the education they offer and the graduates they produce.

On a lighter note, one reason that Nathan might decide to go to Yale now is that all students live on campus for their first two years, and most live on campus for all four. Freshmen are assigned to one of twelve "residential colleges", where for the next four years they live, eat in the dining halls, work out in the basement gyms, attend informal visits by interesting people hosted by faculty who live in the colleges ("Master's Teas"), play on intramural sports teams...the list goes on and on. It would be much easier and probably more enjoyable to immerse himself in that environment now than it would be once he were four or five years older than his fellow freshmen (let alone fourteen or fifteen).

And while we are technically Elis, I've never seen or heard that term used outside the New York Times crossword puzzle. We generally go by Yalies these days. Our sports teams are the Bulldogs, and our mascot, Handsome Dan, is a real live bulldog and, in my totally unbiased opinion, the most adorable puppy ever:

http://www.yalebulldogs.com/information/mascot/handsome_dan/index

Congrats to Nathan! I hope he has a wonderful time at Yale and finds the time to sample all the university and the town have to offer--including New Haven's legendary pizza.

karne said:

Maybe while they were at Worlds he asked Max for some tips, since Max graduated magna cum laude in three years. :yes:

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Max was at an Ivy League? Ivy Leagues are a whole different dimension of academic challenge than most every place else. Comparable would be Rachel Flatt and Stanford.

Check out Katherine Healy, magna cum laude at Princeton. Became a pro figure skater at 11. Nominated for a Golden Globe for her starring role in "Six Weeks" at 13. Senior principal dancer at the English National Ballet at age 15. Favorite of Dick Button. Married to Peter Burrows.

Look for Katherine Healy on Wikipedia, but more spectacularly, check out her performances over the years in figure skating AND ballet.

In this Czech interview with Michal Brezina, after Worlds, Brezina had this to say about Nathan and Yale:

(H/T to @Sylvia, who posted this link in FSU )

https://sport.idnes.cz/krasobruslen...-pnt-/sporty.aspx?c=A180325_221352_sporty_ald

" What's next? Yale and gold from China

Don't look at the revolutionary idea of bragging. "Nathan's a normal boy," he reassures Březina. It's definitely not just a jumping machine. Eight years of playing the piano, he also had his own recitals. He was also an excellent gymnast.
"He doesn't wear a nose up, he doesn't buy expensive branded stuff. He's very clever and he thinks differently than we do than the other skaters, "says Březina. "All the money he earned is hiding for school, because universities are expensive in America. He wants to study biological engineering or medicine. He had already accepted him at the prestigious Yale. Let's see how it all can combine. "
(Bing Translate)

I am grateful for Bing Translate, as I speak or read not one word of Czech, but Americans know what it is like to "hide all your money" for college

oatmella said:

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.

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Generally, at Ivies and other elite institutions, the "entire college experience in all its facets" is de rigueur. No choice there. There's no laid back, no part-time, no filling up the schedule with credits from other colleges/universities; there are theses to write and potentially a paper every week; you are DELUGED with work.

flipsydoodle said:

Generally, at Ivies and other elite institutions, the "entire college experience in all its facets" is de rigueur. No choice there. There's no laid back, no part-time, no filling up the schedule with credits from other colleges/universities; there are theses to write and potentially a paper every week; you are DELUGED with work.

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Thank you for your response. I am quite familiar with the academic requirements and expectations at “elite institutions” from my personal experience.
I never suggested that he wouldn’t do the academic work/slack off/attempt to get all his credits from online classes.
When I referred to ‘all facets’ - that could includes things like participating in all social activities, football games, school traditions, etc ... sometimes compromises have to made.
But thank you for the clarification.

ribbit said:

whole post

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Can I ask in what decade you graduated undergrad, if you don't mind? My earlier posts were based on spousal unit's undergrad experience as Yale '70 (his own PhD is from yet another New England Ivy) but I'm glad to see most of this is still in play. (I love being right) *However*, in the 60s fewer said Yalie self-referentially and a lot of folks used Eli, so interesting to see that changed. Which absolutely no one will care about except you and me,

But as special as Nathan is, if he comes, he will be just one of many many many special folks on campus. If he comes and if he stays. After all this talk, that will be interesting to see.

jenaj said:

Nathan will likely defer. When (if) he does enroll, he probably has AP credit and can take a reduced course load.

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Ummm, no. You need to rack up AP credits (and a whole lot of other stuff) just to get in. AP credits are not used to reduce course load at elite institutions like Yale: you are expected to do elite level work at elite institutions. AP's don't even come close: you'd be through an AP curriculum in about 2 weeks at an elite institution, and many don't even offer curriculum that's basic like that. You can sometimes use APs to let you skip, say, the first year of French, but that won't mitigate your obligation to do well in a required number of semesters in foreign language. Same with all the other subjects. Often, you can't even use your APs to make a 100-level course easier on you: e.g. you may have Chemistry AP and be forced into Organic (rather than General) if you want to continue in Chemistry.

Unlike most colleges/universities, elite universities require you to do well in an array of specified disciplines. There are likely to be 8 or so of these classes that are not in your major.

To give you a clue about the elite world if you aren't familiar first hand, I have an Ivy Ph.D. 5 languages were required for admission to my program; language testing verification began on the FIRST day, for a whole day. These grad students were coming from very elite institutions from around the world, and they tended to be multi-talented. Like all my peers, I had a crazy-rigorous undergraduate curriculum: APs in lieu of rigorous elite classes would just plain have sunk you in this environment.

el henry said:

Can I ask in what decade you graduated undergrad, if you don't mind? My earlier posts were based on spousal unit's undergrad experience as Yale '70 (his own PhD is from yet another New England Ivy) but I'm glad to see most of this is still in play. (I love being right) *However*, in the 60s fewer said Yalie self-referentially and a lot of folks used Eli, so interesting to see that changed. Which absolutely no one will care about except you and me,

But as special as Nathan is, if he comes, he will be just one of many many many special folks on campus. If he comes and if he stays. After all this talk, that will be interesting to see.

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Not the poster but I attended in the 00s. Never referred to myself as an Eli, only as a Yalie. And this has been a hoot to see a figure skater I’m a big fan of attend my alma mater. All my old classmates have been discussing the news and feeling nostalgic for those bright college years....

Had he medaled at Olympics I’d say fine but geez I crushed. I want him to skate. I’ll bet he dabbles two years then makes up his mind.

el henry said:

Can I ask in what decade you graduated undergrad, if you don't mind? My earlier posts were based on spousal unit's undergrad experience as Yale '70 (his own PhD is from yet another New England Ivy) but I'm glad to see most of this is still in play. (I love being right) *However*, in the 60s fewer said Yalie self-referentially and a lot of folks used Eli, so interesting to see that changed. Which absolutely no one will care about except you and me,

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BA '00, PhD '08. And one of my closest grad school friends is now a tenured faculty member, so I'm still in touch with some aspects of campus culture. At the risk of hijacking the thread even further, I love hearing about previous generations' experiences at Yale--and your spousal unit would have overlapped with my dissertation advisor and with parents of friends, who had some *very* interesting stories to tell about everything from anti-war protests to the shift to coeducation. It is interesting to see how much continuity there is in the requirements and the campus culture, and what changes and when...

lowereastside said:

Not the poster but I attended in the 00s. Never referred to myself as an Eli, only as a Yalie. And this has been a hoot to see a figure skater I’m a big fan of attend my alma mater. All my old classmates have been discussing the news and feeling nostalgic for those bright college years....

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We overlapped--you would have been there while I was in grad school. (And you'll know what I mean if I write BR '00!)



Back to Nathan: I think we can all agree that he's a very lucky young man--and one who has worked very hard to make that luck--and that we hope he takes advantage of all the unique opportunities that will come his way! Not the least of which is the chance to skate in Ingalls Rink, aka the "Yale Whale".

Happy for Nathan, but I find it unlikely he maintains the same level of skating moving forward. Attending Yale is a lot different from taking online classes or even attending University of Colorado, and it is like a full time job. Were there any other skaters who continued skating at the top levels while attending a top tier college? Maybe Paul Wylie, but there aren't that many.

jenaj said:

Nathan will likely defer. When (if) he does enroll, he probably has AP credit and can take a reduced course load.

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oatmella said:

AP test scores (and I have no clue about Nathan’s AP results) can be used for acceleration credit at Yale - to complete a degree in less than 8 terms.

http://catalog.yale.edu/first-year-...ration-credit-advanced-placement-test-scores/

While AP credits do not count towards pre-med science requirements, if Nathan is planning on majoring in biology (as he mentioned in the past), he wouldn’t have a problem fulfilling these requirements.

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I posted this but it got deleted for some reason(?)

But yeah you can use APs to count towards elective credit and/or to pass out of very basic first year classes like Calculus, but that won't help you graduate faster, it's more like you'll take longer than average (more than 4 years) if you didn't have them.

bobbob said:

Happy for Nathan, but I find it unlikely he maintains the same level of skating moving forward. Attending Yale is a lot different from taking online classes or even attending University of Colorado, and it is like a full time job. Were there any other skaters who continued skating at the top levels while attending a top tier college? Maybe Paul Wylie, but there aren't that many.

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Nathan might be the exception. In some ways it would be great to see him succeed at doing both as it would be an inspiration to others you can do it all on the other hand, it might be good for him not to have it all because it may se t unreasonable expectations for others.

The notion of a society that is well educated, athletically and artistically inclined, able to raise a family, have a competitive career, cook amazing meals, do it yourself home improvement, car care and do things like painting,pottering, sewing, woodworking or furniture making while volunteering for something well maybe that isn't healthy or realistica for the majoirty. Sometimes you can't have it all. Nathan is very driven and focussed but time will see.

I could see him still winning against others who focus mainl or really only on skating. He seems like a nice guy but this isn't about being nice. Time will tell but no matter what this is quite the accomplishment.

I wonder if Vera Wang willb e doing his grad outfit? OR did he graduate last year from highschool?

I think it will depend how much will want Yale staff to support him doing both sport and studying. Especially for science study, one has to attend lots of laboratories and it depends if they are offered as a block (for example all labs for a course in two weeks) or are weekly if you are able to skip them once and take them at another time. You cannot attend them on-line, so it will come to the staff support.

Congratulations to Nathan, he is a bright and hard working young man who deserves the best :2thumbs:

I am sure he has already considered all the things brought up in this thread and made his choice accordingly. I just hope that he has a good support system that will help him get through studies and skating without stressing too much or affecting his health.

Best of luck to Nathan in life, studies, and sport

I agree with the a previous poster that he will not be able to give 100% to both. Most likely, both will suffer unless he picks one. Being a college student is hard enough, but when you add in pre-med requirements, it becomes your life. You have to earn certain grades from the start or else you ruin your chances of getting into med school. I think it is awesome that he has high academic aspirations, but I question what his team is telling him is possible. He may be incredibly talented, but he isn't super human.

narcissa said:

I posted this but it got deleted for some reason(?)

But yeah you can use APs to count towards elective credit and/or to pass out of very basic first year classes like Calculus, but that won't help you graduate faster, it's more like you'll take longer than average (more than 4 years) if you didn't have them.

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Your source for that? AP credit is usually just that--course credit. Every school has its own policies, but in general, AP credit can be used to graduate earlier or to take a reduced course load.