Academically excellent top skaters | Page 5 | Golden Skate

Academically excellent top skaters

ranran

Zamboni time
On the Ice
Joined
Apr 21, 2014
Depends on country.
In Russia, physical education for athletes is a sort of a "guaranteed" uni thing, where you will very likely enter based on your athletic achievements, and professors will be very forgiving, based on same.

I see. Do they get an exemption from doing any course work or subjects even? What will they be doing for 4 years until graduation? But yeah it does happen in some of the universities in my country for example where they actually help the students to pass the course work even if you don't have a high sports achievement just to help the university's results performance so imagine if you actually have a notable sports achievement.
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
From my experience, this argument is VERY true, and not just about European schools. I went to 15 schools before high school. After the African school at age 10, I went into American 7th grade (and twiddled my thumbs for 2 years). At 11, my entrance exam for a British school had a Shakespeare question on the English paper, Algebra 2, French, and Latin. At the American 3rd grade I went to (a private Department of Defense school), the kids were still learning to read (in reading groups, even!!!!) and didn't yet know their multiplication tables.

The standard differential has been there for decades.

What I'm saying isn't about teacher pay or curriculum at all (American teachers were paid 10 times more than the African and English teachers I had). It's about what is demanded in terms of behavior in the classroom, expectations for homework, and just plain requiring students to do more sophisticated tasks.


I'm going to guess that American teachers were not paid 10 times more than your UK teachers. Starting salaries are so low in some states that that would have met your UK teachers were making well less than $10,000 a year. Even when I started teaching 24 years ago, no once could have lived on that in the U.S. or U.K. without another income.

Third graders are indeed learning multiplication tables. But they are 8. That is developmentally appropriate particularly as a huge goal of math curriculum now is not to merely have them memorize multiplication tables but to have them understand how multiplication works because developing that kind of number sense will make higher math easier (they do still memorize multiplication tables--but don't tell the makers of "schools should be teaching..." or "schools don't teach...anymore" memes). As a sub teacher, I have taught basic algebra concepts as early as 1st grade and have taught algebraic equations to fifth graders (who are ten years old). So I don't think our kids are as "behind" as you want to make them out to be.

As for reading groups, just because it is a small leveled group doesn't mean they are still learning to read. By third grade, reading instruction focuses on developing comprehension skills, expanding vocabulary and learning about genre and basic literary analysis-- not on decoding. Smaller leveled groups allow for more personal instruction and allow teachers to better track individual student progress. The district I sub in most often recently switched their grades 4-5 (roughly ages 9-11) back to smaller leveled groups for those two reasons. It doesn't mean that the kids are still learning basic decoding. It is just a different instructional methodology. That district has very high reading scores with a ton of kids getting the highest possible reading scores on state assessments and was a National Blue Ribbon school in 2015.
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
Not that I know anything about Nathan's GPA, but

1. More than just the admissions committee has access to your GPA. Teachers, counselors, parents, letter writers, or just friends who've spoken to the student can know this easily...
2. I don't think people on the admissions committee take a Hippocratic oath of silence/privacy or anything

TBH, I, too, was surprised that Nathan wasn't a shoo-in for Harvard. His extracurriculars are above average, to say the least.

As a matter of ethics and due to privacy laws, as a teacher I cannot discuss a student's grades or disciplinary record with ANYONE but that student and a parent or guardian. If I am complaining about a student who is failing due to doing nothing to my husband, I do not divulge his or her name or specific grades. And the school I have worked in most is 25 miles away and he has never laid eyes on a single student there. But there are laws about sharing that information.

Any and all college staff--which would include the admissions committee-- is held to the same privacy laws that teachers and school staff are. So, no, there is not an oath, but there are serious ethics and federal privacy laws that would mean that an admissions committee member is not allowed to divulge student GPAs. Nor are the teachers or school staff members allowed to. The only people you list here who would not be legally accountable to not reveal that information are friends of the student who s/he may have told that information.
 

narcissa

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 1, 2014
Do we even really know if Nathan didn’t get into Harvard ?

Supposedly he was in an online group for admitted Harvard students.

True, he might have been accepted. I wouldn't be surprised if he did. (I'd be wayyy more surprised if he didn't.) I guess I'm just going off the fact that he said he wanted to attend Harvard, but is now not attending Harvard. But it's possible he decided he liked Yale better after all.

As a matter of ethics and due to privacy laws, as a teacher I cannot discuss a student's grades or disciplinary record with ANYONE but that student and a parent or guardian. If I am complaining about a student who is failing due to doing nothing to my husband, I do not divulge his or her name or specific grades. And the school I have worked in most is 25 miles away and he has never laid eyes on a single student there. But there are laws about sharing that information.

Any and all college staff--which would include the admissions committee-- is held to the same privacy laws that teachers and school staff are. So, no, there is not an oath, but there are serious ethics and federal privacy laws that would mean that an admissions committee member is not allowed to divulge student GPAs. Nor are the teachers or school staff members allowed to. The only people you list here who would not be legally accountable to not reveal that information are friends of the student who s/he may have told that information.


So it sounds like there are privacy laws about this sort of stuff, which honestly makes a lot of sense. Not sure how often they're enforced though, because I was under a different impression. My friend was able to look up my file while working part-time in the admissions office doing administration -- with my permission, of course, since I wanted to see what they wrote -- but I didn't have to sign a release or anything.

And teachers won't know their students' GPAs but they have a general idea and there's a lot of backroom talk. As a student advisor in my undergrad I've seen students' grades too, mostly "accidentally" but they were just lying around on the counselor's desk. Not saying this is the case with Nathan, but word spreads. Of course, if Nathan was homeschooled, that would make it all the more difficult.
 

alexaa

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 27, 2018
Amazed by the amount of effort to try to make sense out of post claiming missing school would contribute to jaw dropping low GPA:laugh:
 

heyheyhey

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 19, 2018
Amazed by the amount of effort to try to make sense out of post claiming missing school would contribute to jaw dropping low GPA:laugh:

So low the kid had to settle for Yale rather than Harvard. So tragic, hope he’s ok and somehow manages to find some success in life 😢
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
True, he might have been accepted. I wouldn't be surprised if he did. (I'd be wayyy more surprised if he didn't.) I guess I'm just going off the fact that he said he wanted to attend Harvard, but is now not attending Harvard. But it's possible he decided he liked Yale better after all.




So it sounds like there are privacy laws about this sort of stuff, which honestly makes a lot of sense. Not sure how often they're enforced though, because I was under a different impression. My friend was able to look up my file while working part-time in the admissions office doing administration -- with my permission, of course, since I wanted to see what they wrote -- but I didn't have to sign a release or anything.

And teachers won't know their students' GPAs but they have a general idea and there's a lot of backroom talk. As a student advisor in my undergrad I've seen students' grades too, mostly "accidentally" but they were just lying around on the counselor's desk. Not saying this is the case with Nathan, but word spreads. Of course, if Nathan was homeschooled, that would make it all the more difficult.

On the gradebook program I used during a recent long term sub assignment, I could click on any student's name and see their current grades in all classes and current GPA. I could do so on the program we used at my last full time job 8 years ago. Prior to online grades, teachers got that info on their advisory group students and could easily access it otherwise any time they wanted by pulling a record. Have you even been in a school lately?

As for how those laws are enforced? Violating them can result in immediate dismissal from your job and the school getting sued. I don't know any teachers who do not abide by them because we also have ethics.
 

narcissa

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 1, 2014
On the gradebook program I used during a recent long term sub assignment, I could click on any student's name and see their current grades in all classes and current GPA. I could do so on the program we used at my last full time job 8 years ago. Prior to online grades, teachers got that info on their advisory group students and could easily access it otherwise any time they wanted by pulling a record. Have you even been in a school lately?

As for how those laws are enforced? Violating them can result in immediate dismissal from your job and the school getting sued. I don't know any teachers who do not abide by them because we also have ethics.

Yes. I've been in a school sometime after computerized grading systems were put in place and before printers became extinct.

Anyway, I know what I saw/heard. As a student advisor, my job as a junior/senior was to co-advise the underclassmen with the counselor, giving them advice on what classes to take and when. But I always felt unqualified for the role because their grades were always much better than mine :(
 

iluvtodd

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 5, 2004
Country
United-States
He didn't continue on to seniors, but Harrison Choate (US Junior men - pewter medalist 2012 - San Jose) - He was honored as one of the academically excellent high school students @ US Nationals, & recently graduated from Harvard.
 

vorravorra

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 9, 2016
I see. Do they get an exemption from doing any course work or subjects even? What will they be doing for 4 years until graduation? But yeah it does happen in some of the universities in my country for example where they actually help the students to pass the course work even if you don't have a high sports achievement just to help the university's results performance so imagine if you actually have a notable sports achievement.
As far as I know they have to sit all the exams and write dissertations and diploma projects and such, but they do not have to attend all the lectures, seminars and whatever else might be required on a day-to-day basis. So they basically play catchup at the end of each semester.
 

vorravorra

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 9, 2016
Depends on country.
In Russia, physical education for athletes is a sort of a "guaranteed" uni thing, where you will very likely enter based on your athletic achievements, and professors will be very forgiving, based on same.
Not everybody manages even that so you have to at least have some brains/academic inclination to pull it off.
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
There are some good folks on those scholastic honors teams. ...

He didn't continue on to seniors, but Harrison Choate (US Junior men - pewter medalist 2012 - San Jose) - He was honored as one of the academically excellent high school students @ US Nationals, & recently graduated from Harvard.

Vanessa Lam is another recent Harvard grad.

Fun fact:

No fewer than three skaters who eventually ended up going to Harvard -- Vanessa, Harrison, and Christina -- had been on the 2012 U.S. Figure Skating Scholastic Honors Team.

http://usfigureskating.org/Story?id=61657&type=news


If Selena Zhao has not been mentioned yet in the thread, she is in the Class of 2020 at Harvard.
 

perspicuosity

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 26, 2018
Christina Gao: Qualified for the GPF during her freshman year at Harvard. She graduated in May 2017.[/INDENT]



This is BONKERS. Most people can't handle freshman year at Harvard alone, without a full load of competitive figure skating. Absolutely, mind-bogglingly insane that she did this and did not fail out.
 

lariko

Medalist
Joined
Jan 31, 2019
Country
Canada
Academic excellence implies good grades, and by the sound of it Hanyu and Zhou are the only ones who have grades to back up excellence claim.

in the States, the school system is so poor, that you can’t really judge on high school grades from home schooling.

And, well, the State’s bias towards athletics is proverbial.

And, well, judging from Uno’s Interviews he does not exactly frequent his alma-mather
 

jenaj

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Country
United-States
Actually I was once at a dinner with a friend of my parents friends who went to Harvard, and he said that Nathan Chen’s GPA was jaw droppingly low, since he missed a lot of days of school, and that’s why Harvard didn’t accept him.

(Idk if this is true but that’s what he said, and the friend who said this was also a figure skater who was at a National competition, and he won a medal on the junior level)

Also idk how he knows this kind of information, but I suppose one could summarize someone has a lower GPA if they do miss a lot of days of school (for competitions and such)

Wasn't Nathan home-schooled? It sounds like triple-hearsay or idle gossip to me.
 

jenaj

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Country
United-States
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.)

Don't a lot of European schools track students into vocational, leaving only the best achievers in the academic track? To compare, you would have to choose American students from the selective NYC high schools or other schools where students have to test in. I doubt if those students need two years to "catch up" once they get to college.
 

jenaj

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Country
United-States
I actually don't doubt that Nathan's GPA is low (Ivy League standards). I don't know if he lives in a competitive school district, but the GPA required for Ivy League schools are incredibly high. To have an Ivy-League standard GPA along with a skating career is impossible. I'm sure Nathan's incredibly smart (getting into Yale!!), but intelligence level and GPA are loosely correlated. In High School, it's really who tries harder.

Someone who's very close to me has many of the same achievements as Nathan: AP Calculus BC at age 15 (5 on AP Test), Full score on Math SAT, but he had a low GPA because he was more interested in playing tennis. Ultimately, he got into University based on his PSAT score (National Merit Finalist) alone.

Why would he need to be admitted based on his PSAT instead of the real SAT?
 

alexaa

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 27, 2018
Why would he need to be admitted based on his PSAT instead of the real SAT?

The person should be admitted with his SAT or ACT score, he probably got his full ride because he did well in his PSAT as lots of schools offer full ride to the National Merit Semifinalists which is based on their PSAT score they took in high school, and most commonly the test a student takes in 11th grade.

Colleges offering great scholarships including full ride to NMSF

https://www.college-kickstart.com/b...eat-scholarships-for-national-merit-finalists

https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/interior.aspx?sid=1758&gid=2&pgid=424
 

alexaa

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 27, 2018
Academic excellence implies good grades, and by the sound of it Hanyu and Zhou are the only ones who have grades to back up excellence claim.

in the States, the school system is so poor, that you can’t really judge on high school grades from home schooling.

And, well, the State’s bias towards athletics is proverbial.

And, well, judging from Uno’s Interviews he does not exactly frequent his alma-mather

As a matter of fact, there is no way of knowing other athletes grades other than they disclose themselves, especially in US, where student privacy is greatly respected as far as I know. There is no way judging other athletes not having good grade as the two you mentioned, let alone the grading standards of different schools, and difficulty of the classes each student is taking. A straight A of regular classes is in no comparison with a non straight A student with lots of AP classes. A straight A in a non competitive school is in no comparison with a straight A student in a very competitive school.

I am beyond puzzled how Shoma is dragged into discussion again. I don’t remember any Shoma fan claimed Shoma is academically excellent. Fans are happy as long as he is great in doing what he enjoys doing.
 
Top