Academically excellent top skaters

Last Olympic highlights several interesting facts about some of the skaters academic background. I am amazed to learn that most of these skaters other than being a brilliant and competitive athlete they also excel academically. I tried looking at some articles and forums and this is what I got.

Active skaters

Nathan Chen
I think this is the most widely shared and what actually spur to look at other skaters academic background.
Will be doing BA at Yale University soon and that speaks a lot about his high school results.

Vincent Zhou
Attend Capistrano Connections Academy, skip 2 grade, graduated high school at 16 years old, a straight-A student, received the Presidential Award for Educational Excellence from President Obama.

Yuzuru Hanyu
Straight-A student, currently doing BA through online course at Waseda University, Japan in Human Informatics and Cognitive Sciences. (He did his university entrance interview after short program at Skate America in 2012)

Denis Ten
Working on his MA program (Oil and Gas) at the Business School of the Kazakh-British Technical University

Mikhail Kolyada
Working on his MA at Lesgaft National State University of Physical Education, Sport and Health, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Shoma Uno
Second-year stduent at Chukyo University, Japan.

Keiji Tanaka
Graduated with BA from Kurashiki University, Japan.

Satoko Miyahara
2nd-year student at Kansai University in Faculty of Letters (Literature), Japan.

Carolina Kostner
BA in Historical studies-Art history from University of Turin.

Evgenia Medvedeva
1st Year student at Russian State University of Physical Education, Sport, Youth and Tourism



Retired skaters

Caroline Zhang
A national merit finalist, worked at a hospital shadowing a gastroenterologist, studied at Harvard University.

Joannie Rochette
Enrolled in a medical preparatory year at McGill University, and continued as a medical student in 2016.

Tatsuki Machida
Graduated with BA in Literature from Kansai University, Graduated with MA in Sport Management from Waseda University, currently doing his PhD in Sport Sciences at Waseda university.

Kozuka Takahiko
Graduated with BA in Sports education from Chukyo University, Japan. Graduated with MA in Physical Education from Chukyo University.

That's the list that I could find after googling several interview articles. If anyone know more about other skaters not listed can add to the list. I'm just mind blown how these skaters can compete at the highest level while maintaining such a good result, and enrolled at university with course like Oil and Gas (like really Denis?!) huge respect! :eeking:

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"?

blue_ice said:

Anyone can apply to college...

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True, but not everyone can get accepted, especially to some of the universities named.

ranran said:

Mikhail Kolyada
Working on his MBA at Lesgaft National State University of Physical Education, Sport and Health, St. Petersburg, Russia.

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Not an MBA, a Master's degree in sports science. And he has just graduated.

My favorite example is Magna Max … meaning Max Aaron, who graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business -- in Dec 2017, during his final season of competitive skating.

A couple of others off the top of my head:

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ranran said:

... I am amazed to learn that most of these skaters other than being a brilliant and competitive athlete they also excel academically.

... I'm just mind blown how these skaters can compete at the highest level while maintaining such a good result, and enrolled at university with course like Oil and Gas (like really Denis?!) huge respect! :eeking:

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Like you, I have tons of respect for all the scholar-athletes .

I do imagine that plenty of other scholar-skaters belong on your list. (The U.S. alone has numerous other examples, and I would expect the same to be true for other countries.)

Although I am not/not/not saying that it would be easy to juggle academic excellence with training/competing at an elite level, it does make sense to me that high achievers in sport would want to be high achievers in all facets of life -- including their education.

Dick Button & Paul Wylie

Yuna Kim graduated from Korea University (one of 3 biggest universities in South Korea) majoring in physical education and after Sochi Olympics she attended Korea University Graduate School, again majoring in physical education.

Kimmie Meissner
Georgia Glastris
Michelle Kwan
Sarah and Emily Hughes

blue_ice said:

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"?

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Some of them did, but they are still good students according to their result considering a few of them accepted into prestigious uni. I'm talking about their determination to still attend university and keeping up good grades despite what must've been very intense training schedule. As for "academically excellent" you can find the explanation HERE the guy could explain it better than me.

vorravorra said:

Not an MBA, a Master's degree in sports science. And he has just graduated.

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Yeah Tq embarrassingly I put MBA in every thing I intended to be Master's degree. Fixed it now. Yeah I just saw that! Congrats to Kolyada!

Valtter Virtanen (Finland) studied medicine in Munich, Germany, graduated a little while ago and now works in a hospital there. So all also in a foreign language! (Ok, I gotta be a little evil here - hope he is much better as a doctor...) Debi Thomas became a medical doctor alo and worked in the field for quite a while (but her latter years have been a sad story).

Laupa Lepistö graduated from the Aalto University business school (Master level) a couple of years ago.

Can't believe that I almost forgot: Susanna Rahkamo, the former ice dancer, finished her PhD in Aalto University a couple of years ago having studied creativity and leadership.

I cannot remember that many doctoral level figure skater academic careers. Last year I found out that one highly respected professor in my field had been a figure skater in his youth (1970s I think), not particularly successful, though. We had a great discussion about the current state of figure skating in a conference :cool14:

E

ice coverage said:

My favorite example is Magna Max … meaning Max Aaron, who graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business -- in Dec 2017, during his final season of competitive skating.

A couple of others off the top of my head:

Richard Dornbush: University of California San Diego, Bachelor of Science in Physics with Specialization in Computational Physics, 2017.

Christina Gao: Qualified for the GPF during her freshman year at Harvard. She graduated in May 2017.​

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Like you, I have tons of respect for all the scholar-athletes .

I do imagine that plenty of other scholar-skaters belong on your list. (The U.S. alone has numerous other examples, and I would expect the same to be true for other countries.)

Although I am not/not/not saying that it would be easy to juggle academic excellence with training/competing at an elite level, it does make sense to me that high achievers in sport would want to be high achievers in all facets of life -- including their education.

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I know right! I barely hanging on with my BA and MA thank God I graduated safely... and that with me just attending university, I don't train for competition!

True~ I know there must be many other skaters but I'm already dizzy searching back the articles that I read this year, so I thought I leave it up to others to add in the skaters they know for their respective info.

I understand you don't worry! It's true that people said it's all about the personality. These athletes don't become high achievers just by practicing, the determination comes with it too, so it must have come in all aspect of their life.

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)

Nathan also got max score in his Math SAT, which is really impressive.

Sarah Hughes went to Yale, Emily Hughes went to Harvard, and Sasha Cohen went to Columbia. I don't think it makes those to devote themselves entirely to a sport lesser or better than these high achievers beyond their sport, they are all very impressive nevertheless. Regarding Nathan Chen's GPA, as a Yalie myself, I know that Yale does make exceptions on grades for "exceptional" talent, for me, it never discounts the amazing achievements these athletes made. And honestly, that coming from someone at Harvard is quite the case of the kettle calling the pot black =_=

TripleAxelQueens3 said:

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)

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How would he know Nathan’s GPA? Is your friend the Harvard AO who has access to the applicant’s file? lol

And missing school has nothing to do with GPA in high schools. The high schools in my area are insanely competitive, but you can make up the tests and everything if you inform your teacher beforehand. Those top kids always have some academic or extracurricular competitions all the time, and high schools are going to accommodate those needs. Even high school rankings are some kinda private information unless the student himself discloses it.

Nathan skipped a grade. He took AP calculus at age 15. He didn’t need to take AP at all or didn’t need to take calculus that early if he was not going to get good grades. The family is planning his college well ahead of time, they know he would need good GPA for top schools.


And if your friend’s words could be counted, there was chat group with kids from Lakewood claimed he did get into H. Whom should we believe?

BTW, Nathan had online courses from Connections Academy, like Vincent and Alexandria did. And missing school has nothing to do with GPA.

BTW Alexandria is going to Columbia this fall.

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

TripleAxelQueens3 said:

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)

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Nathan has been homeschooled for years.

Christina Gao graduated from Harvard and is working at Credit Suisse as investment banking analyst. I believe I saw pictures of her in the annual figure skating in Harlem event this year with Sarah and Emily Hughes, Paul Wylie, Nathan, Karen and Michelle.

Rachael Flatt graduated from Stanford, and is moving to UNC to pursue PhD in clinical psychology.

According to a 2014 USFS blurb about Jason Brown:

Member of the 2012 U.S. Figure Skating Scholastic Honors Team, the Highland Park Honor Society and the National Spanish Honor Society. Received the Athlete Alumni Ambassadors Award, the Ralph Potter Memorial award for Exceptional Ability and Achievement and the President's Education Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence.

TripleAxelQueens3 said:

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)

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Unless that person is on the Harvard admissions committee why would they know anything about Nathan's GPA? Also if they are on the Harvard admissions committee why would they be discussing the GPA of a student they rejected?