<p>Bottom line: it helps. A lot.</p>
<p>if they can continue their sports in college and have decent grades, then they deserve to get in. they dedicated tens of thousands of hours to their sports and would hugely contribute to their schools.</p>
<p>Its like winning the World Championship title, but Olympics just comes once every four years so its that much better. Of course its a huge plus. It means you are the best in the sport, best of the best.</p>
<p>Not sure, but I know Tony Azevedo got a full scholarship to Stanford for Water Polo. He was considered to be the best high school player in the past 50 years, and he made the national team when he was 17 and competed in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. He ended up being Stanford’s best player and top scorer for 4 years. So being an Olympic athlete, at the very least, helps somewhat.</p>
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<p>She went to Stanford, transferred to Texas, then transferred again to USC where she graduated. </p>
<p>[Sports:</a> Evans’ success stood test of time | evans, world, olympic, years, games - OCRegister.com](<a href=“http://www.ocregister.com/articles/evans-world-olympic-2059134-years-games]Sports:”>http://www.ocregister.com/articles/evans-world-olympic-2059134-years-games)</p>
<p>“So being an Olympic athlete, at the very least, helps somewhat.”</p>
<p>I completely agree. Being in the Olympics alone is a HUGE accomplishment; you are with the best of the best…without a doubt. Even if you didn’t win a medal, I think being in the Olympics would give you a big boost. (Afterall, it’s a quirky, rare, and exciting EC that only comes around once every four years…isn’t that what many CCers look for when evaluating these “Chance Me” threads?)</p>
<p>Right. Of course it’s a “quirky, rare and exciting EC.”<br>
Going back to my original premise, however – I wouldn’t necessarily assume that the % of Olympian athletes who are INTERESTED in going to tippy-top elite schools (where this type of EC would undoubtedly have a wow factor) is any different from the general population. Many of them may want to just go onto a state flagship or similar school, or may choose a college based on training (e.g., the SMU example above). IOW, while it may be a really neat hook, I don’t believe that everyone who has that hook necessarily wants or needs to put it to use in elite-college-admissions. Make sense?</p>
<p>On the figure skating front, a disproportionate number of elite (international level, not necessarily Olympic medal-winning) athletes have enrolled in Ivy League or other highly selective schools. Off the top of my head: Paul Wylie (Harvard College, deferred admission to Harvard Law, ultimately enrolled in Harvard Business School), Debi Thomas (Stanford), John Misha Petkovich (Harvard), Sarah Hughes (Yale), Emily Hughes (Harvard College), Stephanie Rosenthal (Yale; also admitted to Stanford), Katrina Hacker (Princeton -deferred), Loren Galler-Rabinowitz (Harvard College). Harvard is an easy decision for the athlete, because the Skating Club of Boston is an excellent training site with elite coaches. Dick Button (Harvard College & Law School) and Tenley Albright (Radcliffe) are some of the earliest that I remember.</p>
<p>Even though you may not have heard of some of these athletes, there’s got to be a lot of attraction towards athletes like these that manage to get strong grades while at the same time missing a lot of school to attend 6-8 weeks of national or international competitions each school year. They tend to be articulate, and the international experience has got to help. Many are multi-lingual, since the coaching relationships often cross language borders.</p>
<p>It makes sense to me that colleges would want them – but I’d also agree with Pizzagirl that there are still a lot of athletes who are completely uninterested in elite schools, or who don’t want to disturb an existing coaching arrangement, or who don’t particularly care about education at all.</p>
<p>I recall Brooke Shields, Princeton class of '87, had low SAT scores but was admitted Freshman year.</p>
<p>Not an athlete but sorta similar scenario.</p>
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<p>I don’t buy this. Michigan is happy to boast about Michael Phelps even though he’d won a bunch of medals in Athens in 2004 and a few in Sydney in 2000 before enrolling at Michigan in 2004. He came to Ann Arbor because his longtime coach Bob Bowman took the job as men’s head swim coach at Michigan. Because Phelps had already turned pro, he was ineligible to swim for Michigan, but he trained at a local non-profit, Club Wolverine, continuing with Bowman as his coach. Meanwhile Phelps worked as an unpaid volunteer assistant coach with the Michigan swim team. Can you imagine the prestige that brings to Michigan’s swim team, and indirectly to its entire athletic department? Bowman, meanwhile, is quoted as saying he came to Ann Arbor because it has the finest training facilities in the world. They take intercollegiate athletics very, very seriously at Michigan. There are plenty of ways an athlete of Michael Phelps’ caliber can add luster to the program, even after his Olympic days are done.</p>
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<p>Interesting … What other actors / actresses (who had already made names for themselves as child or teen actors) went to prestigious schools?
Off the top of my head, I can think of Jodie Foster at Yale (I knew someone who roomed with her and had to testify during the Hinckley trials), and I think the kid from the Wonder Years went to Stanford.</p>
<p>bclintonk, is Michael Phelps admitted as a student to Michigan, or he is a coach for the swim team? (Just asking since I really don’t know) I agree that certainly he’d bring prestige to the swim program. I wasn’t aware he was an admitted student, but I could be wrong.</p>
<p>Huh, this was a one-click from Harvard’s home page:</p>
<p>[A</a> Schedule of Events for Harvard Athletes at the Olympics - GoCrimson.com - Official Web Site of Harvard University Athletics](<a href=“http://www.gocrimson.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=9000&ATCLID=1551149]A”>http://www.gocrimson.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=9000&ATCLID=1551149)</p>
<p>^^ My understanding is that Michael Phelps is both a (probably part-time) student at Michigan and an unpaid volunteer assistant swim coach for the men’s varsity swim team, working under his longtime coach and mentor Bob Bowman. The way it’s always been reported is that Phelps “takes classes at the University of Michigan” in “sports marketing and management.” I’ve always understood this to mean he’s not enrolled as a full-time student, and it’s hard to imagine how he could be given his training regimen, which he describes as “eat, sleep, swim.” But whether he went through the normal admissions process, I don’t know.</p>
<p>Latest news,. though, is that Bowman and Phelps are apparently leaving Michigan and heading back to Baltimore, Phelps’ hometown. Big loss for Michigan, though I’m sure the four-year association will continue to pay dividends.</p>
<p>^^Yea…I heard the same thing.</p>
<p>As a side note: I seriously thought Shawn Johnson had the gold for the women’s floor…I mean, after going first and then seeing eveyone else consistantly score lower than her, I could have sworn the gold would have been hers. Good job to her anyway!</p>
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<p>Yeah, but that is as a matter of controversy even to this day.</p>
<p>*Ms. Shields’ admission to Princeton University was not one of Princeton University’s most shining moments. In the old days, the Ivy League schools were known for elitist admission policies, accepting children of the wealthy and powerful even when those children’s academic records were mediocre. Many in the academic world believe that money and fame were the motivation for Ms. Shields’ acceptance at Princeton, harkening back to the old elitist day *</p>
<p>[Blog</a> for Highland Park: Smart Talk, Dumb Move](<a href=“http://blogforhighlandpark.blogspot.com/2005/12/smart-talk-dumb-move.html]Blog”>Blog for Highland Park: Smart Talk, Dumb Move)</p>
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<p>Natalie Portman went to Harvard after already appearing in numerous movies including Star Wars Phantom Menace. She even co-authored 2 scientific papers. </p>
<p>The Olsen twins went to NYU. </p>
<p>Jaleel White (Urkel) went to UCLA.</p>
<p>Speaking of the Wonder Years, Danica McKellar (Winnie) went to UCLA where she graduated summa and co-authored a mathematical physics paper. Josh Saviano (Kevin’s nerdy friend Paul) went to Yale. </p>
<p>Ben Savage (Fred’s brother and star of Boy Meets World) also went to Stanford. </p>
<p>Tatyana Ali of Fresh Prince went to Harvard. </p>
<p>Claire Danes and Kellie Martin went to Yale. </p>
<p>Haley Joel Osment (“I see dead people”) goes to NYU.</p>
<p>Anna Paquin briefly went to Columbia.</p>
<p>So I guess Brooke Shields wasn’t recruited to bolster the Putnam team…</p>
<p>sakky, I thought Natalie Portman went to Princeton. At least that’s what many Princeton students were talking about (anticipating) a couple of years ago.</p>
<p>Natalie Portman is Harvard class of '03</p>