joe nau wrote:
NAU will always be good. It is cheap. They put their scholarships into distance. It is at elevation. Good coach. And the school sucks so really dumb runners get admitted.
According to Keira Moore herself, other top 5 programs pursued her also: she mentioned Florida (5th) and OkSt (3rd). She choose NAU over those two.
Boulder Watch wrote:
Something's going on in Boulder. Kids signing elsewhere despite a CU offer, high profile outbound transfers, and de-commits.
I lived in Boulder from late 2018 yo early 2021. Though cool at first I dont miss that place at all. Boulder is a crazy place to live these days. The wiki says 108k people but it has a high population density, bloodsport commuter traffic and a lot of houseless/homeless competing for resources.
Hardly any elbow room in Boulder. Not to mention hard to get out and actually run because of the frequency of endurance types taking over area trailheads by 7:30am.
I will tell you what pushed me out for good: the March 2021 King Sooper's shooting.
This was absolutely nuts! I cannot be the only one who still has that fresh in my memory. I am scarred for life. This is a mere one mile away from the CU campus. I personally used to work right by it and go there daily. It made me acknowledge this place had every bit of the aforementioned Portland problems.
This is not the classic, pre-2012 Boulder any longer.
CU is your example of a better, more rigorous college experienced? They have an acceptance rate between 80% and 94% (early), and their coach was just investigated for fostering an unhealthy culture on the team. No thanks.
That is the reason that people are pointing out how bad the school is academically. 17 year old kids don't realize it. They think with their heart, rather than their brains. She could have gone to a good school.
It is the example only due to the fact that the two girls being discussed could have gone there.
Actually a great example. She has that Cain vibe. She will have a Stanford education for free rather than a worthless NAU education.
Scholar Expert wrote:
True. But you are making the opposite point because going to NAU as opposed to UCLA will greatly decrease your chances of being admitted.
Largely you are right about this. If you choose to go to the lesser school and have ambitions of a prestigious grad school, you have to have at least a 3.75 gpa and strong test scores to get into grad school.
At the top schools, especially when you explain you were in a year round varsity sport, there is a surprising amount of wiggle room on gpa. Even with a horrid 2.8 gpa and strong test scores, you can still get into a top 6-10 law or business program.
The only real negatives of the athlete choosing the top schools are stress and time/priorities.
Stress can be high if the athlete takes a major that forces them to compete with all 1600 Sat kids, when they are a 1200 Sat athlete. Even soft majors at Stanford, Notre Dame and Duke can be soul crushing.
It's also about time management and priorities. If you really want to max out your athletic potential, choosing the easier school with the great coach and altitude can allow you to comfortably get your sleep at night. You can always chase top academics later.
I have huge respect for runners like Fisher, Cranny and Blanks, who manage to excel academically and athletically at demanding schools. I also have respect for runners like Ben Saarel and Sage Hurta, who were academic studs that carefully picked CU over the Ivies. Ben ended up in the Physics PhD program at Berkeley (walking daily past the Oppenheimer plaque). Hurta double majored in Chem Eng and Applied Math, won every possible academic athlete award, and plans on med school after her pro career.
There are lots of good options, you just have to carefully think through the pros and cons.
I put no stock in "prestigious" schools. I think over the past few years it's been proven that as long as you have the money, any idiot can get admittance to any of these institutions.
Attending these schools is no different than buying a name brand item, like Porche, or Gucci. When I find out someone attended one of these schools my first assumption is that their parents are rich, not that the individual is actually smart.
The average ACT of students at NAU is 22. The average ACT of students at Stanford is 34. There are a handful of students at NAU who could get admitted to Stanford. It is has nothing to do with wealth. It has everything to do with brains.
You also do know that the ACT isn’t taken regularly anymore and that the test standards are being dropped from many schools applications. The class of 2020 for example who are now all seniors didn’t all take the SAT or ACT in many cases so the data is skewed. It’s also been proven not be be indicative of success. Testing well is not always the true litmus of how you will do in college or life.
Stanford gets enormously talented applicants in comparison to NAU, no doubt whatsoever. But if you think wealth has nothing to do with the difference, you are fooling yourself.
In college admissions in general:
"They found that among students with the same test scores, applicants with families in the top 1 percent of earners were 34 percent more likely to be accepted. Those from the top point 0.1 percent were twice as likely to be accepted. And schools gave preference to legacies and student athletes, among others." Jul 24, 2023
from a pbs story. And when you get into specifics at the top schools the #'s show far starker differences. From the same study (also reported on by Slate), 1 in 6 Ivy League families have parents in the top 1% income. Harvard has almost as many students in the top 0.1 percent of income as in the entire bottom 20%.
72% of the current class at Stanford submitted test scores. It is hilarious to claim that test scores don't indicate success. Funny that the highly selective schools choose students with high test scores. May as well choose the lowest test scores. Do you want your surgeon to have had a 16 on his ACT or a 36? How about the engineer who designed the landing gear on your the jet that you are flying on? Do you really believe that if you look at lifetime salaries of people that you won't see a direct correlation to test scores? You claim no correlation as in scores of 15 earn on average the same as scores of 25 or 35?
Yes, I am aware of that flawed language. It is true that wealthier kids get in becuase of legacy or from being athletes. But the claim that regular aplicants being wealthy impacts acceptance is false becuase income information is not submitted until after acceptance. There is no data because applicants didn't submit it. More wealthy kids accept becuase they can afford it but many middle class kids may not accept becuase they decide to accept the large academic scholarships offerd by other schools.
100%
Scholar Expert wrote:
People get testy every time that the topic of academics comes up. Somebody posted the data to show how much less kids earn who graduate from NAU as compared to CU. The data is there to show how much more people earn over a lifetime from better schools. Of course the college matters. NAU is the right fit for many kids. But a kid with a 4.0 and 34 on his ACT is making a terrible decision to go there. Kids with a 19 on their ACT it make sense.
NAU graduates making less than CU graduates doesn't indicate a poorer education. As you noted, incoming NAU students start with lower HS GPAs and ACT / SAT scores than more "prestigious" schools, as well as a large number of first generation, Hispanic, and native students. All of these different factors predict lower medium incomes after college regardless of the University they attend.
I agree that if running isn't your future career, and you have a full-tuition scholarship at Stanford vs NAU, Stanford is likely the better option, but that doesn't exclude a high-quality education at NAU.
It’s a matter of focus. Does Stanford have the forestry program that NAU does? Neither does NAU have the computer science program that Stanford has. NAU has excellent academics just a different focus.
Arent we missing the entire point?! These are elite runners and they choose running first and hence choose NAU. NAU has a better running program than Stanford, let’s ask Amy Bunnage and zofia dudek,
Harrier46 wrote:
Elise Stearns HS 800 2:20.13, 1600 5:06.74, Mile 5:14.75, 3200 12:06.98
Maybe an example of why they are going to NAU
Not to deride the coaching atNAU at all as I am a fan of them, but her marks in HS were likely run at about mild of altitude 2500-4000'. And BTW, her brother has run 9:19.xx for a D3 school.
No. NAU does not have excellent academics.
Bunnage and Dudek made the smart decision. They aren't going to be pro athletes but they will have a Stanford degree for free.
There are thousands of elite track and field athletes coming out of high school. Do you recommend that they prioritize athletics or academics?
