Dubai wrote:
UO academics are not bad. And considering Hasay is more than likely going to become a professional runner, the school she graduates from isn't going to make a difference (from an academic standpoint) Everyone knows the primary reason elite schools are best are the contacts, not the teaching.
Hasay will never make as much running as she seems capable to earn professionally and she will likely more many more years professionally than she will run competitively. Note that she has indicated that a major possibility is MD (/PhD Medicine/medicine related). It is not clear that there are more than a few track and field athletes that could reliably earn more than she could well earn professionally and those are in the Bolt category, and no American distance runner is remotely close.
She likes and is enthusiastic about running but her prestige will be greater in her professional area, in part because it will last for as many decades as her running career could last in years. In addition, a running career can easily be ruined by injury, AND she knows all to well that some top HS girl runners never get any better but that almost all doctors get better for several decades.
U of O is, in many ways, not in the same league as Stanford; Washington is a vastly better school than Oregon in the field that she has professed interest in, but that is mainly at the next level, not at the undergrad level (Washington usually has the highest funding level of any med research school, U of O does not even have the highest funding level in the state, that honor goes to OSU, despite the advantage to O conferred by having the affiliation with the Med School).
Disclaimer/source of knowledge: my wife is a Stanford alum (and could not care less about athletics).