Memphis Student Gets Into Every Ivy League School, Elects To Go To Everyone’s Safety School Instead
10 years ago

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A Memphis area high school student is making national headlines this week after he accepted admission to the University of Alabama even though he was accepted to every Ivy League institution.

Ronald Nelson was accepted to all eight Ivy League schools, along with schools like Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Vanderbilt and others. But Nelson, who was offered a full ride and acceptance into Bama’s top honors college, chose the debt-free college path instead of the prestigious one. It’s clearly a fiscally responsible decision, but a head-turner, nonetheless.

Nelson explained his college choice to NBC’s Today Show, via AOL:

“I just thought it was something that I didn’t want to pass up because I was looking toward my long term education, not so much my short term goals really.”

Nelson says, while the Ivy League experience would have been amazing, he is more than confident he’ll receive an excellent education at Alabama.

“They’re going to give me invaluable experience working with the assistant dean and the dean of the honors college there, working with so many like-minded and progressive students there and I’m just incredibly excited to work with those students that both share my academic interests and don’t share my academic interests.”

I’ve always believed that spending anything over $500 for a semester of college is a rip-off, with the one exception being Ivy League schools — because of their ability to connect and facilitate networking with some of the top employers in the country.

Nelson is absolutely making the correct college football choice, though I’m not sure it factored into his decision much.

You can view the entirety of his interview here.

This could be Alabama’s biggest recruiting coup of all time, and Nick Saban is its football coach.

[via NBC]

  3. Texas Tux and Oil

    If college taught me one thing it’s that the diploma doesn’t mean dick in your job interviews, it’s all about your experience and knowing people that can put you in front of the right people.

    10 years ago at 2:53 pm
    1. BlackoutBrother

      I agree with you in some aspects. Knowing people and having connections can get you far. But having a degree from certain schools can be a huge factor in simply getting you an interview, if not a job. And there are several companies out there that hire from specific institutions, which is why some Ivy League schools are known as feeder schools to bigger (name-wise) firms

      10 years ago at 3:01 pm
      1. Texas Tux and Oil

        I truly believe experience is the fastest way to success, however I hear that sororities are rough at trade schools and welding colleges.

        10 years ago at 3:12 pm
      2. BlackoutBrother

        I definitely agree with that – hard work, experience and grit lead to success in virtually any field, but I was accepted for a position partially based on my school. I was a great applicant but having the brand name of going to a certain school adds weight. And companies love bragging that x% of their employees went to Harvard, Yale, etc.

        10 years ago at 3:17 pm
      3. TheFratCock

        ^ This
        the exception to the rule of “it doesn’t matter where you go” is the ivies. with a degree from Harvard, Yale, etc. everything career wise opens up. while the education you receive may not be any better, or in some cases actually worse, at an ivy versus another school, the reputation associated with it inspires confidence and makes people believe you know what you’re talking about.

        10 years ago at 3:15 pm
      4. Anal_yst

        This is 100% on point. I didn’t study anything related to finance in undergrad, but I got a banking job pretty much only because of my school/fraternity. You can find an amazing education at just about any school, flagship level or better. The difference between that and the ivies is pretty much reputation and confidence that you’re not a dud.

        10 years ago at 1:57 pm
  5. ThursdayNightClub

    What’s the over / under on his GPA at Alabama? I’m going to set the bar at a 3.97. He will probably ‘only’ get an A- in a really important class like Glassblowing 101 …

    10 years ago at 3:14 pm
    1. The_dudee

      It was Johnny Hopkins and Sloan Kettering, and they were blazing that shit up every day.

      10 years ago at 5:00 pm
  8. Fratasaurus

    I’m sure he’s smart and all, but damn do I hate affirmative action.

    Just recently this article came out
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-american-organizations-seek-federal-probe-of-harvard-admission-policies-1431719348

    “cites third-party academic research on the SAT exam showing that Asian-Americans have to score on average about 140 points higher than white students, 270 points higher than Hispanic students and 450 points higher than African-American students to equal their chances of gaining admission to Harvard.”

    10 years ago at 3:33 pm
    1. WaspyNortheast

      I’ve been saying this for a while–whites have no reason to complain about affirmative action. Jews and Asians have the highest test scores (and IQs), and are really the ones damaged (if at all) by Affirmative Action. Asians and Jews being smarter than whites is pretty FaF given their history in America. You won’t find asian teens watching the Kardashians or MMA–it’s like they’re immune the the general cultural decline in America.

      10 years ago at 4:10 pm
      2. AEW_360

        What’s wrong with MMA? It’s a pretty popular sport among Asians and Europeans. I think you meant WWE

        10 years ago at 5:13 pm
    2. randomblackchick

      Your post is so stupid and false. I’m of African American heritage, and I attended to a top 5 university. Not only did I do extremely well on my SATs ( which I took before I was even a sophomore in HS), I was at the top of my class, despite being one of two African American students. Guess what? Affirmative action didn’t cause me to graduate with a 3.8 biology and chemistry double major (a higher grade point average than the vast majority of my white peers). Affirmative action didn’t give me the academic and extracurricular crednetials I needed to be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, one of the most prestigious scholastic honors available to undergraduates. If I didn’t have a God-given Mensa-level IQ and a hard work ethic, I would not have graduated, I wouldn’t have been inducted to Phi Beta Kappa, and I wouldn’t have the level of success I’ve had. So even if Affirmative Action had gotten me into the school, it couldn’t have gotten me OUT and ensured I was able to excel among my peers at the highest level of collegiate scholarship and beyond. If you take into account the psychological, environmental, and socio-economic determinants that have hindered black progress in this country (and that incompetent people like you erroneously correlate with biological/genetic determinants that have already been disproven – irrefutably and repeatedly), you could argue that those of us who DO rise to the top in spite of all of these factors working against us are SMARTER than our white peers who have experienced fewer obstacles. In other words… Your hilariously misguided conjecture and the racist, agenda-filled, heavily biased and subjective pseudo-stats you posted are rendered completely invalid by people like myself and my family. If you really wanted to know the truth, you would know that there are plenty of mensa-level blacks out there, we aren’t as hard to find as you would like to think.

      Oh, by the way – it’s not the black kids smarter than you taking your spot – it’s the affluent white legacy kid with mediocre stats who took your spot as soon as his Dad pledged a timely 500k donation. Stop blaming us, and stop being so ignorant and delusional. Your post makes it pretty evident why you have most likely never even been with 100 miles of an Ivy League institution. You guys are always acting like blacks are constantly playing the victim, but posts like yours are disturbingly common and it’s pathetic. Who’s playing the race card now, Sir?

      10 years ago at 12:22 am
      1. randomblackchick

        P.S. I meant to say “attended a”, not “attended to a”. My post said “went to” at first, but I changed it to “attended” because my intent was to keep it as concise as possible. Anyway, I wanted that one of the biggest problems woth statistics ( other than the fact that the vast majority of statisic data is flawed and can be easily manipulated), is that even when it accurately conveys “who” and “what”, it doesn’t convey “WHY”. This leads individuals like the goober above to fill in the blanks with his own biases and presuppositions, instead of reality. Statistics can capture quantitative data, but it fails to capture qualitative data in a meaningful and reflective way, which is equally, if not more important.

        10 years ago at 1:20 am
      5. fratonin_scalia

        Are you the chick that had a major hard on for white guys? The one who posted like a billion pictures of white male & black female pictures on the forum? Didn’t you also have a thread about wanting to be dominated in bed?

        10 years ago at 4:40 pm
      6. randomblackchick

        No, I’m not going to “chill”. I’m tired of people like this guy trying to make themselves feel better by dismissing my natural intelligence and hard work, just because I got into a top school and he didn’t. Like I said, “affirmative action isn’t the reason for my gpa or other honors that have resulted as a
        by-product.
        [IMG]http://i61.tinypic.com/6itzyg.jpg[/IMG]

        I’m smarter than you. Get over it.

        10 years ago at 11:40 am
      8. randomblackchick

        I uploaded a pic of the Phi Beta Kappa certificate, holding a handwritten sign with my username and the date, but now it won’t show up. Thanks a lot, intern!

        10 years ago at 11:45 am
  10. RedPill

    This is actually a conservative victory when viewed through the lens of 50 years ago.

    10 years ago at 3:36 pm